On March 31, 1870, 26-year-old Henry Truman, a Black man, was shot and killed by Philadelphia Officer John Whiteside after being accused of shoplifting from a grocery store.
Whiteside had allegedly chased Truman into an alley when at some point Truman turned to ask what he had done wrong, and the officer fatally shot him, according to an account in the Philadelphia Inquirer the following day. At trial, Whiteside claimed he had been ambushed by a crowd while he chased Truman. Whiteside was later convicted of manslaughter. That same year the country adopted the 15th Amendment, which granted Black men the right to vote.
Over a century and a half since Truman’s killing, a steady stream of Black people have been killed by law enforcement, including 1,353 since 2017, according to data from Statista, a digital insights company. In fact, Black Americans are three times as likely to be killed by police as white people are, and they account for 1 in 4 police killings despite making up just 13% of the country’s population.
Members of the Congressional Black Caucus invited the parents, siblings, and children of Black people killed by police to attend Tuesday night’s State of the Union address.
RELATED STORY: Tyre Nichols’ parents accept invitation to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address
In his speech, Biden honored the parents of Tyre Nichols and urged Congress to pass the George Floyd Reform in Policing Act: “When police officers and police departments violate the public trust they must be held accountable,” Biden said.
He added: “Let’s commit ourselves to make the words of Tyre Nichols’ true—‘something good must come from this.’”
.NPR reported:
"It may have been Tyre Nichols yesterday, but it could be any one of us today and tomorrow," CBC Chairman Steven Horsford (D-Nev.) said during a press conference earlier Tuesday.
"He was a son. He was a father. He was a man, a Black man who had a passion for skateboarding, and photography and sunsets. We all want to be safe," Horsford said. "There's no one who cares more about public safety than the people who are impacted every single day by the fear, the anxiety, the trauma, and yes, even the loss, because of encounters that we have historically faced as Black people in America."
Nichols was beaten by five Memphis police officers after being stopped near his home for what police said was reckless driving. He died in a hospital three days later. The officers who beat Nichols were indicted and jailed on charges including second-degree murder.
Nichols’ mother RowVaughn Wells stressed the need to pass the George Floyd Reform in Policing Act, which includes provisions to hold police more accountable such as limiting the use of qualified immunity in civil lawsuits. The bill named after the 46-year-old black man murdered by Minneapolis police in 2020, passed the House of Representatives in the previous Congress, but failed to gain passage in the Senate because of the filibuster.
“I hope today that we can get Congress to see that we need to pass this bill because this should never happen,” Wells said during Tuesday’s press conference with the CBC. “I don’t wish this on my worst enemy.”
Wells and her husband, Rodney, Nichols’ stepfather, were among the guests invited by first lady Dr. Jill Biden to sit in her box during the SOTU address. Others invited by members of the CBC included the families of Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old who was killed by Cleveland police in 2014 on a playground, and Amir Locke, the 22-year-old fatally shot by Minneapolis police in a no-knock raid last year.
Biden also mentioned “the talk” that is often given to young kids of color by their parents about how they are perceived by white people in the world. As explained by Rebekah Sager, “The talk is to help Black and brown kids understand that when they leave their homes to walk to the store, attend church, play at a playground, or drive home from a skatepark, their lives are at risk—and the threat, in many cases, is the organization designed to protect them: law enforcement itself.”
RELATED STORY: Biden acknowledging in State of the Union that ‘the talk’ didn’t apply to his kids was significant
Some House Republicans, on the other hand, have been photographed wearing AR-15 pins, which were passed out by Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia, a gun shop owner, who claimed the pins were “to remind people of the Second Amendment of the Constitution and how important it is in preserving our liberties.”