About The Project
Credit: Xavier Mascarenas/The
Sacramento Bee
Who created the monument?
Who paid for it?
Why McClatchy park?
Who made this happen?
The Story of the Sign and I
This project was created by Me, Zach Trowbridge.
First I just want to say, the City of Sacramento did not commission this project. I have received zero dollars from the City and don't expect to receive any compensation for this project. I personally funded and crowd sourced from my friends and family all resources to pay for this project.
I'm a Sacramento resident and hobby woodworker. I am white, I'm a member of the LGBTQ+ community, I'm involved in a few community activist groups, and I'm just doing my best to try to have a positive impact on my Sacramento community. I moved to Sacramento in February of 2016 and lived in Midtown until early 2018. I started my activist work with a Placer county organization called Stand Up Placer where I am one of the very few male identifying advocates for survivors of Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault, and Human Trafficking. I am the only male Stand Up Placer volunteer who attends human trafficking stings or is qualified to respond to the emergency room as a Sexual Assault Response Team advocate. I'm also the only volunteer that is involved in child advocacy so if you live in Placer County, please reach out to Stand Up Placer and volunteer! They are amazing and need lots of community help!
In the Sacramento local community I was elected as the Vice President of Hagginwood Community Association where we advocate on behalf of local residents of the North and South Hagginwood area in District Two of Sacramento. We commonly help intervene in City challenges where residents are having a hard time getting what they need from the City. I'm also very involved in responding to natural disasters to assist animals affected by disasters, I've been privileged to assist in many of the disasters in Northern California in the past few years. I'm also a foster parent for the Sac SPCA and have fostered dozens of dogs in the past few years.
After the murder of George Floyd, the weekend of May 30th, I felt an overwhelming sense of need to do something tangible to contribute to the Black Lives Matter movement. Because my white privilege had put me in a position to create something out of wood, I decided to try to make something as a tangible, physical, contribution to this movement. It's true I wasn't extremely active in the Black Lives Matter movement before this point. The atrocity of this death is what pushed me to become more active in this movement. I was, in a sense, activated by this event. I spent several evenings and the weekend of the 30th cutting the letters out of beams of pine and assembling them with pocket holes and wood glue. I painted the letters black on Sunday the 31st, and wrote 347 names of unarmed Black people killed by police on them that day. I used my own money to create this original sign.
When I completed the sign the evening of May 31st 2020, being a perfectionist, I wanted to take the time to really finish it. Coat it in poly, fix small defects, really get it totally finished and looking incredible before it went out into the community but after talking with a few friends, decided it needed to be present now regardless of it's state of total absolutely perfect completion.
This image is the first time it was out in the community. This was taken in the Sacramento Capitol Park area near the State Capitol.
Our Clients
During the early protests, I brought the sign to many events, several of which were in Cesar Chavez Park in downtown Sacramento.
After one of these events I met Asantawaa from the Sacramento Anti Police-Terror Project who asked me if I would be willing to hand the letters over to her and her group for them to use however they wanted to. I reluctantly agreed. It was really hard for me to give them to someone. I felt like I had some kind of ownership of the letters, the names, the stories, like I created this memorial and need to take care of it so that a lot of people can read their stories for a long time. I didn't want to let them go but I knew I needed to and I'm glad I did.
The Sacramento Anti Police-Terror Project used the letters at several events and eventually installed them as a more permanent fixture in Curtis Park with the goal of disrupting a mostly white community with the reality that Black lives are being lost to police violence rooted in systemic racism. Asantawaa purchased the materials to install the sign and her group installed it without my assistance.
When Sac APTP put the sign up in Curtis Park on June 10th 2020, it was met with literally immediate opposition by Park Rangers. Before they were even done putting it up Rangers were saying it needed to immediately come down. I was present and asked Asantawaa if I can help try to resolve this. I told her I was close with my City Council member Allen Warren and I thought he might help. She encouraged me to go ahead and reach out to resources I had so I immediately reached out to my City Council Member for District Two at the time, Allen Warren. Allen reached out to Jay Schenirer, the Council Member for District 5 which included Curtis Park where this altercation was currently happening. Jay reached out to Mario Lara, the Director of Youth, Parks, and Community Enrichment for the City of Sacramento. Mario called me and said he believed the right thing to do was let the sign stand for now as the community heals from the current turmoil. He said he's not sure what our long term plan would look like since this isn't a permitted project but he agreed that for now the right thing to do was let the sign stand for the community.
So, there it stood, for weeks I would drive from my Hagginwood neighborhood to Curtis Park every few days to check on it, clean up broken glass from candles, walk my dog around the park, clean up trash from around the sign, try to keep it clean and nice. I was amazed at the number of signs and candles that appeared around the sign. The community clearly wanted this. On many of these evenings just being around the sign and taking it in, I would meet local Black and white community members and hear their thoughts on the installation. Mostly it was positive, a lot of people really loved it being here in Curtis park.
Unfortunately, on July 19th Mario called me to say the sign had been vandalized and needed attention. I immediately drove down to find the local neighbors had tried to put the sign back together but it was unfortunately in need of more repair than they were able to give. The sign had large jagged edges sticking out in areas, the neighbors had used very large screws that had penetrated too deep and come out the other side in many areas, and although I appreciated their attempt, Mario and I agreed that because it had become a safety hazard, it was time for it to come down and get major overhaul repairs. It was clear whoever damaged the sign took special care to ultimately destroy the Black section worse than the others. I was not surprised but of course I was saddened by the destruction of the communities memorial. One local newspaper covered this incident.
Many of the letters were totally destroyed and needed to be completely rebuilt which took me a couple weeks to rebuild but upon completion, I reached out to Black Zebra Productions to try to get some guidance from the Black community and activist community about what they felt the future should hold for the sign. On September 11th 2020, Black Zebra Productions posted to Facebook and Instagram asking for feedback on where the newly refurbished sign should go and many people communicated that they felt a sign honoring these Black lives lost to police violence should live in the Black community. I ran this past the local Black leaders who had helped me get to this point and they agreed and suggested McClatchy Park because of it's location in a historically Black community and it's close proximity to the first local Black Panther meeting place in South Sacramento. So, of course, I agreed and started working toward this goal of installing the sign in McClatchy Park. I reached out to Jay Schenirer over email on September 30th 2020 at 12:23pm and I'll never forget that Jay responded CCing all necessary parties within 17 minutes. I was blown away. Up until this point I had reached out to a different councilmember a dozen times asking to install this project in my local community with absolutely zero response. Jay read my email, agreed with the idea, and chose to start the wheel turning in SEVENTEEN MINUTES. I will forever admire for how quickly and decisively Jay agreed with the project and set it in motion so quickly. It was so refreshing to reach out to a government official who was willing to immediately go to bat for something they believed in. Jay, if you're reading this, thank you so much for how you orchestrated this project from the City side and really made it happen. We could not have done this without you advocating, guiding, and championing this project from the behind the scenes. Jay asked me to get letters of support from the Oak Park neighborhood Association, liability coverage for the project, and connected me to all necessary parties. Allison Joe from Jay's office responded very quickly as well immediately getting movement to get this project installed. Jay also brought Mario Lara back into the conversation to help orchestrate this project from the parks side. I simply cannot say enough how incredibly helpful Mario has been every step of this process from protecting the first sign to installing the final sign. More on that later.
Because of some change in leadership it unfortunately took several months to get a letter of support from Oak Park Neighborhood Association but finally we were able to check that box! The OPNA board voted unanimously to support the project and I received the letter of support around January 21st 2021 ! Woo hoo!
After I secured small business liability insurance from my insurance provider and ironed out those details and once we had our letter of support from OPNA we were now ready to present this project to the City of Sacramento's Parks Commission for their approval. After Mario added the presentation to the parks commission agenda we started receiving some media coverage.
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Cap Radio article on sign presentation
Credit: Xavier Mascarenas/The Sacramento Bee
Credit: Xavier Mascarenas/The Sacramento Bee
Mostly I received a lot of positive feedback from community members but of course there was a lot of hate mixed in. I wasn't bothered by being called a race traitor, honestly that felt like a compliment. I wasn't even bothered by all the people saying I should make a blue lives matter sign, in my mind they're just not educated on this. The thing that was really hard for me though was the number of activists who attacked me for being white and doing this. People who support the project but attack me personally because they don't think I have any business doing it. People who didn't know I was following the wishes of the Black community members who responded to my call for help with direction called me a coward for removing it from Curtis Park. Many people who I would consider on the same side just constantly threw personal attacks on my character out on social media without knowing me in the least. It was frustrating to be torn down from people who I would consider on the same side. I tried to take their criticism as constructive feedback but it was often hard to frame it that way. Someone saying they think the monument should live in XYZ place for ABC reason, ya, ok, totally fair, voice your opinion, I love it. But someone for example voting in private as a member of an organization in support of the monument moving to McClatchy but then voicing opposition on Facebook saying removing the sign from Curtis Park is an act of cowardice showing I'm out of touch with what the community wants.... come on... Thank you to all my friends and family and the amazing community members who loudly supported this project in public and private. Thank you to everyone who criticised this project constructively. I really appreciated the constructive criticism most of all. I learned a lot during this project and I really appreciated the people who saw me as a white person just trying to be a good white person.
On Thursday, February 4th 2021 at 6:00pm, Mario and I presented this project to the Parks Commission who had some helpful and some less than helpful criticism but we finally received our unanimous consent approval to recommend City Council approve the project (recording). If you watch this recording you'll hear a few callers talking about supporting or not supporting this project, one of whom was Tanya Faison who is the founder of Sacramento Black Lives Matter chapter. She was really clear that while she would have liked to have been involved in this project, she totally supports it. After we got through the parks commission meeting, it was time to pass engineering and get final specs drawn up! This is where Mario introduced me to the Parks engineering and planning division to help orchestrate logistics and safety for installation. With some help from family who are much better in Sketch Up than I am, and after many emails and a site meeting, we were able to get engineering approval. Mario's engineering department like, Raymond and Cathy and others, were extremely helpful and actively contributed to helping create solutions rather than just holding me accountable to a standard which I really appreciated. They saw the value in this project, they saw me not knowing how to navigate this but doing my best, and they worked to make it happen. Getting all our engineering approvals took many site visits, some structure adjustments, a TON of back and forth and sketchup modifications, but eventually we had a preliminary approval. Now that we had preliminary engineering approval we were ready for the next step: Presenting to City Council!
Before presenting to City Council I had an overdue conversation that I was nervous to have but needed to with Tanya Faison from Sacramento Black Lives Matter. To be honest, I was really very nervous to have this conversation. Here I am a white person trying to step into this activism world, what would she say? How would she feel about it? Would she understand where my heart is? I was intimidated, not gonna lie. I had involved a few other Black Sacramento leaders but I hadn't involved Tanya yet because in Sacramento, Tanya is like this force that people respect and really listen to so if she decided she thought I was fake or this was all performative or she just didn't like me, should could just oppose this entire project. I was encouraged that she had called into the public comment section on the parks meeting in support but I was just scared to have this conversation. I felt like as a white person, I might be overstepping so I was nervous to take this step.
I can say beyond any doubt that Tanya Faison is an absolutely fantastic resource in Sacramento. She has shown me nothing but kindness as I navigate being the typical white, cisgender, hetero presenting man trying to make a positive difference without overstepping. She has given me constructive criticism, she has given me positive reinforcement, she has done it all with such a kind heart that clearly cares more about her mission than anything else. I will forever have the utmost respect and appreciation for Tanya and how she has helped me navigate this challenging topic and I sincerely hope and believe she feels the same for me. Tanya if you're reading this, just, thank you. Thank you for your patient kindness and for seeing my heart behind this project and believing in it. Your belief in my intention behind this project has been such a driver for me especially when the armchair activists have torn me down. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your support.
Side note: Tanya has an AMAZING project in the works where she is building a local community building for her chapter of Sacrament Black Lives Matter. I can't think of a better way to show your support for this movement than supporting such a fundamentally fantastic cause. Please consider donating to Sacramento Black Lives Matter building project.
This all brings us to the City Council presentation on March 2nd 2021 (Agenda Link) where Mario and I would present to City Council the recommendation from the Parks Commission that City Council pass a motion approval the placement of the Black Lives Matter sign at McClatchy Park AAAAAND adopt Black Lives Matter as official government speech. The second item is extremely important. Mario had the foresight to consider the fact that supporters of the blue lives matter counter movement (don't even get me started) would complain that they believe "blue lives" matter and want to install a similar sign saying so. Not only did we have to get permission to install the sign, we also had to get City council to affirm the fact that the entity that is the City of Sacramento itself does not, in fact, believe that blue lives or white lives or any other XYZ counter movement matters BUT in FACT that BLACK LIVES MATTER. PERIOD. THAT'S IT. If the elected officials that represent the City of Sacramento vote to adopt Black Lives Matter as government speech then that's the end of it. If someone wanted to install a blue lives matter monument at a park, they would have to go through these same steps and get City council to vote to adopt that phrase as government speech which, hopefully, they would not. The city believes that Black Lives Matter. I feel like this was incredibly important and very under publicised from this event. The City of Sacramento's elected officials agreed and voted UNANIMOUSLY that Black Lives Matter. We as activists need to be holding them accountable to that. City council oversees almost everything under the city! Not just related to policing but the city budget, education funding, housing policies, redistricting, code enforcement, literally ALL OF IT has to abide by the fact that on March 2nd, 2021 at 7:34pm, the elected officials who are legally the voting voice of the City of Sacramento, voted unanimously, that BLACK LIVES MATTER. During this council meeting, Councilmember Rick Jennings, the only African American City Councilmember commented that he believes local schools should send kids to do reports on the people on the sign, their lives, and this really got to me. It made me feel like there is a legacy here that could create real change in future generations. I cried. It was a lot. Thank you Councilmember Rick Jennings for that comment. It really shifted my perspective on this project and rearranged my priorities.
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One thing that happened leading up to the above City council meeting was that there was some push back from city officials about who from the community can speak on behalf of this project. As a white person I wanted to just address the like the size of the sign, our asks of council, our building plans, logistics and stuff like that. I of course did not want to represent what this means to the community so I invited Tanya Faison (SacBLM), Gracie Phillips (Oak Park Neighborhood Association) and a couple other Black leaders from the community to speak on behalf of the impact on the community of this sign. Gracie and Tany accepted our invitiation but then as the Council meeting approached there was some push back as far as why Tany and Gracie were being involved. The day of the City Council presentation I called Jay Schenirer's office and spoke with someone from his staff saying it was urgent I speak directly with Jay today before the council meeting. Within I think an hour Jay called me directly with a couple staff on the line. I explained to Jay that I was extremely concerned about this push back regarding Tanya and Gracie speaking at the council meeting. We were being told they could only have 2 minutes to speak instead of the previously agreed upon 5 minutes which was the same amount of time they would be given if they just called in. I tried to convey to Jay that the whole point of bringing Tanya and Gracie onto the presentation was to elevate Black voices and that it was extremely important that we give them their full 5 minutes each. Jay explained that he believed the time constraint push back was because this was one of the last agenda items of a very long meeting but he promised he would personally see to it that both Tanya and Gracie got the time they needed. I admired Jay for communicating with me so quickly, the same day of the meeting, speaking directly to me on the phone and he definitely inspired confidence. I felt like he really got what I was saying and would ensure they got the time they needed. Jay did EXACTLY as he promised he would do, quickly interjecting after my presentation to sort of take control of the situation and "hand the mic" (this was on Zoom) to Tanya and then Gracie. Jay followed through on his promise in the direct face of opposition and I so appreciate him doing that.
In the following weeks many hours were spent negotiating a licensing agreement between myself and the City of Sacramento. It was a complicated agreement that took me a long time to iron out and understand. There were probably a dozen editions but we finally reached an agreement. I had a pro bono lawyer helping me understand the legal phrasing and the internal City team was pretty flexible on my requests. This licensing agreement did not include any funding for myself at all, in fact it expressly confirmed that I would not receive any funding from the City for this project. This project has been totally funded by myself and my generous friends and family. Guidance from Black leaders suggested I ask for certain contract items like the city having a right to use images of the sign for commercial purposes removed from the agreement to deter political officials or the City from using the sign in a performative way. In the above image you can see the repaired first edition of the sign being held up by city officials to demonstrate what the final project will look like. The final version will of course be a couple feet off the ground but it gives us a good idea of what it'll look like when completed. This picture was take during the final site visit with engineering and permitting teams around April 18th 2021.
A few months before these final action items I had purchased a new machine called a CNC which makes it easier to really accurately carve things like names or detailed signs and I had wanted to redo the entire sign with this platform since, in my eyes, my poor handwriting wasn't doing the names justice on the existing sign. I was nervous that my poor handwriting could possibly cause someone to not be able to read a name which would just be devastating so I decided to redo the entire sign with my CNC machine to make the names more clear and easy to read. I also wanted to add the age at death to humanize the names and make them more relatable. Also in the past few months I had aggregated a lot more stories bringing the final list of names from 347 to 407. Of course this list will never be perfect but I've spent hours in the evenings for multiple nights a week for multiple weeks a month aggregating these stories. If you asked my friends and family I'm sure they would agree this project has totally consumed me for the past 3 months or more because of how much time it takes to find the stories, aggregate their names and ages and the years they were murdered. It's not just time consuming because it's tedious but it's also totally heartbreaking reading stories like that of Aiyana Stanley-Jones who was murdered in 2010 at the age of 7. Reading these stories for so long just tears you apart and it's really emotionally difficult work. I found some resources who had already aggregated some names but I couldn't find one that would just let you export their data to dig through and do something with it. All of them you had to copy/paste and there was consistently errors that were difficult to clean up. As a Database Administrator, this was frustrating to me. It was like some of these organizations who had aggregated the data felt like it was their private intellectual property. This was extremely frustrating to me and is the reason I've made my list and all associated data free for anyone to download on this site, in fact it's the entire reason I created this site. These names need to be read. Their stories need to be told.
So with the CNC machine I recreated all the letters and names to make them more clear and easy to read, and include their ages at death. I see how this feels less personal because the names aren't handwritten but I think it's a better monument to these lives. They deserve the best and this CNC machine isn't the best, but it's better than my poor handwriting.
May 16th 2021 new letters with original letters in background
Original sign vs new sign.
Original sign will most likely be donated to the Sojourner Truth Museum in Sacramento. New letters will be the final version installed at McClatchy Park in Sacramento, California. The larger names are Sacramento's local victims of police violence. It's been really time consuming to run them on the CNC Machine. Each letter takes 4-6 hours to complete carving but the result is so much better it's worth the time. Then I touch up paint on the edges, and coat the whole letter in polyurethane. Time consuming but the result is fantastic. Each letter is inch thick birch hardwood plywood so it should be extremely durable and should last much longer than our one year licensing agreement. The entire carve took about 77 hours to complete which seems like only a few days but when you consider you have to be present, watching the carve the entire time (it can literally just catch on fire randomly), and that has to be worked around your 9-5 job, it's preeeeeetty time consuming and challenging to carve. That time doesn't include first coat of paint, touch up paint coats, cleaning edges of letters with a leveling router bit, coating with poly eurethane, drilling pocket holes, mounting, etc etc etc. It's been a BIG project that has taken a LOT of work. I'm happy to do the work, I just want to be clear about how big of a project it's been
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5/25/2021
I'm so excited to install the newly completed sign and can't wait for the community to be able to see it. I was spending a lot of time thinking about how I could use the monument as an ongoing way to support the local Sacramento Black Lives Matter chapter and with the permission of it's founder Tanya Faison, I worked with a friend to create stickers with my sign art that I think will do two really important things. First, it will make it easier to spread the names and stories of these people which is like, the whole point, right? Encouraging people to say their names and read their stories. It will also benefit our local Sacramento BLM chapter by directly contributing funds to their local building project. So we created these stickers with my sign art on them with all profits after cost directly benefiting Sacramento Black Lives Matter. I'm so excited about these and I really hope it actually raises a substantial amount of funds for Sacramento Black Lives Matter. Can't wait to install the poles for the sign in a few days and then the sign this weekend!
Before and after adding backing
AND FINALLY
The finished monument was installed at McClatchy park Saturday, May 29th 2021!
On May 27th I spent about 5 hours digging holes for the monument posts, mixing cement, and setting four steel poles for the structure. The ground there had not been disturbed since the 1800s according to parks representatives so it was VERRRY challenging to dig but finally around 9pm got the poles installed.
On May 28th I drove to Chico to pick up the stickers I had made so that they would for sure be available at the event. I was thrilled with the way they turned out, how easy it was to read the names, and how great the quality was. These stickers were custom made by my friend who owns a sticker company in Chico. They cost me $300 for all ~225 stickers and I was excited to have them available for families and people attending the unveiling.
Finally the day had arrived! I loaded up TONS of tools, hardware, and supplies and arrived at McClatchy around 7:00am and got to work. It took about four hours to actually mount the sign onto the poles. I had a friend swing by and help for a couple hours and I couldn't have done it without the extra set of hands, thank you Brian! It was SO EXCITING to finally see the structure come together. Then someone from the City arrived to set up the podium and stage. Around 12:00pm I opened the fence gates and started answering questions about what was going on.
I was overjoyed seeing it finally complete and ready for the unveiling.
Around 12:30 media started showing up, Black Zebra Productions was first followed by ABC10, Sacramento Bee, Fox 40, and others. We were very clear with media that the monument would remain covered until families finished speaking because we didnt want media to sort of, get their big unveiling shot and leave without the families getting their platform to speak. Tanya encouraged me to keep this focused on the families, not on the media, which I did my best to do. One person from a local news station actually tried to sneakily pull me away for an interview without alerting anyone else. As I always do, I told him he'd have to interview a Black person first, could be Tanya or a family member, but I'm not going to take the platform as a white person. He said he only had time for one interview so I said Great, Tanya is right over there, I'm sure she'll be excited to speak with. you. I was really disappointed in how this media person handled the situation, he complained that the unveiling was taking too long and it wasn't as advertised and his time was too valuable for this, etc. It was extremely irritating to see someone try to make this event so about themselves. We stayed strong and kept the monument covered until the entire group of family speakers arrived.
With all the families having arrived it was time to begin. I had talked to Tanya several times about not feeling right opening the ceremony with a white voice, my voice, but she encouraged me that as the creator of the monument, it's right for me to start us off. I wrote a couple pages of a speech and when I got on stage, looking at these families, look at the media live streaming the event, it was like I forgot how to read. I was so overwhelmed by the whole situation that I did my best to go through my key points, why I created it, how we got here, who helped us get here, the fact that the city didn't pay for it. I wish I would have remembered to mention that the ultimate goal is to replace it with something with a similar mission of remembering all these names but created by a Black artist instead of my monument created by a white person.
This is what I look like when I take a deep breath and forget how to read.
After I spoke, Tanya came up and spoke and then introduce family members who all came up and had as much time as they wanted to tell their story, talk about their children's lives, and just say whatever they wanted. I'm not going to even try to summarize what these parents said so I would just ask that you watch a recording linked to the right. The whole point of this event was these stories being told so please watch the video and hear the story and say their names.
The first family who spoke was Anita Thomas (Right) whose son Antonio Thomas was murdered in the Sacramento County Jail on December 9th. He laid unresponsive for 55 minutes before he was helped and then was in a coma for weeks. Marcus Christian (Left) also spoke who is a close family member of Anita and Antonio.
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Antonio was 39 when he was murdered.
Antonio Thomas name can be found on the E on the McClatchy Monument
Frances Nevarez spoke next. Frances daughter Gabby Nevarez was murdered at the age of 22 on March 2nd 2014 by Citrus Heights Police Department. Gabby Nevarez was mother to a three year old son when she was murdered. Gabby was unarmed and was shot 17 times.
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Christine Vang spoke next. Christine's son Darell Richards who was killed in September of 2018 by Sacramento Police Department. Darell was 19 years old when he was murdered by police.
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Yolanda, Brandon Smith's mother. Brandon was killed June 6th 2018. Brandon was murdered in police custody after suffering a mental health episode. Police said Brandon Over Dosed. Yolanda explained polcie threw Brandon in a truck like a dog and he died face down in the truck. Yolanda left Brandon with his probation officer to try to get help but instead of receiving help, Brandon was murdered by Police. Brandon was 30 years old when he was murdered.
Latania Andrews (Right), mother of Marshall Miles who was killed in the Sacramento County Jail. Morine Miles (Left) is Marshall's sister. Marshall was murdered November 1st, 2018 by Sacramento Sherrif at the County Jail. Marshall was hog tied by his hands and feet, Marshall said repeatedly he couldn't breath. Police responded that since he could speak he could breath. Marshall continued to to say he couldn't breath but was left in a cell in this condition. Marshall died alone in his cell tied by his hands and feet at the age of 36. The hospital claimed Marshall died of a heart attack but arrived at the hospital with two broken ribs.
On three we pulled the drop cloth back and unveiled the monument. I'll never forget the looks on the families faces as they saw their children's names. The families were so grateful and made it very clear to me how much they appreciated this. Two mothers came up to me after the unveiling and said that before the only public place they had to visit in memory of their child was where they were murdered. Now they have a public space where the child is remembered. Where all these children are remembered. Where they can grieve. It was really hard to reply to that, what do I say, you're welcome? I went with, I'm sorry it's necessary but I'm happy that you're happy this is here. It feels like just on small step. These Mother's have gone through the unimaginable, many without any justice at all. I hope this monument stands for a long time and brings more attention to the names and stories.
Please go see the monument and say their names.
Demand justice. Demand accountability. Demand change.
Mothers of local victims of police violence embrace in front of the Black Lives Matter sign at McClatchy Park, Saturday May 29th, 2021.
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