Tag: African American
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Sandra Bland In A Sea of Red: Remembering The Names We Forget
“Hey, I am from Houston,” I said recognizing the gentle face of the woman walking next to me among the families of those lost to police brutality walking together to the 20th Anniversary of the Million Man March. Behind us in a sea of red shirts was Trayvon Martin’s mother, ahead of us Michael Brown’s…
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Sandra Bland & The Heart of An Aunt
“It’s okay, she understands,” my sister said on the end of the line. “It will really be okay if she doesn’t get to see you. She understands that you have priorities. Pain cut a line down from the area right behind my chin to a spot in the middle of my chest, and my breath…
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Why Where Sandra Bland Died is as Important as How
For over 50 days, I have been receiving messages on social media telling me what a fool I am for standing in solidarity with the bold and vivacious activist, Sandra Bland. While the messages vary in their intensity, most of them have two things in common: 1) they know nothing about Sandra Bland and are…
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50 Days Later: Still Grieving, Called, Woke
On the 49th day of being in prayerful solidarity with Sandra Bland, I sat in the corner of a coffee shop at the close of one more day in front of the Waller County Jail. I fielded phone calls and messages about an angry video released by a white supremacist. Concern for our safety was not a…
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An Open Letter to My Unapologetic Black Sisters
“What did Sandra Bland do wrong?” the reporter from Memphis asked as we arrived at the Waller County jail on Day 11 of what is now 21 days. “She was black,” my friend Andrea Sawyer-Gray, Curator of (Her)story, replied without skipping a beat. In the undertone were the echoes of another truth: she was black…
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A Time to Listen, A Time to Speak
“I cannot wait until I am in a different appointment, so that I can preach the way that you do.” I cocked my head to the side, a little puzzled. I had just finished a sermon on racism, privilege, solidarity and what it means to be the family of God as the guest preacher at…
Hannah Adair Bonner 