First-time young black women protesters say they are ‘done being silent’

U.S. law student Brieana Gillyard was a child when Sean Bell, Eric Garner and other unarmed black men were killed at the hands of police, and she didn’t grasp the potency of their deaths. But with the killing of George Floyd, 46, another unarmed African American, Gillyard is old enough to understand and join a protest in Atlanta, like a growing number of young, black women marching against police violence across the country. “It was so liberating. I’ve never felt more rejuvenated,” Gillyard, 23, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “I feel like I’m a legitimate part of history now.”

Gillyard and countless other young black women are marching in the streets for the first time, coming of age in a nation they see wracked by racism and violence, as well as sexism. The angry streets protests demanding change across the United States were prompted by the May 25 death of Floyd while in Minneapolis police custody after a white policeman knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

In the latest protests, demonstrators smashed windows and looted luxury stores on Monday in New York City and set fire to a Los Angeles strip mall. Four police officers were shot and wounded in St. Louis, and one critically wounded in Las Vegas.Trying to stem the violence, dozens of cities have initiated curfews, while President Donald Trump said U.S. troops should take to the streets of New York.

Young black Americans already have been at a disadvantage. While black students represent a growing share of college students, they have higher drop-out rates than any other racial group, according to the American Council on Education, a non-profit organization of colleges and universities. Black undergraduates also owed 15% percent more than other students after graduation, it said.

The maternal mortality rate among U.S. black women is more than two-and-a-half times higher than white women, while black infant mortality is twice the rate of white infants, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Gillyard said the increased military presence and growing violence would keep her from returning to the streets now. “It wasn’t much, but I did something. So now what I do from home, the things that I share, the places that I donate to, I’m alright with just doing that now because I put myself on the line, I went out and I stood my ground,” she said.

Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation