TITLE:  “SAY MY NAME”

                                                                   by Andrea Walker Cummings

​

 

 

Media:  Textile-Quilting and Applique

Size:  33" x 23"

Hue:  Brown Tone and White

Copyright 2021

Price:  $875.00

​

​

Artist Statement:

​

On September 23, 2020, the investigation into the death of Breonna Taylor was explained by Daniel Cameron, Attorney General of the State of Kentucky.  In a 53-minute press conference he went into great detail explaining the events of that evening leading up to her death and the charges to be filed against the policemen who broke into her apartment searching for a former boyfriend of hers, a suspected drug dealer.  Ultimately, only one policeman was charged, but with endangering lives in the adjacent apartment. At the end of the conference the whole world realized that the only name not spoken was that of Breonna Taylor.  This became the inspiration and title for my framed quilt “SAY MY NAME” which includes pictures of 20 Black women and men who, through no fault of their own, were killed by the police, and whose names and the circumstances of their deaths should never be forgotten:

 

Killed by police as a result of a call (theirs or someone else’s) to 911 reporting a questionable situation

• Tamir Rice, age 12

• Atatiana Jefferson, age 28

• Yvette Smith, age 47

• John Crawford, age 22

 

Suffocated/shot by police during an arrest attempt or mental breakdown

• George Floyd, age 46

• Taneisha Anderson, age 37

• Shereese Francis, age 30

• Eric Garner, age 43

• Miriam Casey, age 34

 

Killed during or after minor traffic stops

• Philando Castile, age 32

• Marcellus Stinnette, age 19

• Sandra Bland, age 28

• Walter Scott, age 50

• Freddy Gray, age 25

 

Shot by police during an incident/mistaken identity

• Breonna Taylor, age 26

• Michael Brown, age 19

• Rekia Boyd, age 22

• Tareka Wilson, age 26

• Botham Jean, age 26

• Pamela Turner, age 44

 

As of February 1, 2021, 14 of these cases have been settled for $56.45 million.  Six cases are still pending.  This money could have gone a long way in better police training in diffusing situations, when to use deadly force, and how to pass all pertinent information from dispatchers to responding officers.

 

                                                                                 

                                                                                       ANDREA WALKER-CUMMINGS