Sometimes I forget that Oprah was once the champion of the downtrodden. The little people. She would help people instead of dazzling us with her expansive gardens and mansions. Not that she doesn’t deserve those things. It’s just less and less we see her really acting to make a difference.
Now, a week after announcing that Breonna Taylor would be featured on the cover of September’s issue of O Magazine, it has been revealed that Winfrey is also taking out billboards around Louisville, Kentucky, urging residents to “demand that the police involved in the killing of Breonna Taylor be arrested and charged,” the sign reads. Also included is a link to UntilFreedom.com, a social justice advocacy group that has currently focused efforts on Taylor’s case.
“If you turn a blind eye to racism, you become an accomplice to it,” a quote from Winfrey, 66, reads on the billboard.
The 26-year-old EMS employee was killed by a barrage of police gunfire in the middle of the night on March 13, after cops entered Taylor’s Louisville home with a “no-knock warrant” based on a tip that her partner, Kenneth Walker, had trafficked drugs through her home.
The pair were in bed when officers broke through her door. Believing they were intruders, Walker fired one shot, injuring one officer. They met Walker’s defense with a hail of more than 20 bullets.
Walker survived. Taylor, shot at least eight times, died several minutes later at the scene.