By Maegan Smith
Special to the AFRO
Their faces are plastered on milk cartons, supermarket bulletin boards and even on bumper stickers. Sometimes their faces are in a brief item in newspapers or on the local and national evening news. But the faces of the children and adults reported as missing and who get this kind of local and national exposure are not, by and large, faces of color.
“…while Blacks make up only 12 percent of the U.S. population, they account for over 30 percent of the missing population – numbers that are completely disproportionate to what the public sees in the media.”
Yet, according to the FBI National Crime Information Center, of over 800,000 people who were missing in 2007, nearly 300,000 were Black. And, while Blacks make up only 12 percent of the U.S. population, they account for over 30 percent of the missing population – numbers that are completely disproportionate to what the public sees in the media.
Enter Black and Missing Inc., or BAM.
BAM is a non-profit t organization that was recently created by Derrica Wilson, the first Black female police officer in Falls Church, Va. Jones said she created BAM after seeing a pattern of inequality in coverage of missing persons of color.
“There was a young woman named Tamika Houston who went missing in my hometown of Spartanburg, S.C. I didn’t know her, but I felt like I knew her. Her disappearance came around the same time as Natalie Holloway.”
For Holloway, the Alabama teen who disappeared on a class trip to Aruba in 2005, a Google search returned over 7,000 news stories, a Wikipedia entry and countless YouTube videos.
For Houston, the young Black woman who disappeared around the same time in Spartanburg, only two relevant news stories were returned. There was no Wikipedia entry and on YouTube - nothing.
Along with Houston and Holloway, Jones compared Theresa Bunn and Laci Peterson. Peterson disappeared from Modesto, Calif., in 2002, Bunn from Chicago in 2007. Peterson’s picture was splashed on every major news outlet in the country and a Lifetime Movie Network about her was even released. Bunn, an African-American, received no such attention. Both women were over seven months pregnant at the time of their disappearances.
Jones said the creation of BAM is not meant to take away from the attention of Whites who go missing, or shift the focus to matters of race. For her, it is about getting the same amount of media attention and concern for missing persons of color.
“We are not trying to dishonor the White community,” she said. “We are just trying to get equal opportunities.”
BAM spotlights missing persons of color on its website, www.blackandmissinginc.com; sends out newsletters with updates of stories and circumstances of missing persons; and has relationships with media outlets which they use to get stories and pictures on the air.
“The media are our friends,” Jones said.
They also are actively seeking relationships with other organizations devoted to the missing.
One such organization, The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), confirmed their interest in working with BAM.
“We did have a meeting with Black and Missing and we are looking for ways that we could possibly work together. However, we haven’t established a solid collaboration yet,” said Autumn McCain who works in external affairs at NCMEC.
In addition to their efforts to find missing persons, BAM also works to prevent future disappearances. Jones teaches awareness classes and runs a Kid-Safe ID program that provides identification badges for children with digital photos. BAM also runs personal safety classes for senior citizens and a program called Teen Truth for adolescences.
“One thing we’ve noticed is that there is really no recovery service available for families of the missing,” Jones said.
BAM has stepped in to try to fill the void as well as help families get therapy and support with other issues they might face.
Lacresha Stanton, whose brother Alex Davon Buckman disappeared in Spartanburg in 2005, said she wishes there had been an organization around like BAM to help when her brother disappeared. Her brother’s case was eventually solved eight months after his disappearance, but not the way any family would want. The young man later found responsible for Alex’s disappearance had been working closely with the family. He eventually confessed and led police to the 21-year-old’s body.
Stanton shares Jones’ belief that race should not be a prominent issue when it comes to missing persons. But she also acknowledges the lack of media coverage of Blacks, particularly Black males like her brother, who go missing.
“I never threw the race card,” Stanton said. “We all understood what was happening, but my mission was to find my brother…The issue at hand is not race, it’s about trying to find your loved one, and that just gets in the way.”
She now works closely with BAM which, she said, “can be the voice for the [missing] family.” Having been through what the families of the missing are going through, she said, allows her to relate to them.
“If you have gone through it, people are more liable to listen…There is a lot of emotion at times like this and the last thing people want is to talk to someone who doesn’t know what they are going through,” Stanton said.
BAM’s small, four-person staff has already made some inroads in being the voice that Stanton had hoped for. At least four people featured on the organization’s Web site have been found since the site went up on May 24, just two months ago.
Jose Mejia, a 4-year-old Fort Washington, Md., boy who was abducted from his home on June 4 is included in that list. Mejia was found safe and unharmed days after his abduction. In Mejia’s case, BAM worked with a television news contact to get his story out as quickly as possible.
Said the ever-modest Jones, “I can’t say it’s because of Blacks and Missing Inc. that these people were found, but I would like to think that we helped.”
Contact Information:
- Web site: www.blackandmissinginc.com
- Mailing Address: Black and Missing, Inc., P.O. Box 2431
Landover Hills, MD 20784-9431
- Phone Number: (571) 245-4855.