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On July 6, Sangamon County Sheriff’s Deputy Sean Grayson fatally shot Sonya Massey after she called 911. She suspected that a possible intruder was in her home near Springfield, IL. Sonya Massey said to the deputies responding to her call, “Please don’t hurt me.” She lost her life slowly as Grayson said, “no, she’s done,” in response to another deputy offering to go get his med kit.Sonya Massey’s death came only a few months after the murder of her four-year-old cousin Terrell Miller, also at the hands of Illinois police.
The world should have learned about Sonya Massey through her achievements. It hurts to learn her name only in death. By the time of her passing at the age of 36, Sonya Massey was a mother of two and a graduate. She also was the descendant of William K. Donnegan, who was lynched by a white mob, and lastly she was a paranoid schizophrenic simply looking for help. This fact sadly reminds us that disabled Black women remain one of the most unprotected groups of people.
Many learned the name of Sonya Massey and were immediately filled with rage as they took to the streets. I was one of these people, and it wasn’t until I rallied and screamed her name that I understood the grief that laid in my chest with the weight of the sun.
I’ve been an organizer for a bit over five years now but I’ve been a child in America watching those with faces that look exactly like mine having their lives taken by law enforcement for far longer. When I watched so many people fight back tears and hug one another in the streets of Chicago while screaming for justice for Sonya Massey, it wasn’t me seeing the world as an organizer. It was grief.
It wasn’t anger that pushed us to the streets. It was love.
While no one in the rallies I attended knew Sonya Massey personally before her passing, all our hearts broke the same as if we’d known her our entire lives. It wasn’t just a want to bring people together after Sonya Massey’s death. For me and my community, it was a need.
On Aug. 3, Florecer, a Black and brown-led organization on the Southwest Side of Chicago dedicated to bettering the lives of Black and brown youth, held a vigil and open mic in Sonya Massey’s honor in El Paseo Garden. The goal was to create a safe space for all people to grieve the killing of Sonya Massey through food, community, prayer and performances.
As the event started, there were quick attempts to disrupt it. Four Chicago Police Department (CPD) squad cars circled the garden as members of the community flooded in. One of the organizers of the event asked a volunteer of El Paseo Garden if this amount of surveillance was normal; the volunteer then joked that the police don’t even show up when they call them.
Despite this, the vigil was beautiful. As people came in, they grabbed white roses and candles to bring to the altar of Sonya Massey, created by Florecer, where they wrote and shared messages. One community member wrote, “Dear Sonya, I’m sorry the world did not deserve you momma, I’m sorry the pigs made you a martyr. I hope to right the wrongs in our system in tandem with revolutionary people.”
Sonya Massey’s death reminds us all that love, especially the love of a Black body, is a revolutionary ideology. We are taught to only care for ourselves in this world; so that when we hear the story of a Sonya Massey, Terrell Miller, or even a Breonna Taylor, we are thankful that it wasn’t us.
This thinking robs us of so much. It robs us of empathy. It robs us of personhood and it robs us of love.
Love brought nearly 100 people together on Aug. 3 for Sonya Massey in Chicago. No one knew her personally but could say for certain that they all loved her in some way. Sonya Massey, like all other martyrs of the police, should still be alive.
