Last week, hundreds flocked to Lisle, Illinois for the funeral of Sandra Bland, the 28-year-old African-American woman who died in her jail cell after a controversial traffic stop arrest in Waller County, Texas.
In attendance at the DuPage African Methodist Episcopal Church was local pastor, civil rights activist and Ferguson Commissioner, the Rev. Traci Blackmon, who leads Christ the King United Church of Christ in Florissant.
Without invitation, Blackmon said she attended the funeral in Illinois to bear witness to “the death of another one of our babies.”
“I just wanted to be in the place and say with my body that her body mattered,” Blackmon said. “That her life mattered. And it wasn’t okay for another black woman to be hanging in a cell and we just accept what people say.”
Guest were checked on the perimeters of the property. Photojournalists waited outside, at the family’s request for privacy before, during and after the ceremony.
Blackmon says Bland’s family, pastor and church did a “wonderful job preserving the sanctity of the farewell moment in the black church tradition.”
“They did not allow it to be about anything else other than the celebration of reconciling of the spirit and soul of the person with the God that they serve,” Blackmon said.
“Homegoing celebrations are sacred moments. They are times to minister to those who loved those people, to celebrate with them, and to create space for those to mourn. So often with others throughout our region and nation, that time has been stolen from families with commercialization and media spectacles.”
Many in attendance, including Bland’s close family and pastor, wore white in her memory.
Bland’s pastor boldly defined the theme of the ceremony at the beginning of the procession. As The New York Times reported, Pastor James F. Miller stated: “We are not funeralizing a martyr or a victim; we’re celebrating a hero.”
Blackmon says those words comforted her because they are in the “tradition of the black church.”
“It is so unique to our story and to our struggle, even in the midst of great oppression, even in the midst of great despair, that we somehow praise our way through,” Blackmon said. “Praise is our form of resistance in the black church. It’s not a dismissal of what’s going on.”
The funeral’s most highlighted moment throughout mainstream media came from Bland’s mother, Geneva Reed-Veal. “This is WORR,” Reed-Veal belted. Many understood the statement as, “This is war.”
However, Blackmon clarified the statement. “WORR, spelled ‘W-O-R-R,’ meaning ‘Work Of Righteous Resistance,” Blackmon explained.
Reed-Veal shared her last candid memory of her daughter. Three days prior to Bland’s death, she went on a road trip with her mother. Bland wanted to talk about some of the harder times she and her mother had experienced.
“As a woman comes of age, there are times you don’t get along with Mama, and all of us who were mothers could relate to that,” Blackmon said. “They did a lot of laughing and a lot of crying and apologizing. That’s her final memory of her child. What a gift of God that is.”
On that trip, Sandra told her mom that she finally knew what her purpose was: to shine a light on racial injustice in this nation.
After Reed-Veal was finished, Pastor Miller asked the choir to sing the processional song because the “eulogy was done.”
“He didn’t try to preach over her,” Blackmon said. “He didn’t try to get his words out. He let what her mother said be the last words that we heard on that day about Sandra.”
Blackmon delivered her own thoughts about the deceased on FaceBook: “Sandra Bland was killed for being womanish.”
The term womanish was coined by author Alice Walker. As Blackmon described, “It defines a young, black girl coming of age who is sassy, determined and who won’t be quiet.”
“When I watched that video [of Sandra’s arrest], I watched that officer become more and more upset because she did not give him deference,” Blackmon said. “I think he pulled her out of the car because she refused to give him deference. He felt disrespected. And that’s what I call ‘womanish.’”
Blackmon is keeping in contact with a small group of activists who have been sitting outside the jail in Texas where Bland died and plans to visit soon.
“We do want answers for Sandra, but we don’t locate our hope in moments of despair,” Blackmon said. “We locate our hope in the God we serve. It was so comforting to be in a place where that was made clear.”
This story is published as part of a partnership between The St. Louis American and The Huffington Post.
