Garnell Whitfield Jr.’s mother, had she not been gunned down by a white supremacist a year ago, would be 87.
Whitfield, a man of unbending faith, sees a powerful harmony with the fact that the birthday of his mother, Ruth Whitfield, this year would have fallen on the Good Friday date of April 7, for Christians like him a day of death followed by rebirth.
Similarly, he sees that same harmony with the May 14 anniversary of the murder of his mother and nine other Black people at the Tops supermarket: That day is also Mother’s Day.
“The real story is (Christ’s) resurrection, and it’s my mother’s story,” Whitfield said in an interview this month at his Buffalo home. “That’s my mother’s story because my mother is bigger now than she ever would have been. My mother is bigger than life. My mother has influence and power in death that she never had.”
In the aftermath of Ruth Whitfield’s murder, her family has become outspoken advocates of policy and community changes, especially her son Garnell Whitfield Jr., Buffalo’s former fire commissioner. They are among the families of the 10 who were murdered who are now trying to bring a spotlight to the societal and racial underpinnings of the murder.
And then there is the grief to navigate on the anniversary of the killings.
Activism in the wake of tragedy
Whitfield himself has addressed Congress about proposed gun control measures. He has marched with the victims of other of mass killings. The Whitfield family organized an April conference at the University of Buffalo that attracted national social justice activists and focused on issues from gun violence to the oppressive presence of white supremacy. Ruth Whitfield’s photo was prominently displayed at the conference, and her name highlighted in the conference’s title, “Pursuit of Truth.”
“In the Jewish tradition, when someone passes we say, ‘May their memory be for a blessing,’ ” said Amy Spitalnick, an expert in online radicalization and a speaker at the conference. “The Whitfield family has certainly turned their grief into action and their mother’s memory into a blessing through their extraordinary activism and leadership. The conference last month is a model for the community conversations and partnerships we need in order to break the stranglehold of violent white supremacy and extremism.”
Wherever he is, Garnell Whitfield Jr. said, his mother is alongside.
“She’s always with me,” he said. “My mom is always with me, just as our Lord Savior is always with me. My mom poured herself into me. … I’m an extension of her.”
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Pushing through pain
Though in incessant pain from back ailments and other physical maladies, Ruth Whitfield weathered through, often providing an ear and a heart to others in need.
For a decade she visited her husband daily at a nearby nursing home where he resided. Her husband had suffered a traumatic brain injury, was unable to speak and sometimes did not recognize those around him. She did not miss a visit.
This month at the Tops where his mother was killed, Garnell Whitfield Jr. met for the first time a supermarket manager who often confided in Ruth Whitfield about his personal struggles, and she always responded with an encouraging word that gave him a boost. The manager had a similar conversation in Tops only 20 minutes before Ruth Whitfield was murdered. In tears, he told Garnell Whitfield Jr. of the exchange.
“What we find out is that my mother was much bigger, though she was the biggest thing in my life, she was much bigger than that to other people,” Whitfield said.
Motivated by racism
For Garnell Whitfield Jr., it would be wrong to write off the Tops murderer, as a lone wolf whose crimes were an act of violence in isolation. When speaking of the shooter, Whitfield never mentions his name, instead calling him the “murderer” or “perpetrator.”
Ruth Whitfield’s death is a tragic consequence of the racism that infected the 18-year-old gunman and motivated him to target a supermarket in a predominantly Black neighborhood so he could kill as many Black people as possible. He was inspired by the once fringe “replacement theory,” a claim that there is a concerted effort to replace white people with people of color, including immigrants. Before May 14, the belief slithered into mainstream media, most notably embraced by former Fox commentator Tucker Carlson.
The Buffalo shooter found many like minds on social media platforms and was encouraged and energized by others who shared his racism, Whitfield said. That racism, for Whitfield, cannot be separated from the country’s brutal enslavement of Black people, from the centuries of denial of basic human rights, from the community redlining and educational deprivations that barricaded Black families from the generational wealth so common among the nation’s white residents.
“All of these things are being manipulated … by white supremacists, people who do not believe in justice, do not believe in equity,” he said.
Ruth Whitfield ensured that her family knew their heritage as Black Americans.
“To those people who do not see us, how dare you not see us as Americans?” her son, Raymond Whitfield, said after the murders. ” We stand among the blood and the sweat and the tears of our ancestors. She taught us to be proud of that fact.
“She was unapologetically an African-American princess,” he said.
‘A watershed moment’
Garnell Whitfield Jr., who also served as an assistant commissioner of the state’s homeland security division, said he faced daily racism as he rose through the ranks of Buffalo’s fire services.
“There was not a day that I did not have to deal with people, people that were under me … that did not think they should be answering to me only because I was Black, for no other reason,” Whitfield said.
“George Floyd was a watershed moment … in our lives but, for me, when I saw what happened, when I saw how he died, I believe it was like an epiphany.”
When he watched the video of the Minneapolis police officer who murdered Floyd, a Black man, by kneeling on his neck for nearly nine minutes, Whitfield said what he saw was far more than the asphyxiation of a single man.
“It was the first time I understood what was wrong with me,” Whitfield said. “My whole life I’ve had somebody on my neck and can’t take a full breath. That’s how it feels — the weight of racism, of discrimination, of hate, wearing it, carrying it. I finally understood what it was I felt my whole life when I saw him take his last breath.”
Still, Whitfield said, his faith and the ever-present memories of the words and soul of his mother allow him to persist, with hope and with a belief that there can be change.
“At the end of the day, it’s how you feel about me and how I feel about you. Do I see you as a fellow human being, as a creation of God? Do I see you as a brother or a sister who God saw fit to breathe the breath of life into?
“We can have these conversations and I think that change occurs.”
That is what Ruth Whitfield believed, and it was the fiber of her constant strength, decency and goodness. The perpetrator could not diminish that for those who loved her.
“My mom’s physically gone, but spiritually she’s ever present, and I’m thankful to God for that,” Garnell Whitfield Jr. said. “As difficult as this has been, I talk with my mom every day.”
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