When a Women Dies (for Racheal Janet Williams)

A Woman named Rachael Janet Williams was Killed on Creasy Lane  in 2013 and I Heard Nothing About It

by Jolivette Anderson-Douoning

I don't run into very many Black men in Lafayette, Indiana and the ones I do run into often avoid eye contact with me. I assume because there are many interracial couples in this area, and  I assume that my dreadlocks, my cultural garments, and my scent of Egyptian Musk or Patchouli kinda gives brothers pause.

I suspect they think I will give them the 'What you doing with that White girl" look or energy. While I admit that energy has been and on some days still is a part of my thinking, I have matured enough to let people be who they are and not get into their business with my world view, regardless of how evolved or devolved I am on any particular day. But this is not about me, this is about Black Women in general, and what happens when we meet our demise.

I was moving my belongings out of my ex-husband's apartment. I called a moving company and scheduled a date and time. To my surprise, TWO Black men showed up to move my 30 years worth of stuff. Some furniture, mostly boxes of books, family documents, and memories. I was so energized when I saw them that when they asked, 'How you doing?", I said, " I'm Black, that is how I am doing. We all laughed because they were happy to see my big, black self too.

As we often do, we start to chat, the way Black folk chat. I am older than them by quite a few years, one brother was from Indianapolis, the other from Chicago. I said, that is all fine and good, but what part of the South are your people from. Their responses: Itta Bena, Mississippi and Jackson, Tennessee. It was a front porch, sweet potato pie, catfish, and collard greens conversation from that point forward.

Then things took a turn for the Ancestral. One brother told me he was displeased with the local NAACP because he felt they did nothing to help him. I said, well if you need me to do a workshop with some of the folk you know on how to respond to the things that happen in town, how to work the system to seek justice, I would be willing to have those type conversations.

The brother explained that his situation was unique.

My daughter's mother wall killed on Creasy Lane in front of the Discount Tire place. It was early  in the morning, before day. She was run over by a car. We put flowers and stuff out there by a tree near where it happened, it is still there.

I admit, I see street memorials all the time, I never thought I would meet someone who  actually put one up in memory of a loved one in a spot I pass on a regular basis.

Instead of arresting the man who ran over her, they came to his home and picked him up. The driver claimed that "she just came out of no where" so a Black detective put him under investigation for killing his daughter's mother. The man that ran over her never went to jail, no justice at all for Sister Rachel Janet Williams or her family members. This was 2013. I had not heard anything about it. That was a hard year for me too because my mother died in April so I thought that was why I had not heard about it.

The young brother told me there was no article in the paper, no news report, no one held accountable for the death of this woman who left a then 3 year old girl-child behind, the child he is now raising alone with the help of his family.

I was hit really hard emotionally. What if I did not come home to my daughter. Who would raise her? Most importantly, I kept thinking about a Sister I did not know. To my knowledge, I had never met her. A mother. A woman with a warm, loving personality. A woman liked and loved by many. This is how her man, the father of her child described her. I can only think and believe her to be someone special.

To be fair, I am assuming much. I never asked if she was Black, but no matter what, she needs to be acknowledged and remembered for who she was, how she died, where she died, and how sometimes justice does not get served. We all leave an imprint, an energy that says we have been here.

I pray for her daughter, I pray for her family, I pray for the justice she deserves.

Racheal Janet Williams, I speak your name in remembrance of your life lived in Lafayette, IN and anywhere you roamed on the planet Earth.  Who will remember us when we die? A very good brother loved you and he remembers the beautiful things about you. Rest in peace, Rise in Power, your energy lives on. Ase!