CW: police brutality, gun violence, death

Ms. Emma Jones wears white as a symbol of protest for those brutalized by police terror, including her 21-year-old son Malik Jones. Malik was tragically shot and killed by an East Haven police officer named Robert Flodquist in 1997, simply because the car he was driving matched a description. Ms. Emma Jones created the M.A.L.I.K Coalition in her son’s name to fight police violence in low-income Black communities. The coalition has pushed for the New Malik Rule, “which calls for third party intervention and objectivity in investigations into police violence, tamper-proof recording devices in police cars that would automatically turn on when an officer enters their patrol car, and a Civilian Review Board to oversee police conduct” (Liberation News, Cheyenne).

Ms. Jones continues to organize, build power and love, and grieve for her son with an annual vigil. To the next generation of freedom fighters, she says: “There are incredible shoulders that they are standing on. And they are not standing on shoulders who had money and resources. The greatest resources we had were each other, and that was enough. The love and the respect and the faith that we had in what we were doing sustained us.”