Maple Grove high schoolers take action against gender violence
Minnesota House lawmakers voted 110-19 to create a state office for missing and murdered Black women and girls
Updated: 4:23 p.m.
Minnesota House lawmakers voted 110-19 to create a state office for missing and murdered Black women and girls.
A state report released last year revealed Black women in Minnesota are 2.7 times more likely to be murdered than their white peers, and while Black women make up only 7 percent of the state population, 40 percent of domestic violence victims in Minnesota were Black women. Nationally, cases of missing and murdered Black women and girls stay open and unsolved four times longer than other cases.
An office for missing and murdered Black women and girls would tackle contributing factors like human trafficking, substance abuse and access to housing.
Rep. Ruth Richardson (DFL-Mendota Heights) is sponsoring the bill.
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“It is a complicated number of factors coming together,” Richardson said. “We also have to grapple with the realities of systemic racism.”
Richardson first introduced her bill in 2019, but said the bill did not gain traction until after the murder of George Floyd in May 2020.
“It took another person being murdered in order for us to start having this conversation in earnest at the Capitol,” Richardson said.
Lakeisha Lee knows the pain of losing a loved one to murder. Lee’s sister Brittany Clardy was 18 years old when she went missing in 2013.
Lee co-chaired the Missing and Murdered African American Women Task Force that preceded the bill to form a state office.
“It’s time for that report not to go sit on a shelf somewhere,” Lee said. Lee has testified multiple times in front of state lawmakers about the struggles her family faced in trying to find her sister.
“When we reached out to officers they said a lot of 18-year-olds do this and she’s probably with her boyfriend,” Lee said.
Lee said her family’s experience with law enforcement showed how harmful stereotypes around Black women and girls can delay a serious police response. An office for missing and murdered Black women and girls would also focus on law enforcement training.
“We are the experts on our families,” Lee said. “We did not like the response we received.”
After 10 days, Lee said her sister was found deceased in her car. Lee has been advocating for families with missing loved ones ever since, creating the Brittany Clardy Foundation.
“This is part of my purpose, my true purpose,” she said.
Rep. Richardson said many families feel they have to take investigations of a missing loved one into their own hands and a state office could also serve as a place for families to turn when they do not feel heard by authorities.
The proposed office would cost $1.2 million annually. If passed in the House, the bill would head to the Senate.
Prevention efforts are key
At 17 years old, Sumaya Abdirahman is already familiar with the statistics on racial disparities in Minnesota that affect Black women and girls like her.
“It’s really sad to know that,” Abdirahman said.
Abdirahman and a small group of girls spend Tuesday afternoons after school at Maple Grove Senior High School in a mentorship program called Girls Taking Action.
On a recent Tuesday, the group decorated posters celebrating key historical figures for Black History Month.
“Everyone here is trusted,” Abdirahman said. “At regular school you feel kind of invisible.”
Dr. Verna Cornelia Price founded Girls Taking Action in Minneapolis 18 years ago. Currently, Price said there are groups like this in schools across the Twin Cities serving around 500 girls who are mostly Black.
Price has been a leading voice in the effort to create an office for missing and murdered Black women and girls to invest in creating more programs like hers that focus on prevention. Price said there are many challenges a young girl might be shouldering.
“They need someone they can talk to to say, ‘someone is after me, I’m in a really rough relationship,’” Price said. “A safe space where they can just tell it without judgment and know we are going to do our best by them, get them what they need, keep them safe, without judgment.”
The Legislature created a similar office in 2021 to focus on missing and murdered Indigenous women.