BRONZEVILLE — Since 2001, 50 mostly Black women and girls have gone missing or turned up murdered in Chicago. There’s been speculation about a serial killer, and after years of protests, the FBI joined the Chicago Police Department to investigate these cases.
But they remain unsolved.
On Tuesday, hundreds are expected to march in Bronzeville for the fourth time to bring attention to these cases.
In 2018 at just 13 years old, organizer Aziyah Roberts led the first march for these women — and she hasn’t backed down since.
“I was angry that Black girls and women around the city going missing, being harmed, abducted, and even murdered and not much was being said or done about it. I went to my grandmother and to KOCO. I told them we should do a march,” Roberts said in a statement.
She now works with KOCO — the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization. The march will kick off at 5 p.m. Tuesday in front of Chase Bank, 35th Street and King Drive, ending at 51st Street and King Drive.
The march, dubbed “We Walk For Them,” aims to bring attention to the unsolved slayings of Black women and girls in Chicago.
KOCO will be joined by Good Kids Mad City, H.E.R., Mothers Opposed To Violence Everywhere (M.O.V.E.), Protect Black Girls, Long Walk Home and Ald. Jeanette Taylor (20th).
So far, it is unclear what progress has been made since the formation of an FBI/Chicago Police Department task force in 2019 after local activists called on law enforcement to act. Some missing persons cases go as far back as 2001.
While organizers successfully lobbied for the state police to make policy changes to address the hundreds of cases backlogged due to DNA testing, the activists hope to keep the pressure on police and local officials to get those cases solved and prevent new ones.
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