Oaklanders Demand Justice for Sonya Massey with Protest, Poetry and Prayer

People across the country are demanding justice for Sonya Massey, a 36-year-old Black woman killed by police in her own Springfield, Illinois home after calling them for help on July 6. In Oakland this week, Black women and queer people have been leading protests and vigils; giving tight hugs through tears; and mustering uplifting prayers, poems and rallying cries that draw upon centuries-long legacies of resistance against white violence and oppression.

At a vigil and open mic at Lake Merritt on July 29, young organizers hauled out amplifiers and passed out candles for an altar that bore the names of Massey and dozens of other Black victims of state violence. Four years after the uprisings that followed George Floyd’s murder in 2020, and 15 years after Oakland protesters demanded justice for Oscar Grant, the mood was a mixture of defiance, tenderness, exhaustion and frustration.

Organizers hoped to put the spotlight back on police killings of Black Americans, which have increased year by year since 2020. Though that year was heralded as one of national racial reckoning, federal reforms like the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act failed to pass Congress. Amid conservative backlash, many companies and institutions rolled back the diversity efforts they promised, and headlines moved on.

“I’m tired of never being able to fully live because I’m fearful of death,” Oakland resident Joli Zahra Drevitch said on Monday, reading from a spoken word piece before a crowd of about 150 people. “I’m tired of being a blueprint for America in everything, yet when your sisters are murdered, only Black women say their names.”

As people passed around the megaphone, strangers and friends alike comforted those sharing raw grief and anger.

“If anybody out here is not a Black woman, not a Black femme, and you’re like, ‘Well, what can I do? How can I make this better?’” said one speaker who didn’t share her name. “The system is built against us. … What you can do right now is just make shit easier for Black women and Black femmes in your life.”

“Make room for Black women to heal and be healed. To be nurtured. To be prioritized,” echoed another speaker.

In an interview, several of the activists who put together the event said that it’s important for people to get to know their community and build networks of support. “We need to abolish the prison-police state, and we need to completely start re-envisioning a new, radical future,” said co-organizer Lois Williams.

Another organizer who goes by Trilla the Pharaoh emphasized the importance of mutual aid groups. They work with West Side Tenants Association and said the volunteer coalition has redistributed $55,000 in donations this year to people struggling with housing and food insecurity. “If it’s urgent, if it’s a mother, a family, they’re top priority,” they said.

That spirit of community building was present at several gatherings that took place on Sunday, July 28. Around midday, Anti Police-Terror Project (APTP) held a rally that drew a crowd of hundreds to Frank Ogawa Plaza, known as Oscar Grant Plaza to many. Among the speakers were Oscar Grant’s parents, Wanda Johnson and Oscar Grant Sr; his Uncle Cephus “Bobby” Johnson; and artists, poets and community organizers.

Audibly fighting back tears at times, APTP co-founder Cat Brooks emphasized that half of people killed by police have disabilities, including those with mental health challenges like Sonya Massey. Systemic inequality and racism only exacerbate those issues in the Black community, she underscored.

“We hold all of that trauma in our bodies and there’s nowhere to express it because if we did, we could not function,” said Brooks. “But then we turn around and we don’t understand why the woman with four kids and six jobs who still can’t pay her bills, why that Black queen is screaming on a corner in East Oakland in broad daylight. And the answer is to continuously criminalize and kill us for it. We say, ‘No more!’”

At their Oakland headquarters, APTP offers free massage therapy, acupuncture and other healing services for victims of state violence. They also run a program called Mental Health First in Oakland and Sacramento that sends trained volunteers to assist people in crisis. Brooks implored people to get involved, beyond attending one-off protests, and join APTP’s volunteer efforts.

“It’s your turn,” echoed poet and musician RyanNicole at the July 28 event. “No more sitting down. No more being small in your purpose. If you wake up with breath. If you have a voice. If you have any ability in your body, it is your rightful service to act up.”

Later that night at a separate vigil at the plant shop and community space Blk Girls Green House, a similarly solution-oriented discussion followed a round of vulnerable sharing of sadness, fear and rage. In the store’s palm leaf-lined back patio, an intergenerational crowd of about 20 people, mostly Black women and nonbinary people (including a couple of laughing babies), brainstormed about self-defense classes and community gardens.

Writer Isis Miller led the group in a prayer, and poet Christell Victoria Roach shared verses that celebrated the beauty of Black families, communities and healing spaces. “As much as I feel dismayed, hurt, targeted — all the things that one might feel when you face what’s happening in the news — I still find a gift in it that I know I’m not the only one feeling that way,” she said. “I know that for centuries, we’ve survived because we didn’t feel it alone.”

Blk Girls Green House co-owner Kalkidan Gebreyohannes said community members are welcome back to the shop to continue the discussion and strategize around actionable steps. Stepping away from the crowd, she added that she was disappointed the vigil didn’t attract more people after it got a massive response on the shop’s Instagram. Throughout the weekend, many expressed frustration that Sonya Massey’s killing wasn’t generating as big an outcry as that of male victims of police violence.

Yet the small gathering at Blk Girls Green House allowed for people to make warm, personal connections and exchange contact information to keep the conversation going. “Everyone who was meant to be here was here,” Miller reassured her.

The next day at the Lake Merritt open mic, Miller said they had left the vigil a bit more hopeful than they arrived. “So much of the violence that happens is meant to disempower us and to separate us,” they said. “I know we have a long road ahead. But I know that we’re going to make strides as long as we’re strategic and as long as we continue to rely on each other and understand that no one is coming to save us.”

“I still have a heavy heart, but I believe a better world is possible,” they added, “and I don’t think anyone can take that belief away from me.”

A community altar build for Sonya Massey will take place Tuesday, July 30, 5–7 p.m. at Temple of Earth Apothecary (536 Grand Ave., Oakland) across from Lake Merritt.