Justice for Breonna Taylor

By Fred Ali, President & C.E.O., and Joanna Jackson, Vice President, Programs

Breonna Taylor was a beloved daughter and an aspiring nurse. She was an award-winning E.M.T. During the pandemic, she worked in the E.R. as an essential worker. Her life was precious and irreplaceable, as were the lives of all the countless Black people who have been killed at the hands of law enforcement.

Yesterday, the Kentucky attorney general announced that no police officer will have to answer for her murder. We stand with Breonna’s family and with communities across the nation in outrage and grief. First and foremost, Breonna deserved to live. In her death, she and her family at least deserved justice.

This is a heavy time, and communities are holding so much. The Weingart Foundation is committed to meeting this racial justice moment by leveraging our resources and influence to advance sweeping systemic change. Earlier this month, our Board voted to increase our grantmaking budget this and next year by $16 million. These dollars will provide additional Unrestricted Operating Support to organizations driving change in impacted communities of color, support long-term power building infrastructure in Black communities, and advance the community-driven racial justice agendas of Bold Vision 2028 and the Committee for Greater L.A.

The vision of this nation as a multi-racial, multi-faith, participatory democracy based on caring and mutuality is not an impossible one. But it cannot be reached without addressing the deep-seated anti-Black racism that has been our history from the start, and that we see so painfully in the murder of Breonna Taylor.