Oprah Gives Up O Magazine Cover for First Time – to Breonna Taylor

“What I know for sure: We can’t be silent,” Oprah says in explaining the move

Breonna Taylor
O, the Oprah Magazine/Alexis Franklin

Oprah Winfrey won’t appear on the new cover of O, the Oprah Magazine in August. For the first time in the magazine’s 20-year history the star ceded the honor to Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old Black woman killed by police while sleeping in her own home in Kentucky in March.

“We have to use whatever megaphone we have to cry for justice,” Winfrey said in a note on the magazine’s digital site. “And that is why Breonna Taylor is on the cover of O magazine. I cry for justice in her name.”

The star also shared the story of Taylor’s death and how Louisville police had been “storming into her apartment in the middle of the night. No uniforms. No ‘This is the police!’ Terrifying Breonna and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker.”

When walker called Taylor mother to say someone had broken in and shot her, he still didn’t know it had been the police.

One of the officers lost his job but no charges have been filed — despite widespread outcry.

“Imagine if three unidentified men burst into your home while you were sleeping. And your partner fired a gun to protect you. And then mayhem,” Winfrey wrote. “What I know for sure: We can’t be silent.”

She directed readers to sign Change.Org and Color of Change petitions addressed to Kentucky officials, visit Stand With Bre for guidance on how to call and speak to officials to ask for the officers’ arrest, donate to the Louisville Community Bail Fund to for protesters in the city where Taylor died and hashtag #SayHerName on social media.

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