We were getting used to living in the pandemic when George Floyd was killed by a police officer on camera—calling out for his “mama,” he exhaled his last words. The world woke up knocking down statues, taking to the streets, and pushing against violence, indifference, and impunity. Our collective was in the midst of fundraising to alleviate the impact of Covid-19 on Afro-indigenous communities in Latin America. We took to the streets with both wishes: to alleviate and commemorate. We were preparing for the demonstration leading us to the Black Lives Matter March in North Bergen when we heard about Breonna Taylor.

So we decided to heal, enlighten, unite. We held a public mass, for George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, open to all people on earth and under the sun. A multicolored circle of demonstrators in transit joined the performance, sang in unison to uplift their souls, and to raise their spirits with our love. This act of purification, of farewell, to our Colombian, Puerto Rican, Cuban grandmothers, was our offering to acknowledge the transition of those black, brown and indigenous bodies whose lives were violently taken to arrive to an ancestral space too soon. “Ibae, Ibae Ntonu Breonna Taylor; Ibae, Ibae Ntonu George Floyd Rest in peace.”

The struggle is continuing in our hands. This performance was a response to the urgency of the times and a global crisis that continues. By the summer of 2020, the problem of violence against black bodies in the US and the rest of the world had reached a tipping point during the lockdown.