To honor Breonna Taylor’s 27th Birthday, on June 5th, I decided to give away FREE copies of #TheBluesCryForARevolution. I didn’t know if it would have any impact nor was I sure how this move would be received.

The result was beyond my expectations and the outpour has been positive. But if all you’ve seen are social media posts and emails, how would you know? Therefore, I’m being transparent and sharing what your support did in roughly two weeks.

6 copies of #TheBluesCryForARevolution was donated to help raise $220 towards honoring Bri and other black lives. This was broken down via the individual donors into 5 different organizations including money directly to Bri’s family. What I am unable to measure is how my posts, no, our conversations can continue to keep her memory fresh on our collective minds until justice is served.

Although Breonna Taylor’s Law was passed and it will ban No-Knock warrants in Louisville, Kentucky the three officers #BrettHankison, #JonathanMattingly, and #MylesCosgrove have not been charged. (Only Brett Hankison is being fired.) And after three months of an investigation the incident report released is minuscule in details and falsely claims there was “no force entry” and “no bias” motivation.

Still, a precious life was recklessly loss and I hope Mayor Greg Fischer and Attorney General Daniel Cameron give Breonna Taylor the justice she deserves by having those officers answer for the crime they committed.

Please take this visual as a tool to help motivate you to take action that you believe in despite how small. And thank you for believing in mine.

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Rashaun J. Allen is the first Fulbright scholar in SUNY Stony Brook’s MFA in Creative Writing & Literature program history. A Vermont Studio Center and Arts, Letters, and Numbers residency recipient whose three independently published poetry collections: A Walk Through Brooklyn, In The Moment, and The Blues Cry For A Revolution became Amazon Kindle Best Sellers in African American Poetry. He has been a 2019 Tupelo Press 30/30 Project Poet, nominated for Sundress Publication’s 2018 Best of the Net Anthology in Creative Non-Fiction and was a 2017 Steinberg Essay Contest Finalist in Fourth Genre. His writing has appeared in TSR: The Southampton Review, Tishman Review, Rigorous, Auburn Avenue, and Poui and River Styx.