The annual Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Conference (CBCFC) wrapped over the weekend after thousands of Black movers and shakers flooded Capitol Hill for a week of workshops and discussions centered around our collective empowerment. One of the most moving sessions of the event highlighted the work of the “Mothers of the Movement,” a cohort of moms who share a tragic bond: they all lost their loved ones to senseless violence at the hands of police or racist vigilantes.
Sybrina Fulton, the mother of Trayvon Martin, took the stage along with Gwen Carr (the mother of Eric Garner), Wanda Cooper-Jones (the mother of Ahmaud Arbery), RowVaughn Wells (the mother of Tyre Nichols), Philonise Floyd (brother of George Floyd), and Tamika Palmer (the mother of Breonna Taylor) to share how they’ve turned unfathomable grief into a clarion call for change.
Sybrina Fulton, Trayvon Martins’s mother speaks as Rev. Al Sharpton looks on during a National Action Network commemoration of the 10th anniversary of Trayvon Martin’s death on February 26, 2022 in New York City. 17-year-old, Trayvon Martin was shot and killed in Florida by George Zimmerman who was later acquitted of murder charges. Source: Alex Kent / Getty
“2,000 Black kids have been killed by the police since George Floyd, and that includes Tyre Nichols,” Wells, whose son, Tyre, was beaten to death by officers in Memphis in 2023, told the packed room of workshop attendees. The federal trial against the three officers charged in his killing started a few days ahead of the conference.
“The blood of these children is on Congress’ hands,” Wells said.
Gwen Carr, whose son, Eric Garner, was killed in Staten Island in 2014 after a police officer held him in a prohibited chokehold, said that depression consumed her after his death, but somewhere in the darkness of grief, a fire for justice woke up the dormant activist inside of her.
“I can’t just lay here. I got to do something. I’ve got to tell people who my son really was,” Carr said.
“It’s been a hard road. This is the 10th anniversary of Eric’s death, and it seems like yesterday. I can remember that day so vividly,” she said.
Carr was the driving force that pushed legislators to sign the Eric Garner Anti-Chokehold bill into New York State law in 2020 that criminalizes police officers who use chokeholds that result in injury or death.
Carr also spearheaded a stunt in 2015 that involved lining up cardboard caskets in front of the State Capitol in New York to urge Andrew Cuomo to appoint special prosecutors for all cases that involve civilian deaths at the hands of police.
Wanda Cooper-Jones, whose son Ahmaud Arberry was killed in 2020 in a racially motivated attack while he was jogging in Georgia, said her mission is to “give little Black boys the chance to run free without being chased or killed.” After Ahmaud’s death, Georgia repealed a racist 1863 “Citizen’s Arrest” law, that allowed citizens to arrest someone they suspected was committing a felony.
Angela Bassett, Lucy McBath, and Sybrina Fulton attend Black Girls Rock 2019 Hosted By Niecy Nash at NJPAC on August 25, 2019 in Newark, New Jersey. Source: Paras Griffin / Getty
Cooper-Jones said while the rollback of the racist law was too late to save Ahmaud, she’s still proud of his legacy.
“He brought changes in the state of Georgia alone,” she said.
As we gear up for another tumultuous election season, the Mothers Of The Movement are urging the Black community to rally around legislation that could help save lives, including the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which would lower the legal threshold for prosecuting officers and limit qualified immunity that protects police officers and government officials who violate constitutional rights from prosecution. Vice President Kamala Harris was a champion of the bill, which passed in the Democratic controlled-house in 2021 — Senate stalled the bill over the qualified immunity issue. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) reintroduced the bill to congress in May of 2024, with hopes the bill can be improved upon and eventually passed.
At the end of the workshop, civil rights attorney Ben Crump took the stage in a moving, open rebuke of police brutality.
He called upon the final words of Sonya Massey, who was killed in her home in July after she called the police fearing an intruder was in her home. Before she was shot by officers in front of her stove she said, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.”
“Hardly anything happens when you kill a Black woman in America,” Crump said.
“Before we get accountability for this discriminatory, racist, criminal justice system in the United States of America, we rebuke you in the name of Jesus,” he said.
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