March denounces Chicago's inaction on missing black girls and women

Daisy Hayes' daughter Teresa Smith held up a colorful image of her late mother during the annual We Walk For Her march Thursday night, calling out elected officials and Chicago police for failing to help when her mother disappeared in 2018.

Hayes, 65, disappeared in May 2018 from a Chicago Housing Authority senior apartment where she lived. Hayes' former boyfriend, Jimmy Jackson, then 72, was caught on surveillance video leaving the building with a suitcase and dragging it through the lobby to a dumpster outside. The next day, a garbage truck emptied the dumpster and transported the contents to a landfill in Indiana.

Yet no body was ever found because authorities told Hayes' family it would cost too much to recover it and prosecutors did not need a body to pursue charges. Then, in 2022, Jackson was acquitted in Hayes' death after Cook County Judge Diana Kenwothy found a lack of evidence.

“I had nowhere to go, no one to run to,” Smith told the crowd gathered at 35th Street and Martin Luther King Drive. “I went to police stations, churches, everywhere. …No one would help me. I went to the Kenwood Oakland community organization when I was under stress and they helped me when they started We Walk For Her.

Smith said his community has a voice. “You have people willing to support you,” she said. “This really needs to stop. Just because we live in a certain area code, zip code, doesn't mean it matters. We are all human. This hurts more than anything I have ever experienced in my life.

Young people and adults dressed in lavender T-shirts with the words “We Walk For Her” took to the southbound alleys of King Drive to protest the continuing lack of action when it comes to girls and women black and brown disappeared.

A young woman from the organization Mothers Opposed to Violence Everywhere said police should look at black women the way they look at white women and should devote as many resources to finding black victims as they do when a case involves a white victim, citing example. of the death of YouTube blogger Gabby Petito, which attracted nationwide attention.

Tanisha Williams of the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization told media and spectators that communities of color were outraged and heartbroken by the disregard for their trauma, and demanded more accountability from police and elected officials. She said Illinois needs to pass an Ebony Alert law like California's. Williams said she would like to have civilian liaisons in every police district.

“Too often, families are pushed away or rushed to different detectives or get no answers or feedback for their loved ones,” Williams said. “Too often, agents control this narrative, and today it stops. Today we're saying we want community liaison officers in every police district to be able to interact with victims in the community in terms of real-time community alerts and reporting on what's happening. We want someone to be genuine and empathetic to the affected families.

Jitu Brown, national director of Journey for Justice Alliance, said he believes Mayor Brandon Johnson's administration can accomplish concrete things. Ald. Jeanette Taylor, 20th, said that for seven years in a row, this march and the girls who lead it have called for the creation of a missing women's task force, like the one in Minnesota. As Taylor remembered some of the missing Chicagoans, such as the Bradley sisters and Kierra Coles, she said it was high time for such a task force.

“We also pay taxes; we have the right to say how we are protected,” Taylor said. “At the end of the day, the missing young women in my community are just as important as the missing young women in their community. »

Journalist Trina Reynolds-Tyler of the Invisible Institute spoke to attendees and handed out materials from her Pulitzer Prize-winning series “Missing in Chicago.” She spoke with Edwina Davis, president of the local school board at John Drake Elementary School, who was participating in the march for the fourth time.

“A lot of people want to tell us 'don't talk about race,' but it's absolutely about race because we can match the number of white girls or other nationalities that have been found,” Davis said . “Our girls tend to disappear a little more without being found, whether they are dead or alive. I want to see some consistency, some investigation. Show us you're trying. In all the years of doing these walks, I've learned that we can't be told to wait 24 hours. If my daughter disappears for 5 minutes, I report to the police station. We must be trained, know our rights when we report missing people. If we found Amber with the alerts, let's find Ebony.