USA TODAY International Edition
A life that mattered
In death, she became a martyr in the fight for justice. In life, she was simply Breonna: a sister and a friend.
“I believe that the discussions that have been had thus far have, in many ways, rendered her subhuman or superhuman. And when we do that, we run the risk of ignoring the fact that she was human.” Dr. Alisha Moreland- Capuia McLean Hospital at Harvard Medical School
Two months before Louisville police shot her dead, Breonna Taylor tweeted: “You don’t just bump into women like me everyday, be careful with me.” Her killing drove people to the streets, shouting her name in frustration at all the ways law enforcement was not careful with this young aspiring nurse, and so many other Black women like her. What made this tragedy resonate so deeply across America? What made her, more than most of the women who died before her at the hands of police, a household name?
She didn’t have a fancy job, and she wasn’t a highprofile figure. But something about her death moved people to the streets.
Something about that viral photo of her posing on her graduation day with yellow roses in hand, a big easy smile on her face and red twists in her hair, brought about tears and cries of sorrow from millions of people across the country.
As America battled with the COVID- 19 pandemic and health care workers were lauded as heroes, one of their own – a 26- year- old emergency room technician – was shot while many of them slept.
As mothers and fathers mourned the loss of children, parents and relatives to this new illness, Tamika Palmer grieved the death of her eldest daughter to the plague of violence against Black people, one that continues to sweep the country year after year. Ju’Niyah Palmer coped with being thrust into a position of intense scrutiny as people from all sides tried to make sense of a tragic event that left her older sister dead.
On Jan. 15, 2020, Breonna Taylor tweeted: “You don’t just bump into women like me everyday, be careful with me.”
Almost exactly two months later, the universe was not careful with the young health care worker as she died by police gunfire in her Louisville home.
Last summer, amid protests, people shouted her name with reverence, anger and frustration at all the ways law enforcement were not careful with her. Her tragic story highlights how women like her – distinct in so many ways and so similar in others – have become victims because the world was not as careful with them.
Now, nearly a year since her death, Breonna Taylor remains an enigma.
But what made this seemingly ordinary young woman, who aspired to become a nurse, buy a house and be a good example for her little sister, resonate with women in cities across America? What made her, more than the women who died before her, become a household name?
Why Breonna Taylor?
‘ Oh my god, we look the same’
Black women across the country sat in their bedrooms, their dorm rooms, and their boardrooms when the news of Breonna Taylor’s death spread across the country.
With it came this harrowing truth: As unique as she was, Breonna Taylor could have been them. She could have been their younger sisters, their aunties, their ride- or- die girlfriends.
“When I looked at her picture, I was like, ‘ She looks like me.’ That’s the first thing I thought,” Krystle Ellis said. “I was like ‘ Oh my God, we look the same.’”
Ellis, the senior director of development and communications at Ronald McDonald House Charities of Rochester, New York, was in her office last year when Breonna Taylor’s name first came up. She was looking through news at her desk when the story surfaced and she was instantly overwhelmed with the news.
Ash- Lee Henderson immediately saw someone’s sister, daughter or friend. The co- executive director of the Highlander Research and Education Center in Tennessee has older and younger sisters who she saw in Breonna Taylor. They had that same chocolate skin. The same rounded nose. The same full lips.
And when Breonna Taylor’s story came out – from early reports of her being a suspect in a crime to the actual story of her being a victim, asleep in her bed moments before she was shot – both Ellis and Henderson were exhausted. Exhausted at the idea of another injustice that was sad but not surprising.
“I’m always in a state of horror for Black women,” Ellis said, “because there’s no getting away from this narrative that we’re strong enough to be killed.”
What made Breonna Taylor’s case powerful and action- provoking for so many like Ellis was the normal nature of the young woman they saw smiling in photos.
“She isn’t anyone who’s trying to cheat anyone out of anything. She isn’t. I mean she’s literally a beautiful soul who was living a normal everyday life and here she is,” Ellis said. “So how is any other Black woman protected?”
All too often, when the spotlight turns onto Black women after they’ve been killed, a strange shift in narrative occurs.
“I believe that the discussions that have been had thus far have, in many ways, rendered her subhuman or superhuman,” said Dr. Alisha Moreland- Capuia, an addiction psychiatrist at the McLean Hospital at Harvard Medical School. “And when we do that, we run the risk of ignoring the fact that she was human.”
For a long time, before she was a victim, police touted the narrative that Breonna Taylor may have been a suspect in a crime.
And then, as the true nature of events came to light, she became a martyr, a symbol of a movement greater than her. She went from an ordinary girl from Grand Rapids, Michigan, to a battle cry among social justice activists.
Last Christmas she tweeted, “I Hope next Christmas I have a kid so I can be super excited about today like y’all.”
“She had a whole plan on becoming a nurse and buying a house and then starting a family,” her mom, Tamika Palmer, said in an interview with USA TODAY. “Breonna had her head on straight, and she was a very decent person.”
Reading through her tweets and the thousands of replies, there is a common theme. People saying they love her. People across the country weeping for her, and people making promises that they will get justice for her.
“This tore my heart out, I promise we’re fighting for you.”
“this makes my heart hurt so much.”
“My heart is broken.”
“we love you so much babygirl. we’ll get justice i promise.”
Beyoncé Knowles- Carter wrote a letter to Kentucky’s attorney general demanding justice for her. Jada Pinkett- Smith called Breonna Taylor her sister at rallies. Even celebrities identified with this closeness so many women described.
At the end of the day, though, they didn’t know her. She’s not Breonna or Bre to them. She will always be Breonna Taylor, a heartbreaking chant that has been added to the album of Black people dead at the hands of police. The honor of first names and pet names is reserved for only Tamika, Ju’Niyah and the intimate circle Breonna Taylor left behind.
But for many, particularly Black women, her life looked exactly like theirs and of their loved ones.
Ellis said she could see herself walking through Breonna Taylor’s day. She and others grieved for the life the Louisville resident lost. It made them sad to think about all the things she would never be able to do.
So they took to the streets for Breonna Taylor, but also for their nieces. For their goddaughters. For their annoying older sisters and their bratty little ones. They marched for themselves, because they knew that if a young girl who was just trying to live an ordinary life could be killed in her bed, in her home, they could be next.
They marched because if it was them, they’d want someone to fight like hell to make sure their names were never forgotten.
‘ Who gets to be safe in this world?’
When Imani Smith thinks about Tamika and Ju’Niyah Palmer, she worries for them.
The 19- year- old sophomore at Centre College in Danbury, Kentucky, hopes that when the larger media attention moves away from Breonna Taylor’s death, that the two women come back to a space of love and safety within their Louisville community.
“Will they be able to come back to a sounding board, to a community, that not just protects them but listens to them, that is there for them, that supports them?” asked Smith, president of the board of directors of The Youth Resistance Collective, a youth activism organization created in Danville after 2020’ s racial justice protests.
This idea of safety for Black women like Breonna Taylor and her family also pushed many to the streets. Safety to be themselves and live their lives without fear of being killed, safety that if something like Breonna Taylor’s killing occurs, that they would be shown the same attention and grace as anyone else.
“From sort of a pure neuroscientific perspective, all human beings, whether we are conscious of it or not, are concerned with three things,” said Moreland- Capuia, who specializes in trauma. “It is being safe, feeling safe or seeking safety.”
On Feb. 19, 2020, Breonna Taylor tweeted: “I wonder what my life would be like if I never moved here from Michigan? Like what tf would I be doing right now? Where would I work? Would I have kids? Etc.”
If she hadn’t left Michigan, would she have remained safe? Would her goals and dreams have been accomplished? Would her life still have been cut short?
The fight for Breonna Taylor isn’t just about getting safety for Black women – it’s about changing who is allowed to feel safe and be safe in everyday America.
“We’re not seen as lovable, as tender and worthy of protection. And that is unfair,” Ellis said.
Smith, the college sophomore, doesn’t like to admit it, but sometimes it feels as if when Black women are killed, it doesn’t matter as much as when Black men or other people are killed.
“Some system or institution,” Moreland- Capuia said, “decided that safety is meant for a certain particular cohort of the population and not others, and racial and ethnic minorities in this country live a life that is constantly, constantly filled with seeking safety. No one feels safe.”
Even after the deaths, it is other Black women who hold the memory of their fallen sisters up the most. Tamika Palmer was the first to scream out her daughter’s name on March 13 – when Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenny Walker, called frantically in the middle of the night saying he thought someone had shot her.
And Palmer kept shouting even when it felt as if no one was listening.
“Like she didn’t matter, you know?” Palmer said. “And to us, she was everything. This horrible thing happened to her, and … to feel like nobody cared, not even the people who did this to her. As if it was just another day.”
Black women walked – and still walk – in her name to create that safety that doesn’t yet exist for everyone in America. It’s their way of saying that although the world couldn’t keep her safe, they will keep her memory safe and work to achieve safety for others like her.
“Is there no place that you can be safe? Is there no profession that would allow that level of safety?” Moreland- Capuia asked. “Who gets to be safe in this world?”
When a Black woman is killed, it’s not Black men or the white community or other minorities that speak out in rage. But when it is another group facing injustice, Black women have been on the forefront of that march. Whether it was slavery, the civil rights movement or the modern race for racial equality, they were there like they have been for Breonna Taylor.
“You do what you have to do, so that you can eventually do what you want to do,” Moreland- Capuia said.
The ultimate goal?
On Jan. 17, 2020, Breonna Taylor tweeted: “Some things you may not know the reason behind it right away but it’ll eventually all start to make sense in the end …”
Many people don’t want to find a greater meaning behind her death, though.
They would much rather the young emergency room technician have that dream she tweeted out, one of career advancement, a house she could make into a home and a growing family of her own, come true.
Ash- Lee Henderson has now shared spaces with Breonna Taylor’s family members. She wishes that she met them in a different way. Maybe at church. Or maybe dancing and dripping with sweat at a club. Because the cost to connect with them was too high.
So she, Smith, Moreland- Capuia, Ellis and millions of others keep fighting for Breonna Taylor, the women who came before her, and the millions of Black women fearful that they could be next.
“The goal isn’t to just build strong movements for the sake of being able to be good at fighting against police violence and state sanctioned violence,” Henderson said. “The goal is to build the United States – to build a world – where we don’t have to do it anymore.”