#SayHerName Anniversary Commemorated With Fundraiser

Amid increasing outrage and awareness of police killings, #SayHerName emerged to amplify the stories of Black women, femmes, and girls. On Monday, December 8, the African American Policy Forum will commemorate the 11th anniversary of #SayHerName with a fundraiser and stage reading of the play inspired by the movement.  

A moving performance piece, #SayHerName: The Lives That Should Have Been imagines a world where Black women, girls, and femmes killed by police are still alive. It’s based on interviews with participants of the “SayHerName Mothers’ Network. 

The production has grown and met the changing dynamics and imagination of living life after loved ones have been unjustly stripped away. It debuted during Women’s History Month in 2019, gracing the stage at the Hammer Museum at UCLA. 

The #SayHerName play isn’t the first time the movement has been commemorated in the arts. In 2021, recording artist Janelle Monae wrote a song, “Say Her Name,” in honor of Black women and girls killed by police. 

Monae also wrote the forward to the book “#SayHerName: Black Women’s Stories of Police Violence and Public Silence.” Co-authored by Kimberlé Crenshaw and the African American Policy Forum team, the book  offers “an analytical framework for understanding Black women’s susceptibility to police brutality and state-sanctioned violence.” The book navigates these issues through a lens of Black feminist storytelling and ritual. 

Joined by the #SayHerName Mothers’ Network, the African American Policy Forum had led the charge in amplifying the stories of Black women, girls, and femmes whose lives were taken through state-sanctioned violence. 

In a statement shared with NewsOne, African American Policy Forum Executive Director Kimberlé Crenshaw spoke to the importance of commemorating the movement. She said that every Black woman and girl killed by police should be alive today. 

“We started the #SayHerName movement because the pervasive silence about Black women, their lived experiences and, tragically, their deaths at the hands of the state, distorts our collective view of the value of Black women and creates an insurmountable barrier to justice,” Crenshaw said. “By honoring the anniversary of the movement, and staging a play to imagine the lives the Black women taken from us might have lived, AAPF continues to pierce the silence that makes continued tragedy and injustice possible.”

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#SayHerName Anniversary Commemorated With Fundraiser And Live Storytelling was originally published on newsone.com