LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Members of the Louisville community gathered at Jefferson Square to honor the fifth anniversary of Breonna Taylor’s death on March 13, 2020.
Mark Pence said it’s important to keep her legacy alive.
“It’s important for us to keep coming out because not only is Breonna a figure of the civil rights movement for modern times, but us, the people that came out, we are the Panthers of today. We are the fighters of today,” said Pence.
Pence said Breonna’s death created a movement that brought people from across the city, the state and the country together.
“The real state motto of Kentucky is ‘united we stand, divided we fall,’ and guess what? 2020 we showed the world to white, Black, pink, purple, Muslim, Christian, whatever you are, we going to stand together,” said Pence.
In 2020, the movement grew quickly sparking marches and protests nationwide. Some saw Taylor’s death aflash point for the Black Lives Matter movement.
After joining in those protests, live streamer Maxwell Michell said it grew from there, pushing him and so many others to fight for change in her name.
“When I started marching and protesting, it was about finding justice for Breonna Taylor, as it still is today. But there was also an element that it was became symbolic toward many Black lives that were either being jailed and justifiably so, or their lives were taken unjustifiably so,” said Mitchell.
Pence said efforts to hold law enforcement more accountable is not just about Black and white. It’s about making the city a place to come together.
“It’s a place where everybody [can] feel welcome, where everybody can go to sleep at night and have the peace of knowing that they’re going to wake up in the morning, but also knowing that they don’t have to feel as though the people that are supposed to protect and serve are not protecting and serving us,” said Pence.
Pence said Breonna should be here, but says he and others will keep fighting for the justice that she deserves.
