MERIDIAN, Idaho — Peaceful protests swept the U.S. after the death of George Floyd, an African-American man suffocated by police in Minneapolis.
In the midst of the Black Lives Matter movement, 18-year-old Kylee Lightner turned to art to highlight the stories of George Floyd and others who lost their lives to racial injustice and police brutality.
Lightner is a graduate from Compass Public Charter School in Meridian, and will attend Boise State University in the fall.
During her summer break, Lightner said, she has had a lot of time to observe the protests happening in Boise and around the country as part of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Lightner wanted to get involved but didn’t know what to say. So she turned to art and created “Say My Name."
“It’s the words on top of the picture itself,” Lightner said. “To me, it means to bring up stories that might get buried in everything going on and bring to light the oppression that African-Americans face in the country.”
Lightner’s design is a raised fist, made up of the faces of African-Americans who lost their lives to racial injustice.
Some of those faces include Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd.
“I started realizing how many incidents there are and I kinda wanted to make a piece,” Lightner said. “I learned a lot through it because I had to do some research on the victims.”
Lightner said her father was one of the reasons she was inspired to create “Say My Name."
“My dad is African-American, so that’s part of my own heritage,” she said. “This kind of incident could happen to my dad, my uncle, my grandpa, just because of their skin color…and I love to do art.”
Lightner says she turns to art when it is hard for her to express her emotions through words.
“There’s just too many names for this issue to be pushed under the carpet, and I think sometimes it even goes past just racism, but just right versus wrong,” she said. “I hope that [“Say My Name”] encourages people to use their voice and speak out on the matter, because we’re definitely able to accomplish more as a group.”
Lightner is expecting to major in Criminal Justice and minor in Art at Boise State.
She plans to work on more projects like “Say My Name” on the topic of racial injustice in the future.