Who Killed Sandra Bland? Historical Context, Response and Vision for the Future

On July 13, Sandra Bland became the latest casualty in the war on black lives and bodies. Pulled over for the minor infraction of changing lanes without signaling, Sandra Bland was brutalized, arrested, and three days later found dead in her Texas jail cell.

OccupyForum will bring together activists working to address the racism and brutality that continues to tear apart our society. We will hear from Open Circle, and the Idriss Stelley Foundation (including Mesha Irizarry), ground zero for families who have suffered a death at the hands of police, The Anti-Police Terror Project committed to ending state sanctioned murder of Black, Brown & Poor People, CODEPINK which helped amplify the voices of mothers who have lost their children to police brutality. We will also have a representative from the Oscar Grant Committee in Oakland and historians to situate state/police repression in America. We will be attempting to contextualize the Sandra Bland case, and talk about the vision ahead to move from protest to the broadest movement to stop the murder of African Americans on the systemic level.