“I was broken, until I learned how to fight,” Maria Hamilton has said. She was broken when she became part of a community that is unimaginable for most of us, the community of mothers who have lost children to unjustified police violence. Her son Dontre Hamilton was sleeping in Red Arrow Park in 2014 when a Starbucks employee called police. The officer who shot him 14 times was fired for a pat-down that was against policy, but not for the use of force. Grief-stricken, Maria reached out to other mothers who had also lost children to police or vigilante violence. This is how she fought, by founding Mothers for Justice United, which provides support for the families of victims of violence. “Unarmed young black men in particular have been effectively executed for minor crimes, such as jaywalking, suspected theft of cigars, selling loose cigarettes, shoplifting, or, as in the cases of Trayvon Martin and Dontre Hamilton, the noncriminal acts of making white people uncomfortable or fearful in public,” says the group’s website, which also advocates for criminal justice reform and mental health. In 2015, Maria and the group organized the Million Moms March on Washington. Every year, Milwaukeeans celebrate Dontre Day on April 30, returning to Red Arrow Park together, an event that memorializes and celebrates Dontre’s life. When we met with Maria, she was working on establishing a permanent memorial for Dontre in the park where he was killed.