Black women, often Black queer women, have always been on the frontlines of political action and movement-building. Still, with national and international discussion around state violence against Black people, families and activists have had to work hard to make visible the deaths of Black aunties, girlfriends, sisters, mamas, nanas, and grandbabies as part of that violence. #SayHerName centers the experiences of Black women, girls, and femmes because we cannot eliminate racism and sexism without first recognizing the specific forms of race- and gender-based violence that we face.  

On May 19, Black Youth Project 100 (BYP100), Black Lives Matter, Project South, and Ferguson Action called us to #SayHerName with the National Day of Action to End State Violence Against Black Women, Girls, and Femmes. That same evening, Jessica Williams, a young Black woman in San Francisco, was shot while driving away from the police — a gunshot that took her life.

At the action organized by BYP100 NYC at Fulton Park in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, I gathered with a crowd of young organizers and community members. Young Black women led the crowd in lifting up the names and stories of Black women and girls across the country who have been systematically killed and whose families and communities have been fighting for justice. Between 30 and 40 voices rose up collectively chanting, “We do this for Marissa, we do this for Rekia, We do this for Tanisha, We do this for Islan.” These are names of cisgendered and trans women and girls killed in the streets, in prisons, and as collateral damage in militaristic police raids. “These aren’t just names,” one activist pressed upon the crowd. “These are people.”

The action called us to “fight against the criminalization of Black victims of sexual violence … resist the policing of Black gender expression, sexuality, and bodies … condemn the passage and defense of gender discriminatory legislation … [and to] break down the narrow standards of respectable Black womanhood and femininity.”

#SayHerName honors the experiences of Black women, girls, and femmes, in death and in life, and affirms the interdependence of racial and reproductive justice. Black women, girls, and femmes are suffering the effects of institutionalized anti-Black, anti-woman violence and hate.

In addition to police killings, Black women suffer sexual violence from police who claim to protect us and who are supposed to be our means for justice. We suffer interpersonally: according to Black Women’s Blueprint, more than half of Black girls experience sexual violence before reaching the age of 18. Black women in New York are 12 times more likely to die as a result of pregnancy. We are more likely to lose our infants before their first birthday than white women, and are also forced to give birth when we would otherwise choose not to because of incredibly limited access to abortion.

Reproductive justice, a vision for prosperity, affirms Black women, and all people, in their human right to raise families in safe environments and healthy communities, without fear of violence. It says that it is our right, as Black women, to control our sexual and reproductive lives, and we decide if, when, and how we will give birth. We affirm this because we experience constant state and interpersonal violence and reproductive control. Our visions of true sexual and reproductive freedom, in the era of #BlackLivesMatter are also visions for full and prosperous Black life.

For more on this topic, join Reproaction on June 21 at 7 p.m. ET for a webinar on what it means to fight state violence against Black femmes, women, and girls from a reproductive justice lens.