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Thoughts & Tears for Tyre

We are overdosing on fear in America. The answer lies in community, an openness to new forms of policing, a new conception of justice, and love.

Rev. Al Sharpton alongside RowVaughn Wells and her husband, Rodney Wells, at the funeral of their 29 year-old Tyre Nichols.
Rev. Al Sharpton alongside RowVaughn Wells and her husband, Rodney Wells, at the funeral of their 29 year-old Tyre Nichols. Photo: Andrew Nelles-Pool/Getty Images
Baratunde Thurston
February 5, 2023

I had a dream that the nation descended on Memphis, Tennessee. We returned to the place where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. last breathed so we could breathe new life into his dream. In the face of threats to teaching Black history, in the face of persistent wealth inequality, we would commence the month of February with a recommitment to truth. My dream was vivid. At the gathering I imagined, many were in attendance: Vice President Kamala Harris, Reverend Al Sharpton, even Spike Lee. Speakers spoke the truth and singers sang new songs of freedom. This Black History Month recommitment ceremony was live-streamed and televised. And it was all captured by a young, local photographer named Tyre Nichols, who said he always wanted “to bring my viewers deep into what I am seeing through my eye and out through my lens.” We saw what he saw. This is how you kick off Black History Month, I thought. Then I woke up.