At the beginning of this year, law enforcement in Atlanta fired 57 bullets, taking Miguel “Tortuguita” Teran from Indigenous queer environmental activist to unwilling martyr. On January 18, 2023, 26-year-old Tortuguita was shot and killed by Georgia state troopers in Atlanta during a protest against a proposed police training facility called “Cop City.”
“This is our time. This is our moment. We are at a very critical juncture as a country and as Black people we’ve always been at a critical juncture, but at this moment I believe that things are shifting.” Devin Barrington-Ward speaks to Charles Stephens for The Reckoning.
In the wake of the grand jury’s decision and public outrage, The Reckoning collected statements from leaders and community activists in Atlanta’s Black LGBTQ community to get a sense of how local thought and movement leaders are grappling with another Black murder at the hands of the state going unpunished.
The Reckoning spoke with two sets of Atlanta Black gay dads who are raising Black boys to discuss how Blake’s shooting has impacted the conversations they’re having as a family about police brutality, social unrest, and surviving in America when the color of your skin is perceived as a deadly weapon.
