Sandra was a 28-year-old Black woman who was found hanging in a jail cell in Texas in July 2015 after being pulled over and arrested for a routine traffic stop. While local officials ruled her death a suicide, Patrisse and other Black Lives Matter (BLM) leaders didn’t believe that she killed herself; she was a healthy, socially engaged young woman who had just started a new job and was working with her sister to raise money for bail. Patrisse and BLM started a campaign called #SayHerName to raise awareness about Sandra’s death. Part of the campaign was about centering the stories of Black women who die at the hands of police, as they are often left out of the narrative when it comes to police brutality (as opposed to Black men like Trayvon Martin, whose stories become national news).
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Sandra Bland Character Timeline in When They Call You a Terrorist
The timeline below shows where the character Sandra Bland appears in When They Call You a Terrorist. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 14: #SayHerName
...part of BLM. They are talking about having a child together when they hear about Sandra Bland, a young Black activist who was pulled over by a Texas state trooper for...
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...the hashtag #SayHerName to acknowledge how state violence affects Black women, too. The day after Sandra is found dead, Kindra Chapman (18) is found hanging in her cell after being there...
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...too. Some have been killed while pregnant or had their babies cut out of them. Sandra’s death ignites something in Patrisse, maybe because she’s an activist, or because death inside facilities...
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...planning. But in 2015, they move fast; less than a week after finding out about Sandra’s death, they are meeting in the back of a restaurant in Phoenix, planning, singing, and...
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