Black Lives Matter

A photographic project honoring the black lives of all those that should never have died. Eric Garner had just broken up a fight, according to witness testimony. Ezell Ford was walking in his neighborhood. Michelle Cusseaux was changing the lock on her home's door when police arrived to take her to a mental health facility. Tanisha Anderson was having a bad mental health episode, and her brother called 911. Tamir Rice was playing in a park. Natasha McKenna was having a schizophrenic episode when she was tazed in Fairfax, Va. Walter Scott was going to an auto-parts store. Bettie Jones answered the door to let Chicago police officers in to help her upstairs neighbor, who had called 911 to resolve a domestic dispute. Philando Castile was driving home from dinner with his girlfriend. Botham Jean was eating ice cream in his living room in Dallas. Atatiana Jefferson was babysitting her nephew at home in Fort Worth, Texas. Eric Reason was pulling into a parking spot at a local chicken and fish shop. Dominique Clayton was sleeping in her bed. Breonna Taylor was also asleep in her bed. And George Floyd was at the grocery store. This partial list of names was taken from a Code Switch article: https://www.npr.org/2020/05/29/865261916/a-decade-of-watching-black-people-die. It represents only a small number of the actual deaths across the US at the hands of the police. As a society we must be better than this, we have had hundreds of years to learn from the awful mistakes and atrocities of the past and yet this is where we find ourselves.