Eusther Toussaint in North Carolina. Barbara Deer in Illinois. Nancy Metayer, vice mayor of Coral Springs, Florida. Dr. Cerina Wanzer Fairfax, a Virginia dentist. 

And most recently, eight children were killed, and two women were critically wounded in Louisiana.

Over the span of one month, we’ve seen at least five stories of Black women and children killed or wounded in gun-related domestic violence incidents. Make no mistake: these are not isolated tragedies. They are a pattern and a direct reflection of what happens when misogynoir — hatred of Black women — becomes enmeshed with bad gun policies. 

America’s man-made epidemic of gun violence is fueling a horrific outbreak of femicide against Black women, and still, our country refuses to confront this crisis. We talk about mass shootings and community violence, but when Black women are shot and killed by intimate partners or other family members, the silence is profound. 

Unknown Epidemic

Gun violence is gendered. According to data from Everytown for Gun Safety, hundreds of women are shot and killed by an intimate partner every year. Nearly 6 million women reported that an intimate partner had attacked them with a gun. 

But the story doesn’t end there. 

Domestic violence disproportionately harms Black American women. Compared to all ethnicities, we have the second-highest prevalence rates and experience the highest homicide rates in which an intimate partner was the perpetrator. 

What’s more, although about 19 women are shot and killed in a domestic violence homicide each month, very few reports specify how many of those women were Black. And with the Trump Administration having slashed more than a billion dollars set aside for gun violence research and prevention, it could take years before we get a clear national picture of how many Black women and girls are killed by a spouse or romantic partner holding a gun. 

As a gun safety activist, I have worked tirelessly alongside others to help shift the narratives that define how this country and our leaders understand gun violence. Growing up as a young Black woman in Illinois, I saw firsthand how the nuanced issue of gun violence in Black communities is flattened to street beefs and gang shootings, leaving little room to discuss intimate partner violence. . 

As a result, the stories of Black women, shot and killed by someone they knew, are unheard. 

‘Deadly Shootings are Connected’

The gun violence prevention movement and our political leaders continue to ignore a long-overlooked fact: gun violence in America cannot end if we refuse to fully see Black women. 

For too long, the conversation has been shaped by whom the public has been trained to mourn. White women killed by their intimate partners often become national headlines, while their Black counterparts are lucky if their story makes the local news. It’s a harsh reflection of our country’s unspoken hierarchy of grief: some lives are worth rallying around, while others aren’t. 

But grief is not a limited resource. Ending gun violence does not require choosing between which shootings are worth our attention. It requires seeing how all deadly shootings are connected — and how little our lives mean to the gun lobby. 

Black women have been doing gun violence prevention work in communities for generations, and I am proud to stand on their shoulders. We organize vigils. We lobby elected representatives, demanding they keep weapons out of the hands of abusers. We beg the system to listen to us. But the movement itself cannot succeed if it continues to require Black women to save ourselves. It must center Black women.

Black Women are Worthy of Care

That means listening to us before our partner attacks us. It means asking us what safety looks like in our communities. It means funding anti-violence organizations we lead — the grassroots, shoestring community groups that do the heavy lifting of saving lives. It means making space for difficult but critical conversations about misogynoir — how it has infected practically every aspect of our society, including policy and government. 

And it means elevating domestic violence from a secondary category of gun violence to an ongoing crisis driving other forms of violence — including mass shootings and suicide. 

 It is past time to have a movement that looks Black women in the face, while we are still here, and recognize that our lives and voices are an integral part of ending gun violence. We must create a movement brave enough to look at the full truth of gun violence, one that sees Black women as multidimensional people deserving of care and prioritization

Eusther, Barbara, Nancy, Cerina, and 10 women and children in Louisiana deserve no less. 

Mariah Cooley is a board member of March For Our Lives.