Episode 31: From Erasure to Empowerment

In today’s show, we’re talking about missing and murdered black women and girls with Dr. Kamila Alexander, associate professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, and Dr. Tiara Willie, assistant professor at the School of Public Health and Bloomberg American Health Initiative. This is a critical issue because 40 percent of all missing women and girls who disappeared in the U.S. in 2022 were Black, and murder was their second leading cause of death. October is also domestic violence awareness month, so the topic couldn’t be more timely. Dr. Alexander and Dr. Willie recently championed their cause through policy at “From Erasure to Empowerment: A Call to Action for Missing and Murdered Black Women,” an educational briefing and policy discussion featuring panelists Representative Ilhan Omar [D-MN] and Chair of the Congressional Caucus on Black Women and Girls Representative Bonnie Watson-Coleman [D-NJ]. The event was hosted with the Congressional Black Caucus, and sponsored in partnership with Research in Action, the Brittany Clardy Foundation, the National Council of Negro Women, the National Organization for Women, and Ujima, the National Center on Violence Against Women in the Black Community. Learn more about the topic with Black women researchers Dr. Tamar Rodney, Dr. Kamila Alexander, and Dr. Tiara Willie.   Podcast References and Resources: From Erasure to Empowerment: A Call to Action for Missing and Murdered Black Women An epidemic of missing Black women has been ignored for too long