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UPDATED: 12:00 p.m. ET, Feb 7, 2025
Right now, Sandra Bland would have been 38 years outdated. Her tragic demise is a reminder that the struggle for justice and racial equality continues to be very a lot alive and wanted.
Bland’s demise sparked nationwide outrage, and her story helped ignite the motion, bringing much-needed consideration to police violence and systematic racism within the Black group, particularly struggles confronted by Black girls in America.
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Bland’s birthday got here in the future after that of Trayvon Martin, who would have turned 30 years outdated on Monday.
Bland’s birthday additionally coincides with the 10-year mark since vigilante killer George Zimmerman was acquitted in Martin’s demise, a second that sparked the Black Lives Matter motion.
Activists have labored exhausting to ensure the deaths of Bland and Martin weren’t in useless as their names stay alive and extra related than ever whereas police brutality and vigilante violence alike stay societal scourges by killing Black lives with seeming impunity.
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Bland was arrested through the type of pretextual site visitors cease that ended up killing Tyre Nichols in Memphis earlier this yr.
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That was when the 28-year-old was driving from her native Illinois to start a brand new job at Prairie View A&M College when she was pulled over for a minor shifting violation. However what ought to have been a routine ticketing expertise shortly devolved into brutality when State Trooper Brian Encinia did not deescalate the encounter, which resulted in Bland being charged with assault.
Dashcam video from Encinia’s cruiser advised he was the aggressor.
Three days later, on July 13, 2015, Bland’s physique was discovered hanging from her jail cell, the place she had been remanded due to an incapability to afford a $5,000 bond.
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Despite the fact that Bland’s demise was dominated a suicide, suspicion of officers within the Waller County Jail has lingered as nobody has ever been held accountable.
Bland’s demise befell amid a spate of controversial police-involved deaths of unarmed Black individuals, thrusting her identify onto a rising record on which nobody desires to be.
The WNBA’s Atlanta Dream observe a second of silence for Sandra Bland earlier than a sport in 2020. | Supply: Julio Aguilar / Getty
Since Bland’s demise, her legacy has grown immeasurably. Notably, Texas has reformed its legal guidelines surrounding protocol throughout site visitors stops. In 2017, Texas Gov. Greg Abbot signed the Sandra Bland Act into regulation, which set new mandates for county jails to divert individuals with psychological well being and substance abuse points towards therapy and requires that unbiased regulation enforcement companies examine jail deaths.
The regulation was notably invoked final yr when an inmate was discovered unresponsive and pronounced useless in his cell at Bexar County Jail. In that occasion, the native sheriff’s workplace, in addition to the Texas Fee on Jail Requirements, had been notified of the in-custody demise of Michael Rene Johnson — two teams that, earlier than the Sandra Bland Act being enacted, could not have been instructed promptly, or in any respect, in regards to the incident.
A couple of thousand Black Lives Matter activists in Brooklyn honored the lifetime of Sandra Bland precisely one yr after she died. | Supply: Erik McGregor / Getty
Bland’s identify additionally lives on with the Sandra Bland Middle for Racial Justice in Austin. When it opened in 2021, Bland’s mom defined what the group desires to perform, native information outlet KSAT reported.
“We’re attempting to actually help households with being complete once more. So we’re doing scholarships, we’re doing coaching, we’re instructing monetary literacy,” Geneva Reed-Veal stated on the time.
And in a sign of how essential and widespread Bland’s identify and legacy have grow to be for the Black Lives Matter motion, a “Say Their Names” Memorial was opened in San Diego and prominently consists of Bland.
Not all has been optimistic since Bland’s demise. The justice being demanded by her household since day one has been elusive. Her household has famous amid the nationwide protests towards police violence and calls for for racial justice and equality that regulation enforcement was nonetheless killing Black individuals.
“I’m indignant,” Shante Needham instructed ABC Information in 2020. “I’m indignant that my sister handed 5 years in the past and they’re nonetheless killing us. I’m indignant.”
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