‘Imagine If Three Unidentified Men Burst Into Your Home’ Oprah Wrote In Her Call for Justice for Breonna Taylor

The face millions of Black Americans have come to recognize as Breonna Taylor now stares back from the newstand, situated on the cover of Oprah’s magazine, literary real estate the media mogul claimed for herself for years until she decided to place Taylor there to call attention to the police killing of the 26-year-old emergency medical technician.

“What I know for sure: we can’t be silent,” Oprah tweeted.

Charges have not been filed against the three Louisville, Kentucky officers who arrived at Taylor’s apartment in March wearing plainclothes to execute a no-knock warrant. Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, exchanged gunfire with the officers who he thought were intruders. Taylor was shot eight times.

News of Taylor’s death at the hands of police began to circulate as the public became aware of Ahmad Arbery’s videotaped murder allegedly by a father and son in Georgia and before George Floyd was filmed taking his final breaths under the punishing knee of a former Minneapolis police officer. And in time, Taylor’s name was added to the chants of protesters around the nation.

Oprah also purchased billboards featuring Taylor in Louisville. And, the WNBA decided to dedicate the season to her and the #SayHerName Movement, which memorializes the Black women killed by police.

Recently, the New York Liberty and the Seattle Storm paused for a 26-second moment of silence in tribute to Taylor, who was 26-years-old. 

“We are dedicating this season to Breonna Taylor, an outstanding EMT who was murdered over 130 days ago in her home,” the Liberty’s LayShia Clarendon stated. “We are dedicating this season to the Say Her Name Campaign, a campaign commited to saying the names and fighting for justice for Black women.”

Although charges have not been filed, Taylor’s face has become a symbol of police brutality. In a historically Black neighborhood in Maryland, Future History Now, a non-profit, partnered with the Bannker-Douglass Museum and the Maryland Commission on African American History and Culture to paint Taylor’s face across the expanse of several basketball courts, making it a 7,000-square-foot mural.

“We wanted to draw attention to the fact that women too are victims of police brutality,” said organizers at Future History Now.