A police officer was approaching her car, but CT’s Chief Impact Officer Nicole Massie Martin could barely see him. Her vision wasn’t blocked by darkness or a crowd, but by her mind flooding with images of Black men and women who had been killed by officers for minor offenses. Martin, who was driving one of many cars that had pulled into an airport’s emergency lane to wait on arrivals, wondered if she would be the next person sentenced to death for a misdemeanor.
But the officer who approached Martin was kind. He asked her to breathe and helped her to calm down. Once their interaction was over and the officer drove away, Martin began to weep.
“I cried for all of the Black men and women who begged for their lives and still died. I cried for Manuel Ellis, Philando Castile, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Alton Sterling, and so many more.”
In “The Latest Black Tragedy Is My Trauma Too,” Martin looks to her faith in Jesus for answers, healing, and the wisdom to better a system that has harmed so many who look like her. She encourages readers away from a polarized approach to change, writing, “The answer is neither in defending so-called ‘Blue Lives’ nor in defunding the police. The answer is now and has always been in Jesus Christ.”
May Martin’s words remind us that faith has long been the foundation for civil rights leadership and progress. And may we join her in paying attention to the pain around and within us, acting with mercy and justice to repair what is broken.
