Rush: Missing Black Women "An American Tragedy" At Panel on Missing Black Women and Girls

Press Release

Last night U.S. Representative Bobby L. Rush (D-Ill.) hosted a virtual panel discussion about missing Black women and girls in the Chicago area. The discussion focused on the disparities in cases of missing women -- with Black women more likely to go missing and less likely to have their cases solved -- and what can be done at the community, law enforcement, and federal levels to solve these cases, clear backlogs of DNA evidence, and build back trust between police and communities of color.

"Nationally, cases involving missing Black women remain open and unresolved four times longer -- four times longer -- than cases that are involving white and Hispanic Americans," Rush said during the panel. "It remains clear to me that there is a lot more that can be done. A single missing woman or child, no matter their race, creed, or color, no matter what their zip code, is indeed, an American tragedy. And America has to step up to the plate. But when the majority of cases -- and the majority of unsolved cases -- involve Black women, some serious soul-searching needs to take place. It's in the order of the highest significance, and the highest priority."

Thomas Hargrove, founder of the Murder Accountability Project, noted that the clearance rate for homicides of women in the Chicago area is well below that of the national average -- and declining -- and that "the rate at which African American women are murdered in the U.S. is much, much higher than for any other race."

Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicates that the murder rate for African American women is about 5.9 out of every 100,000 each year. Black women have around a 1 in 200 chance of being murdered in their lives -- almost three times the rate at which Caucasian women are murdered. There has been a steady decline in the rate at which homicides are cleared through arrest, from clearance rates as high as 90 percent in the 1950s and early 1960s to current rates as low as 60 percent. Hargrove said he expected that murder clearance rates would hit an all-time low once data for 2020 is released later this year.

"The entirety of that decline has been borne by African American victims," Hargrove said. "The rate at which we clear Caucasian, and Asian, and Native American murders has held pretty constant over the last 50 years. The big decline has been in the African American community, where fewer and fewer murders have cleared. And that, again, goes back to the relationship between police and the community."

Julia Flowers, co-founder of the Stop Taking Our Girls Campaign, spoke on the relationship between police and Black communities and the lack of attention given by police to cases of missing Black women, saying in part, "If a white woman on the Gold Coast loses her dog, they're going to find it. There will be policemen looking for this dog to return it to her, they will have cameras there. If a Black girl in any community goes missing, then she's classified as a runaway, when, by the time they start looking, she could be in Michigan or someplace, if they haven't taken her life. I don't know what to say about that. There's no justice for Blacks, and justice for everybody else."

Solutions focused on the importance of building trust between police and communities, clearing the backlog of DNA evidence, and increasing the attention of the media and the public on cases of missing Black women. Rosie Dawson, founder of Stop Taking Our Girls, concluded, "We need to create our own coverage. Force the news to get involved, go to the newspaper, if you see something… say something. We've got to be aware, not just for ourselves, but for our families. We have to advocate for ourselves, and others. My take on this is, bring back Officer Friendly… Find some funds in the police funds for that."

Rush said, "For me, as a Member of Congress, it goes beyond the legislative, and to me it's really a consciousness. It's not an issue of the head, always, but an issue of the heart."

The panel was moderated by ABC 7 Chicago anchor Evelyn Holmes, with panelists Thomas Hargrove, founder of the Murder Accountability Project, and Rosie Dawson and Julia Flowers, founders of the Stop Taking Our Girls Campaign. The full video of the panel discussion is available HERE.

Congressman Rush has been outspoken about the need to do more to address the crisis of missing and murdered Black women and girls. Following reports that dozens of murders of Black women and girls between 2001 and 2017 remained unsolved, Congressman Rush asked the FBI to intervene and start processing backlogged evidence and held a community alert meeting to hear from local law enforcement and family members of the victims. Rush also led an appropriations amendment, which received unanimous support, to increase funding for a Department of Justice grant program to help clear rape kit backlogs.

A transcript of Congressman Rush's full opening remarks at last night's panel is available HERE.

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