An act of courage submission for the 1000 Acts of Courage campaign – a community-building conscious action campaign collecting one thousand courageous acts for the well-being, empowerment, and equity of girls and women:

An act of courage is most likely identified as such after the act, when the dust settles and you have time to think about it in the larger context. At the moment the decision is simply to act or not. Such was my experience about 10 years ago when some folks asked me to help a black woman who had been stopped for speeding on her way home from her nursing assistant’s job. The incident escalated and resulted in her being arrested on several felonies, the facts of which seemed unjustified. 

Over the next year I led a group of white and black, male and female, community members to challenge law enforcement’s “blue wall” protecting the office, to show up at court hearings, hold rallies, to stand on the steps of Prescott’s Courthouse to show support and seek justice for her. A jury found her guilty, but the judge, we think, saw the problem for what it was and gave her no jail time and unsupervised probation.

Today she is a successful nurse, but it took years for her to get her rights back and her record completely cleared as though the nightmare never happened. Getting involved in such a case had its risks for all of us in a state with little diversity tolerance. It was a great example that when we stand together for justice, we win.

JOIN THIS POWERFUL MOVEMENT – SUBMIT YOUR STORY OF COURAGE TODAY!!