Dear John,

This morning, I issued a press statement on the horrific police violence we’ve witnessed over the last week—and of course for decades before now. But I also wanted to share some more personal thoughts with you—our supporters, friends, and family.

I should start by telling you that I am in a lot of pain right now. I am using that word—pain—deliberately. It captures the sadness, anger, and grief I am feeling about this time.

I am gripped by grief and anger for the families whose children did not make it home. The families of Ahmaud, George, and Breonna, whose stories were told this spring. And the many more whose names we’ve learned over time.

I am sad because living in a time of shareable video is one of the only reasons that we know so many names. And with that, I’ve seen enough videos of Black violence and trauma to last a lifetime. Yet despite this, the calculus made in a moment still allowed for George Floyd’s murder to persist. For Amy Cooper to make a false report about a Black male birder in Central Park because she knew that police encounters are a source of danger for Black people. For a Black CNN reporter to be arrested while filmed live—and that attacking the press writ large continues to be a way to delegitimize any effort to shine a spotlight on these injustices.

Today, I’m also thinking about my own sons who are creative, and smart, and fun, and who will not have the same childhood because of the conversations that we must have in our house. And then I go back to being angry because I know that my effort to raise free Black children puts them at risk.  

This would be too much to bear in any week, but it comes during a pandemic where Black people are disproportionately dying. Where Black and immigrant women are disproportionately essential workers and disproportionately losing their jobs. Yet despite this, we still witnessed a handful of white protesters show up at state capitols, armed, demanding that they go to the gym and get their haircut precisely because they did not care that Black people were dying. And we watched as states ceded to their demands without police violence and abuse. I’ve never seen police so calm in the face of armed takeovers of state capitols—in my reality, that’s not even possible. The fact that now people feel they need to take to the streets—amidst a global public health crisis—to be heard, to have any chance for justice, is a result of the fundamental lack of leadership by our president and other elected officials. How reckless of them. 

I had a long talk with my parents this weekend. They were sharing with me what it was like to be in Detroit in 1967. As Detroit burned, the National Guard came, the army came, and more Black lives were lost. Detroit was never the same. To this day, in my parents’ neighborhood, there remain burned-out houses and formerly Black-owned businesses more than 50 years later not restored. So this week has felt really familiar for my family as my sister rushed to bring my parents food before the roads were, once again, blocked off.

I think about 50 years ago, and who the leaders were that lit a different path for our country to move forward. It wasn’t President Johnson, who had brought us historic civil rights and antipoverty legislation and didn’t have the words to bring the country together. It wasn’t George Wallace, who saw the opportunity to further stoke racial division. Yet leaders emerged. There were moments that gave people hope.

Today, I can’t tell you how to grieve, but I can share what I am doing. I am choosing hope. It is a deliberate act. It is a choice. We have a modern-day George Wallace in the White House, so I am choosing to fight for the soul of this country. I am choosing to believe that people and institutions can change. And I’m doing that knowing none of it is fast work. You do not do this work without a measure of hope. Hope is the work of justice. It is the work of the National Women’s Law Center. And I’m asking you to stay with us—hope with us—during this long but important fight.

In solidarity,
Fatima Goss Graves
President & CEO
National Women's Law Center