Former President Barack Obama took to his social media accounts to mourn the injustice of Tyre Nichols‘ death after Memphis police released the devastating video of Nichols’ deadly encounter with police. Obama, like all Americans, has seen this story before — with only subtle variations — too many times to count.
Yet despite how myriad pleas for change seem to vanish without impact, like so many raindrops in the ocean, Obama is trying again after Nichols joins a tragic list that includes George Floyd, Trayvon Martin, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and far too many more victims of unjustified violence.
Obama writes: “The vicious, unjustified beating of Tyre Nichols and his ultimate death at the hands of five Memphis police officers is just the latest, painful reminder of how far America still has to go in fixing how we police our streets. Along with mourning Tyre and supporting his family, it’s up to all of us to mobilize for lasting change.”
After Trayvon Martin was gunned down in Florida 2012, the Obama Administration began the My Brother’s Keeper Alliance (2014) to “address the persistent opportunity gaps boys and young men of color face” and “unleash the power of communities working together to solve problems for boys and young men of color.”
Those communities helped galvanize the nation after the murder of George Floyd by police in 2020, but the problems persist and continue to claim victims.
Obama’s social media posts asks people to visit a section of the Obama Foundation website called Anguish and Action, where Obama provides links to numerous organizations that work to confront and effect societal change around race and opportunity issues in America, including Black Lives Matter and the Trayvon Martin Foundation.
Sadly this week the site added a new link, to the Tyre Nichols Memorial Fund, where fundraising efforts have just surpassed $1 million.
President Biden, in a statement, echoed Obama’s cry for justice and expressed sorrow and frustration for those affected — not just victims of violence, but victims of bigotry in all its malicious manifestations.
Biden described the death of Tyre Nichols as: “yet another painful reminder of the profound fear and trauma, the pain, and the exhaustion that Black and Brown Americans experience every single day.”
