‘We Are Family’ Marchers Bring Attention To Missing Black Women During Harriet Tubman Birthday Celebration
On Thursday morning (March 10), demonstrators marched down 79th Street celebrating the birthday of abolitionist Harriet Tubman. They were also there to call attention to Black women and girls who are missing.
“We are Har-ri-et! I got all my sisters with me!” Steven Davis, a Morgan Park community leader, called out, according to the Chicago Tribune.
The dozens of marchers were reportedly all women as the scene was very festive. They started their day with a larger group under a portrait of Kierra Coles, a missing postal worker who hadn’t been seen since 2018 when she was 26 years old and pregnant.
Coles’ mother, Karen Phillips, spoke at the rally and said it was heartbreaking to continue life without her daughter.
“It’s like a routine I have to go through, to keep myself together from not breaking down or just totally losing my mind,” Phillips said, according to the Tribune. “It’s hard to wonder when you go from seeing your child every day to not seeing her in almost three years.”
Last year, the Cook County sheriff’s office started a project to focus on dozens of unsolved, long-term disappearances, including Coles.
The group of marchers occupied a lane of 79th from South Prairie to South Vincennes avenues and back as drivers honked in support of their cause.
“There’s always been a plan to not elevate and uplift, encourage or support African people, which is ironic and awful because African people built this country,” said marcher Afrika Porter, according to the Tribune. She added that she was trying to set an example for her two sons and grandson, who she says will “always be on the right side of history.”
“Everything is about seeking justice and elevating people that are doing great things in the community,” Porter told the newspaper.