Page 20 - The Culture Report

The Culture Report

Free at last… Free at last…

Finaly, after serving 15 year in
prison, Cyntoia Brown has been
granted clemency and is set to be
released this August. The story of the
child rape victim convicted of
murder has, rightfully, been making
headlines on news sites and trending
on social media since last year when
the #FreeCyntoiaBrown hashtag
went viral. Celebrities like Rihanna
and Kim Kardashian posted tweets
about Cyntoia.

"The system has failed. It’s heart
breaking to see a young girl sex
trafficked then when she has the
courage to fight back is jailed for
life! We have to do better & do
what’s right. I’ve called my attorneys
yesterday to see what can be done to
fix this," Kim Kardashian tweeted.

Since then, Tennesee politicians,
especially Governor Bill Haslam,
have been having their feet held to
the fire by civil rights organizations,
#BlackLivesMatter activists, and
simply put, black women.

What Haslam didn't mention was the
violence Brown said she experienced
leading up to that point. And that didn't go unnoticed by the advocates who helped bring Brown's case
to the national stage.

“It is a travesty that he does not address the crimes that happened to her,” says Tonya Lovelace, CEO of
Women of Color Network, Inc., an initiative that works to end violence against women, addressing the
unique challenges facing women of color. "The point is that the actual crime here is the demand for
girls, the child trafficking and the statutory rape that she endured."

ANB House of Royalty Publications