JESSICA HAMPTON #Sayhername

Jessica Hampton Mother - Daughter - WOMAN 

She was on the Red Line train in the middle of the day this past June.  25 year old young woman Jessica Hampton, whom I read was working incredibly hard to get her life together.  She was learning to love herself again. She stopped drinking and was probably thinking of what her next steps to living her best life with & for her daughter who she has left behind...a six year old daughter. Jessica Hampton was loved by many.  She was on her way somewhere and she shook her head no to him and he stabbed her multiple times.  No one stepped in to help her.  People screamed and ran in the opposite direction.  People videotaped her death and took in her demise through a lens and did not step in to stop it.

Like many women, she found herself with a man whose intentions for her ended up being violence at all costs.  This individual has gone to jail for this crime against a woman who simply said no to him and yes to herself.  Jessica's daughter is now a secondary survivor of violence because she could have easily been part of this tragedy.  We could have been reading and watching her demise on youtube, but thank God that was not the case.  I pray she never witnessed her mother and/or any other woman experience physical violence. I pray that she never will have to see it, but I think that is a very big prayer.  I pray that she never will have to personally experience violence.  I pray that her experience with violence ends with her mother.

Violence against women is becoming so normalized...violence against women of color is already a "normal" daily occurrence.  With the help of media and the history of violence against women of color in America, a black woman can sit on a train in the middle of the day and repeatedly get stabbed without one finger being lifted to assist her because it is normal...her pleas for help fell on deaf ears.  She died because it was normal to see the destruction of her body.  She deserved to be heard.  Black women's lives matter!

October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month.  Minimizing and ultimately ending violence against women and girls.  There are many organizations around the country whose mission is just this.  One organization, based in Chicago is called A Long Walk Home.  http://www.alongwalkhome.org/
They will be one of the groups organizing a Freedom From Violence March this Thursday honoring Jessica Hampton's life.

#sayhername #blacklivesmatter #blackwomenslivesmatter

REST IN PEACE