Launched in December 2014 by the African American Policy Forum (AAPF) and Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies (CISPS), the #SayHerName campaign brings awareness to the often invisible names and stories of Black women and girls who have been victimized by racist police violence, and provides support to their families.



 

Black women and girls as young as 7 and as old as 93 have been killed by the police, though we rarely hear their names. Knowing their names is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for lifting up their stories which in turn provides a much clearer view of the wide-ranging circumstances that make Black women’s bodies disproportionately subject to police violence. To lift up their stories, and illuminate police violence against Black women, we need to know who they are, how they lived, and why they suffered at the hands of police.

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In the wake of the horrendous and untimely death of Oluwatoyin Salua, Brittany Oliver and Ebony Evans held a rally and protest that ignited the need to continue this work beyond public actions. Both community oriented and born in Baltimore, we both have experienced and witnessed the brutalization against Black women and femmes. Bullying, sexual assault, abuse, interpersonal violence and police brutality toward Black women and femmes run rampant in Baltimore and something must be done. While there are other organizations and collectives that do this work, we hope to be an additional resource and collective that propels the mission to end violence against Black women and femmes within this city and beyond.

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