Planting A Legacy for Za’layia
Episode #079
“Each year we want [the garden] just to grow, and grow and grow.... Her little body can’t grow anymore so this is her body, and I want people to realize that. This is her...
“Here’s where I always struggle, I struggle because we have so many good things in Milwaukee and we have a persistent problem. If we’re looking at Milwaukee in 2015 and we see 145 people were murdered that’s a problem. And we can’t ignore the fact that it’s predominantly young black men being victimized and I don’t think we’ve ignored that but sometimes and maybe this is media fault in general it’s hard to talk about race, it’s hard to report on something knowing that you don’t have the same life experience as that person, so the only thing you can do is be honest and upfront about that and try to use the platform that we have to give others a platform to say their story.”
There were 145 homicides in Milwaukee in 2015. The year revealed some persistent trends - that the vast majority of victims were young African American males who died by a firearm. Our partners at The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel recently updated a database designed to track homicide trends…. in an effort to provide a more nuanced look at the homicides... and memorialize victims.
Read Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s year end report, and see their new updated Homicide Tracker tool.
Ashley Luthern interviews Martha Freeman for a Precious Lives story on May 15, 2015, in Milwaukee. Credit: Michael Sears | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
