Over Memorial Day weekend in 2017, Willie Cory Godbolt, then 34, decided to have things out with his estranged wife, Sheena May Godbolt. She had moved out of the family’s mobile home with their young daughter and son because her husband was violent. Sheena and the two children were staying at her mother’s house in Bogue Chitto, a small community near Brookhaven.
Read MoreThe night of May 14, 2020, in Canton, Jamarquis Black, 24, kidnapped his estranged girlfriend, Pheonecia Ratliff, 23. They had quarreled because he wanted custody of their baby daughter, Jordyn, barely 6 months old. Phoenicia had reported Jarmarquis’ stalking and threats to the police; he had been arrested, but bailed out of jail on May 11.
Read MoreAs Pheonecia Ratliff’s story shows, the main threat to victims of domestic violence is the prevalence of guns. Once her abusive ex-boyfriend bonded out of jail in Canton in May 2020, he could have gotten one from a friend or relative.
Read MoreMother’s Day is a complicated holiday. There are children who have lost their mothers, and there are mothers who have lost their children. For those who have only memories, seeing Mother’s Day cards, flowers and balloons all over can be very painful.
Read MoreResplendent in her Southern Ute of Colorado garb, Diane Millich told a harrowing story. In the late 1990s, at 26, she had married a White man who she said slapped, kicked, punched and abused her emotionally, beginning on the third day of their marriage.
Read MoreAn abusive man may stomp on his partner’s head and neck, wearing his heavy work boots. Or he might hit her head repeatedly against a wall, at least twice a week, for a year. Maybe he pushes her so hard she falls and knocks her head against a massive piece of furniture, giving her a concussion.
Read MoreA new week, a new mass shooting. Just seven days after a gunman killed eight people in Atlanta, including six women of Korean or Chinese descent, another shooter killed 10 people in a supermarket in Boulder, Colorado.
Read MoreSince the mass shooting in Atlanta last week that killed six women of Asian descent, Asian Americans, especially women, are sick at heart, angry -- and afraid.
Read MoreWhatta win! At the 2021 Grammys on Sunday night, rapper, singer and songwriter Megan Thee Stallion, wearing a spectacular strapless orange dress with a train, won Best Rap Song and Rap Performance and Best New Artist.
Read MoreThe Violence Against Women Act, first passed in 1994, makes possible local advocates’ ability to prevent and respond to domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence and stalking.
Read MoreOn the Mississippi Gulf Coast, Stacey Riley is CEO of the Gulf Coast Center for NonViolence Inc. The nonprofit center is the largest program for victims of domestic violence in Mississippi: It runs a shelter in Biloxi, which houses up to 44, and another in Pascagoula with 16 beds.
Read MoreBlack women suffer from domestic violence out of proportion to their slice of the American population, a bit less than 7 percent.
Read MoreIn the U.S., reparations have had a rocky, uneven history. After World War II, in which American Indians served in great numbers and in key roles, Congress approved financial compensation of about $1.3 billion for 178 tribes. But much of it ended up in government-controlled trusts.
Read MoreMississippi writer Kiese Laymon, born and reared in Jackson, has written in his memoir, Heavy, about his dislike of attending rural Concord Missionary Baptist Church on Sundays with his grandmama:
Read MoreThe phrase “Black Lives Matter” was coined by a woman activist in Oakland, California, in 2003. The Black Lives Matter movement was founded by three women activists. Even so, according to the NCADV, more than 45 percent of Black women have suffered domestic violence, and more than 51 percent of Black female homicides are committed by intimate partners. So, one conference participant noted, since intimate partners usually are of the same race, “Black men are a significant danger to Black women.”
Read MoreElection Day is a mere two weeks away. In the midst of the second wave of the pandemic, our democracy remains based on every citizen’s right to vote.
Read MoreTenaj Moody, 26, is a striking and stylish young woman who has earned a master’s in criminal justice and behavior, as well as her license. Starting in 2014, when she was a college freshman, she began speaking publicly about abuse she suffered from her high school boyfriend.
Read MoreEvery now and again, a book comes out that causes me to reevaluate what I thought I knew about women’s history.
Read MoreLast week brought more grim news of domestic violence-related murder/suicide in Florida, where a mother of four was shot by her estranged boyfriend, who killed himself.
Read MoreLast week – as happens 11 times a week—another murder/suicide occurred in Denver. A young Black woman, only 33, was killed by her boyfriend who then killed himself.
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