The world has been protesting for justice for black lives following the recent deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and AhmaudArbery, who join a long list of Black men and women murdered due to police brutality and racial violence.
Taylor, was a working EMT, pursuing her career of being a nurse before she was shot and killed, eight times by police officers in her own home on March 13, in Louisville, Kentucky.
On Friday, June 5, what would have been Taylor’s 27th birthday, her mom, Tamika Palmer, appeared on #GoodMorningAmerica to pay tribute to her daughter.
“Breonna was just full of life; she loved life. She’d light up a room,” Palmer recalled of her daughter.
While people are sharing Taylor’s story now, there was two months of silence.
“In that brief moment, where people forgot about her for two months at a time, people need to know that Breonna Taylor mattered and that Breonna Taylor was great,” Palmer stated.
There have been no arrests made against Louisville’s local authorities; however, people throughout the country are hoping to change that by way of protesting, and the #SayHerName movement.
Kimberle Crenshaw, founder of the movement and executive director of the African American Policy Forum, called into GMA as well to explain the importance of saying the names of women killed at the hands of unjust policing.
“The erasure of black women is a consequence of that fact that we don’t know their names, and therefore, we don’t know their stories,” Crenshaw said. “Say Her Name attempts to make the death of black women an active part of this conversation by saying her names,” Crenshaw explained. “If black lives really do matter, all black lives have to matter. That means black lives across gender have to be lifted up.”
While an investigation for Taylor’s case began on May 21, as of June 5, there have still been no charges brought against the officers that murdered her and the person the cops were actually looking for on March 13, was already in custody at the time Taylor was killed.