Testify

“You may have heard the talk of diversity, sensitivity training, and body cameras. These are all fine and applicable, but they understate the task and allow the citizens of this country to pretend that there is real distance between their own attitudes and those of the ones appointed to protect them. The truth is that the police reflect America in all of its will and fear, and whatever we might make of this country's criminal justice policy, it cannot be said that it was imposed by a repressive minority.”

― Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me

“Those who commit the murders write the reports”
― Ida B. Wells-Barnett

Photographer: Tyre Nichols

“I asked another friend what it's like being the mother of a black son. "The condition of black life is one of mourning," she said bluntly. For her, mourning lived in real time inside her and her son's reality. At any moment she might lose her reason for living. Though the white liberal imagination likes to feel temporarily bad about black suffering, there really is no mode of empathy that can replicate the daily strain of knowing that as a black person you can be killed for simply being black: no hands in your pockets, no playing music, no sudden movements, no driving your car, no walking at night, no walking in the day, no turning onto this street, no entering this building, no standing your ground, no standing here, no standing there, no talking back, no playing with toy guns, no living while black.”

― Claudia Rankine, The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race

"I want him to be remembered as the kid smiling in the skate video and not the kid that was fighting for his life."

"He always tried to bring everybody together and put a smile on anybody else's face before his own.”

― Austin Robert, Tyre’s childhood friend, who posted a YouTube video of Tyre skateboarding in high school.

Tyre’s Mom, RowVaughn Wells, said he’d take sunset shots almost every evening.

…………………….Tyre Nichols is also survived by a 4 year old son.