Yandy Smith: Leading Lady of the New Civil Rights Movement

We as a community are quick to judge reality TV stars, especially when they happen to be black women. However it is important to give people their flowers when they are doing exceptional work to uplift our community and right now it is time to hand the bouquet to Love and Hip Hop New York star Yandy Smith. This Howard graduate joins the ranks of influential black women'

s in the movement,having been extremely vocal about police brutality and black targeted violence since the movement’s inception in 2016.

Not only has she used her influence for the food of the modern civil rights movement but several on occasions her safety was actually threatened while protesting racial injustice. For instance in 2019 , Smith was protesting outside of the metro detention center in Brooklyn, NY, amidst reports that inmates were going days without heating or power during the harsh New York winter. According to Fox 5 news reporter Lisa Evers, Yandy was simply trying to Comfort a mother of an inmate and when she was pepper sprayed.

In more recent events this year, while protesting in Louisville KY for Breonna Taylor a young black woman shot in her home by police, she along with many others were arrested. The charges were for intimidating a participant in a legal process, disorderly conduct in the second degree and criminal trespassing, all while Breonna Taylor’s killers have yet to be charged with anything. Yandy Smith has been doing her parting in making sure that black voices are heard and black injustices are made known. Black women historically have had their contributions to black social justice movements diminished and so it is important for us to lift our leading ladies up as they continue to work hard for our community.