SayHerName

SayHerName
#SayHerName is a social movement that seeks to raise awareness for Black women victims of police brutality and anti-Black violence in the United States. The movement's name was created by the African American Policy Forum (AAPF). #SayHerName aims to highlight the gender-specific ways in which Black women are disproportionately affected by fatal acts of racial injustice. In an effort to create a large social media presence alongside existing racial justice campaigns, such as #BlackLivesMatter and #BlackGirlsMatter, the AAPF coined the hashtag #SayHerName in December 2014.
In May 2015, the AAPF released a report entitled "Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality against Black Women", which outlined the goals and objectives of the #SayHerName movement. In July 2015, Sandra Bland, a woman who had been taken into police custody after a traffic violation, was found hanged three days later in her jail cell. Following Bland's death, the AAPF, the Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies at Columbia Law School, and Andrea Ritchie issued an updated version of the original report.
Drawing from the AAPF report, the #SayHerName movement strives to address what it believes is the marginalization of Black women within both mainstream media and the #BlackLivesMatter movement. Of the movement's many agendas, one includes commemorating the women who have died due to police brutality and anti-Black violence.
Origins of the movement
Name of movement
#SayHerName stems from the idea that having individuals and the media say the names of Black women who have been victims of police violence will make people ask necessary questions about the causes and circumstances of that violence. And the concept of saying the name is also a symbol or shorthand for learning and telling the stories of these women, again both between individuals and in the media. Crenshaw has said, "If you say the name, you're prompted to learn the story, and if you know the story, then you have a broader sense of all the ways Black bodies are made vulnerable to police violence."
Creation of the campaign
The #SayHerName movement is a response to the Black Lives Matter movement and the mainstream media's tendency to sideline the experiences of Black women in the context of police brutality and anti-Black violence. The campaign for this movement began December 2015 by the African American Policy Forum (AAPF) and the Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies (CISPS). The reasoning behind the campaign is to bring awareness to the most often invisible names and stories of Black women and girls who have been victimized by racist police. Statistics have shown that Black women and girls as young as 7 and old as 93 have been victims of police brutality. In recent years, the killings of unarmed Black youth like Trayvon Martin and men like Michael Brown have captured much more national attention and public outrage than the killings of Black women such as Rekia Boyd and Shelly Frey. According to Kimberlé Crenshaw, one of the founders of the AAPF, Black women's continued exclusion from stories about police brutality, racism, and anti-Black violence contribute to an erroneous notion that Black men are the chief victims of racism and state-sanctioned violence which underplay issues such as rape and sexual assault by police. #SayHerName does not seek to replace Black Lives Matter or dilute its power but aims to simply add perspectives and lived experiences to the conversation of racial injustice. Over the past five years, the #SayHerName campaigned has expanded and overall increased its focus on direct advocacy. The movement actively considers how multiple social identities (including gender, sexual orientation, and class) influence an individual's experiences with police brutality and anti-Black violence, a concept known as intersectionality.
Intersectionality
#SayHerName builds on texts and movements like Anannya Bhatacharjee's 2001 report Whose Safety? Women and the Violence of Law Enforcement in order to expand on systemic violence in a way that is committed to being intersectional. Works that have been published as results of intersectional approaches to victimization through violence include Beth Richie's Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence, and America's Prison Nation (2012) as well as a list from INCITE! Including The Color of Violence: The INCITE! Anthology, Law Enforcement Violence Against Women of Color and Trans People of Color: A Critical Intersection of Gender and State Violence, and Queer : The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States.
#SayHerName as a movement is largely based on the concept of intersectionality in order to bring attention to all victims of systemic violence. Intersectionality is a term that Kimberlé Crenshaw, a well-regarded scholar and activist, was responsible for coining in 1989. Since then, it has become a key element of many modern feminist practices. Brittany Cooper explains how intersectionality provides an analytical frame originally designed to address the unique positions of women of color within rights movements. Its relevance to #SayHerName is highlighted by Crenshaw's founding position in both the concept of intersectionality and the movement itself. The focus on the victimization of Black women within the #SayHerName movement is dependent on the notion of intersectionality, which Crenshaw describes as "like a lazy Susan – you can subject race, sexuality, transgender identity or class to a feminist critique through intersectionality".
Additional factors in an intersectional analysis within #SayHerName include cis or trans status, education, geographical location, and disability – both on the parts of the victims being targeted and the officers responsible for the violence. Crenshaw especially highlights the role of both physical and mental disability as a factor that puts victims more at risk of being targeted as threatening or otherwise violent by police. This is exacerbated by stereotypes of aggressiveness and poor emotional control attributed to Black women and men in the United States.
Homa Kahleeli asserts that over seventy Black women have died as a result of either police violence or police misconduct within the past three years. In instances of police misconduct where firearms are discharged, both female and child victims have been described as "collateral damage", which advocates say erases responsibility of the officer.
Social media
The #SayHerName movement is one of many contemporary social justice campaigns that engage in hashtag activism and digital activism. Created by AAPF and CISPS in December 2014, the #SayHerName hashtag provides an online community for activists, scholars, news reporters, and other social media users to participate in the conversation on racial justice along with other social movements such as Black Lives Matter.
The hashtag is mostly active on Twitter. Of its many uses, the #SayHerName hashtag has principally served to highlight recent incidents of Black women's fatal encounters with police and anti-Black violence as well as advertise upcoming events. An analysis of Twitter activity found that a third of Tweets using the hashtag were in conjunction with the name of a Black woman who was a victim of police violence. Other content using the hashtag included links to blogs written by Black women, such as The Huffington Posts Black Voices column, Blavity, and BlackGirlTragic.com. Second most frequent were academics, particularly Black feminist scholars, though the largest number of retweets came from a white male entertainer.
By addressing recent incidents of police-instigated violence, the #SayHerName hashtag strives to advance one of the chief goals of the movement: to re-integrate Black women's lived experiences into mainstream racial justice narratives about police brutality and state-sanctioned violence. Through its engagement with hashtag activism, #SayHerName situates itself within a recent social historical development in which the media's tendency to disregard or heavily misrepresent events pertaining to racial justice incites activists to commit themselves to digital activism. In addition, with its increasing social media presence, #SayHerName provides an opportunity for a diversity of voices invested in racial justice to contribute to an ever-expanding discourse on Black women's susceptibility to police brutality and anti-Black violence.
Supporters
Some of the strongest original supporters of the #SayHerName movement include people who were directly impacted by the killings. Friends, family members, and individuals who shared similar social identities with the victims were and remain likely to participate in mobilization efforts. Mothers especially appear to have a strong emotional connection to the cause and are willing to speak out against police brutality and anti-Black violence.
The movement has received support from several celebrities, which is integral to the spread of the movement and its social media reach. Through the use of the #SayHerName hashtag, influential figures can increase public awareness and shed light on instances of racial injustice, which can sometimes go unnoticed. Such high-profile support was seen immediately following the death of Sandra Bland; musical artist Janelle Monáe tweeted the #SayHerName hashtag, as did actress Taraji P. Henson. Nicki Minaj, Jessie J, and Zendaya Coleman all recognized Bland's death on Instagram. For example, to refer to Nicki Minaj's tweet on twitter, she stated: "If you haven't looked into this story yet, please do. It's the most disturbing thing going on right now. #SandraBland." Later within the same day, Nicki posted a disturbing video that included footage from the police officers' dash camera during the arrest that consisted of Sandra Bland repeatedly begging the officer to stop hurting her. The video was captioned with "Rest in Peace #SandraBland" and gained over millions of views.
The American Civil Liberties Union has supported the movement, using the hashtag to promote activism particularly regarding violence against transgender women of color. The Human Rights Campaign likewise uses the hashtag in this manner. The 2017 Women's March also used the hashtag on Twitter, recognizing transgender women of color killed in 2017.
Activities
Since the movement began in late 2014, there have been two nationwide events (one that occurred in May of that year and another one twelve months later) to increase public awareness. The second #SayHerName Silent Protest: National Day of Action to End State Violence Against Women and Girls took place in major cities around the country and garnered significant attention on social media. In New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and elsewhere, men and women took to the streets with duct tape over their mouths to represent the silence and erasure of Black women and girls' narratives along with signs in their hands to remember those that have lost their lives to police brutality and anti-Black violence.
Another event that occurred recently since the movement began is the annual Mothers Weekend in NYC. This took place years following 2015 and had the purpose of shining spotlight on mothers who have lost their daughters to police brutality. Weekends are reserved for educational purposes so individuals can learn about the specific needs of family members of black women and girls who are victims of racist state violence and provide a safe environment/comfort zone. This resulted in a community being formulated that supported fighting for the #SayHerName movement while also creating a network for activism. The overall goal of these events is to get everyone to speak up more on this issue but mainly those who are victims of police and gender violence crimes.
At Ohio University, the Women's Center created a #SayHerName program for both Fall 2020 and Spring 2021. The Spring 2021 program involved speakers and structured discussion topics. They begin every session with a moment of silence for the women who had lost their lives.
The AAPF memorializes these women on their "Angel Day", the day they were killed.
In 2020, there was a resurgence in the #SayHerName campaign. This was due to the growing popularity of the Black Lives Matter movement and the murder of Breonna Taylor. Taylor was a Black woman killed in March 2020 by police officers in civilian clothing, during a rushed police raid. A year after her death, Kentucky Governor, Andy Beshear, signed a bill into law that would limit no-knock warrants. The city of Louisville responded to this and officially banned no-knock warrants in Spring 2021 and named it "Breonna's Law."
The WNBA dedicated their 2020 season to "long history of inequality, implicit bias and racism that disproportionately impacts communities of color" by partnering with the #SayHerName campaign. The first weekend of their season, the players wore jerseys honoring Breonna Taylor and the #SayHerName movement. Angel McCoughtry, a player for Louisville, created the idea to put Breonna Taylor on the back of the women's jerseys. McCoughtry has brought greater light to this by saying, "It's a lot deeper than just the jersey, but I think that's a great start."
In 2021, Janelle Monae released "Hell You Talmbout" alongside Kimberlé Crenshaw and the AAPF.
Advocates claim that the #SayHerName hashtag has successfully created a safe online place for marginalized groups to come together and mourn their losses. However, as the hashtag spreads from Twitter to Facebook along with other social media platforms, the rhetoric does not change. Despite the diversity in background, with each woman sharing her story, the same underlying themes of vulnerability to physical police and aggressive sexual violence keep reappearing, making it appear that simply saying the names, remembering the faces and increasing awareness is not enough. Experts say that despite being only 7% of the population, and outnumbered by white women at the ratio of 5:1, Black women and girls have accounted for 20% of the unarmed people killed by police since 1999.
Relationship with #BlackLivesMatter
Although the movement makes an active effort to engage in discourse and conversation with the Black Lives Matter movement, #SayHerName is different in its construct, goals and methods. Feminist theorists such as Kimberlé Crenshaw have pointed out that the #SayHerName movement addresses intersectionality of gender, class and disability that play out on Black women and girls' bodies. These are aspects that do not appear to be so readily addressed by the Black Lives Matter movement, which is specifically known as a movement that addresses racial inequality within the criminal justice system. Many supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement were largely sparked by outrage of the deaths of young African-American males at the hands of police with excessive violence and no repercussion from the legal system. In contrast, when stories of African-American women meeting similar fates in just as harrowing circumstances were brought up, the number of supporters and advocates seemed to decrease; female victim's names and stories are generally less recognized than the male victims. #SayHerName aims to raise awareness of how sexism and racism simultaneously play out of colored female bodies, no matter their background, while still being a safe, inclusive space for all individuals to come together and create and participate in discourse.
Role of the African American Policy Forum
The #SayHerName movement represents one of three recent racial justice initiatives engendered by the AAPF. Since coining the #SayHerName hashtag in February 2015, the AAPF has assumed a central role in mobilizing the campaign – an effort that has culminated into at least two significant events: the AAPF's release of the report "Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality against Black Women" and its sponsoring of "#SayHerName: A Vigil in Remembrance of Black Women and Girls Killed by the Police". Both events occurred in May 2015 and have served to disrupt mainstream racial justice narratives that attend exclusively to heterosexual, cisgender Black men's susceptibility to police brutality and anti-Black violence. Since 2015, #SayHerName has organized Mother's Weekends in New York. These weekends shed light on the necessities of the families of those who lost Black women to a racist state. They also provide a place of inclusion and community for those individuals also. The #SayHerName Mothers Network has assembled numerous times. The Mothers Network marched in the Women's March in Washington, organized meetings and focus groups to come up with the most effective ways to aid families who have lost women to police violence, and they also lobbied for police reform.
May 2015 report
In May 2015, the AAPF, in conjunction with the Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies at Columbia Law School and Soros Justice Fellow, Andrea Ritchie, issued a report entitled "Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality against Black Women". The report highlights the goals and objectives of the #SayHerName movement and presents several reasons as to why gender-inclusivity is a critical component of racial justice advocacy. In addition to these, the report includes several accounts detailing incidents from the last three decades of Black women's fatal encounters with police brutality and state-sanctioned violence. To supplement these accounts, the report incorporates an intersectional framework for understanding Black women's susceptibility to police brutality by addressing how the interactions between race, gender, sexual orientation, class, and ability inform the violent ways in which law enforcement officials treat Black women.
After divulging recent incidents of police brutality against Black women, the report concludes with several recommendations as to how members of local communities, policy-makers, researchers, and activists can best incorporate a gender-inclusive framework into racial justice campaigns that specifically address police brutality and state-sanctioned violence. By contributing these recommendations, the AAPF, along with the Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies at Columbia Law School and Andrea Ritchie, hopes that the report could serve as a useful resource to which the media, community organizers, policy-makers, and other stakeholders invested in racial justice can refer.
After Sandra Bland's encounter with police in July 2015, the AAPF released an updated version of the original report. While the structure of the updated version is similar to that of the original report, the updated version contributes additional accounts of Black women's deadly encounters with police and includes a description of the circumstances surrounding Bland's death. By issuing the updated version, the AAPF strives to reinforce the critical, urgent need for policy-makers, the media, community organizers, and other stakeholders to tackle the structural inequalities that render Black women within the United States heavily susceptible to police-instigated, anti-Black violence.
Names mentioned in the updated version of the #SayHerName report, and on the AAPF "In Memoriam"
Mothers Network
In November 2016, the #SayHerName Mothers Network was made official. This took place a year and half after the first #SayHerName vigil was held in Union Square in New York City. The mother's network was reconvened on many occasions since the original official meeting. These times include women's march in Washington, lobbying for police reform on Capitol Hill, and several focus groups for strategizing purposes. These mothers also meet together to go over needs of new members who have been directly affected by police violence with their daughters. These mothers also organize vigils for victims of police violence including Charleena Lyles and Vicky Coles-McAdory, who was an original member who died from a stroke in 2017.
Recommendations
The AAPF published a "Take Action Guide" that lists five action items. Intended for immediate implementation, they include: "find ways to support all families who have lost loved ones to police violence, create spaces to discuss how the intersections of patriarchy, homophobia, and transphobia impact Black communities as a whole, and continuously develop skills to talk about the multiplicity of ways in which state violence affects all Black women and girls, particularly those who are transgender, non-transgender and gender-nonconforming".
Events
The AAPF hosts events promoting the #SayHerName movement on a semi-regular basis. One example was an event in March 2017 titled "Say Her Name: An Evening of Arts and Action Los Angeles".
There was also a protest that was held in remembrance of Sandra Bland and all other Black lives that have been lost. Sandra Bland's mother along with Janelle Monae lead a BlackLivesMatter protest in Chicago shortly after Bland's death. There were roughly 200 protestors present at this protest, all demanding justice for the unfair actions that were being done towards blacks. Well-known Janelle Monae also wanted justice so this caused her to being her activism to Chicago. In her words: "I come here as a black woman. We come as a black man, black human beings. We are particularly drawn to all of the stories in this movement, and we have recorded a tool for you to use, those who are out here on the front lines. This is the least we can do." With this statement, Monae was referring to her song "Hell You Talmbout". In social movements and protests, songs tend to be used as an outlet as well as a speaking voice so individuals can be heard. "Hell You Talmbout" has been used as a battle cry for protestors worldwide throughout protests. The background reasoning behind the song is to deal with the negligence, recurring disrespect, and abuse of power from some police officers. Referring back to the use of music in social movements, being silent gets you nowhere but with sound, change can be made. Whether this may be done with songs, protests, or chants, ultimately you will be heard.
Spread of the movement
On May 20, 2015, the AAPF and twenty local sponsors, including the Black Youth Project 100 and the Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies at Columbia Law School, organized an event called "#SayHerName: A Vigil in Remembrance of Black Women and Girls Killed by the Police". The purpose of the vigil, which transpired at Union Square in New York City, was to commemorate such women as Rekia Boyd, Tanisha Anderson, Miriam Carey, and Kayla Moore, among many others, who lost their lives due to police brutality and anti-Black violence. Relatives of Tanisha Anderson, Rekia Boyd, Shantel Davis, Shelly Fray, Alberta Spruill, Kyam Livingston, Kayla Moore, Miriam Carey, and Michelle Cusseaux attended, marking the first time that the family members gathered at the same location for the purpose of honoring the women.
In addition to commemorating the lives of such women, the event featured speeches, singing, poetry, and art by scholars, artists, and activists, including Kimberlé Crenshaw, Piper Anderson, Eve Ensler, LaChanze, and Aja Monet. Aja Monet wrote a poem advocating for the #SayHerName movement.
Given how the vigil occurred one day prior to the National Day of Action on Black Women and Girls, one of its principal aims was to mobilize the New York City community into action against gendered and racialized forms of violence and police brutality. By demanding that the public no longer ignore Black women's struggles against gendered, racialized violence, the vigil's attendants strove to advance one of the chief goals of the #SayHerName movement: to re-integrate Black women leaders and victims of anti-Black violence into mainstream racial justice narratives about racism and police brutality.
On the other side of the country in May 2015, Black women and girls also stood in the middle of San Francisco, holding signs and displaying painted messages on their bare chests. Some phrases included "I fight for those who have been murdered by the state", "with love for female masculinity", and "to end infant mortality".
Killing of Brianna Ghey
On February 11, 2023, 16-year old British trans girl Brianna Ghey was killed. Two teenage boys were charged with her murder. Many activists claim that this attack was an anti-trans hate crime; police are still investigating the matter.
Major news sites faced backlash for using her deadname in their articles. This launched an online movement where the hashtag #SayHerName was used to advocate for her chosen name to be used. Though many of the major news sites edited their articles to use the name "Brianna Ghey", the online movement faced some criticism for its repurposing of the hashtag.
See also
Gendered racism
Say Their Names – 2020 mural in Kansas, United States
References
2010s in the United States
21st-century controversies
African-American feminism
American political catchphrases
Black feminism
Black Lives Matter
Black Twitter
Civil rights protests in the United States
Criminal justice reform in the United States
Hashtags
Left-wing advocacy groups
Police brutality in the United States
Race and crime in the United States
Social justice organizations
Social movements in the United States
Women and death