Black Lives Matter, Advocates for Criminal Justice Reform in Utah, Restoring Ancestral Winds, and other organizations marched to the Salt Lake Capital to raise awareness for MMIW. 

“Yolanda Fransisco-Nez from Restoring Ancestral Winds began with a prayer, filling the atmosphere with spiritual cadence. The first speaker was MMIW’s Michelle Brown who gave a passionate speech spotlighting violence against indigenous women, a group that is killed at 10 times the national average. Shedding light on the unfair treatment of these cases and the inconsistencies in Utah’s laws, she ends her speech by asking those with women in their lives: “Listen to her, protect her, respect her. She is our future.” Following her was the Women’s Issues Director of the Utah Prisoner Advocate Network: Brittnee Webb, who spoke about a group she calls “The Forgotten.” These mothers, sisters and daughters are the incarcerated women in Utah’s prisons and jails. She shared harrowing stories of the treatment of these women, and urged the crowd to vote for leaders who will make changes for this group that is so often left out of the women’s rights conversation.”

Read more about the march in Slug magazine.