Sandra Bland memorial farewells one who dreamed, believed and achieved
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Version 0 of 1. Related: Dashcam video of Sandra Bland arrest released as officials vow transparency Sandra Bland should have been starting a community outreach job at Prairie View A&M University. Instead she was mourned and celebrated at a packed memorial service inside the college’s chapel on Tuesday night. About an hour before it started Texas officials had released dashcam footage of the traffic stop along University Drive near the campus that led to her arrest on 10 July and incarceration at the Waller county jail, where she was found dead three days later. She was on a screen inside the All Faiths chapel too: a smiling image on a large television next to the altar, her gaze seemingly directed at the front pew, where several family members sat. They, like others around them, were visibly moved by an occasion that swayed back and forth from sadness to joy, acceptance to anger, questioning to trusting. As speakers paid tribute to her unique qualities, some in the audience had the uncomfortable sense that her fate was all too commonplace. “I live here, I grew up here, I sleep right around the corner. One day I’m going to have kids, my kids are going to drive the streets,” said Jonathan Randle, a local councilman, as he entered the chapel. “It’s a big deal because it could have been me, my siblings.” The 27-year-old had seen some of the dashcam footage. “It shouldn’t have got to the point where it got,” he said, adding that he believed police often treated African Americans more aggressively than white people. “I think policing in the country as a whole is over-aggressive,” he said. Jacolahn Dudley, the president of the Prairie View student government association, said that “a lot of students thought that it could have been them”. The college, built on the site of a former cotton plantation near Houston, is historically black and more than 80% of current students are black. It is a monument to overcoming oppression in a county, state and country with a notoriously racist history. “They dreamed. They believed. They achieved” proclaims a silver plaque at the chapel’s entrance, next to portraits of past deans. Bland was a 2009 graduate of the school’s College of Agriculture. The 28-year-old’s time in a sorority and a marching band was remembered during the hour-long, standing-room-only service attended by about 250 people. The Reverend Lenora Dabney of nearby Hope AME Church gave an address that began with the New Testament and segued into Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as she referenced Jesus’ life and sacrifice then discussed the posts and hashtags on social media that have helped propel Bland’s death to national attention and encouraged parallels to be drawn with other African-Americans who have died after encounters with police. “God did this because God is going to get greatness out of this,” Dabney said. “Your life will never be the same because of Sandra Bland,” she declared, gasping for breath, her voice almost hoarse, as many in the pews stood and cheered, some with arms raised towards the heavens. Bland was a racial justice advocate who often tagged posts with #sandyspeaks. “When you say ‘Sandra Bland’ everybody is going to know who you’re talking about. Sandra still speaks,” Dabney said. “Let Waller county know that there’s going to be justice in America.” Bland’s mother was among relatives who travelled to Texas from Chicago to meet with officials in search of answers as to how someone who seemed to have much to live for came to be found hanged in a cell, the death officially deemed a suicide but the local district attorney not ruling out the possibility of murder. So far, few answers have been forthcoming. The family did not speak with the media but Geneva Reed Veal, Bland’s mother, told reporters: “I promise you I will talk to all of you when I get back home. I have a baby to put in the ground.” Reed Veal, who works in real estate, gave a remarkable 20-minute speech to end the service. She paced across the altar, her voice hard to hear at times because her right arm flourishes kept moving the microphone away from her face. Her words were tender yet trenchant, shining with deeply personal memories but also the awareness that her daughter has in death become a central figure in a national movement. “Am I mad? Yes,” she said. “There is not any way that I can see that my baby took her own life.” She recalled their last road trip, to Memphis for the Fourth of July weekend, as Bland waited to hear whether she would get the job interview at her alma mater. “We talked about it all the way down,” Reed Veal said. “We had a strained relationship, we had issues but we still loved each other … on this road trip we were able to clear up every issue.” They spoke as she drove down to Prairie View for the interview, then she called her mother to say: “Mama, I aced it, I killed it at the interview.” Bland was convinced that she was fated to get the position, her mother told the congregation. “The girl said, verbatim: ‘Now I know what my purpose is. My purpose is to go back to Texas. My purpose is to stop all social injustice in the south.’” |