Minnesota’s new Murdered and Missing Black Women and Girls Office could serve as model for country

Lakeisha Lee’s sister, Brittany Clardy, would have turned 30 on June 29.

But Clardy went missing in 2013 when she was 18 years old. Lee said that when her family reported Clardy’s disappearance to police, they dismissed them and told them that Clardy probably ran away with her boyfriend.

“That’s what they were inferring at first,” Lee said. “No, that’s not what happened.”

Clardy’s beaten body was found 10 days later in an impounded car. A man who was not her boyfriend was later charged and convicted for murdering her.

More than 10 years later, Lee is still advocating for Black women in Minnesota who go missing or who are murdered. She co-chaired a task force in 2022 that was created by the Legislature to study the issue and provide recommendations to lawmakers.

One of those recommendations was to create the first state office in the country dedicated to murdered and missing Black women. A law to establish the office passed in 2023, launching the Murdered and Missing Black Women and Girls Office this year. Its first director, Kaleena Burkes, was appointed this spring.

“There is an attack on Black women and girls and their families,” Lee said. “We are not being supported properly, and I’m praying that this office will be able to do some research that’ll show some light to that.”

Those who championed the office say it’s desperately needed, and some are working with other states to establish similar offices and push for more support nationally. They say the issue has been widely ignored even though Black women and girls are disproportionately impacted by violence.

Data shows that Black women in Minnesota are nearly three times more likely to be killed than their white peers. And while Black women make up only 7% of the state’s population, they comprise 40% of domestic violence victims in the state. Black women also make up 40% of sex trafficking victims in the United States.

“I understand historically what has happened,” Lee said. “So that’s why I have to continue speaking up. That’s why I have to continue talking about it, because it’s still happening.”

The office’s first director

Burkes said she hopes that as the office’s director, she can “give a voice to the voiceless.”

“Being a Black woman in America, I feel like there have been often times where I’ve been silenced and where I’ve been harmed,” Burkes said. “And when I talk about those experiences to people who should do something about them, they’ve kind of dropped the ball, and so we’re left picking up the pieces ourselves.”

Since childhood, Burkes said, she’s seen Black women’s pain get pushed aside. When she was 11 years old, she witnessed a white student call a Black student a racial slur on a school bus. But when she and other students reported the incident to the school, no action was taken.

“That moment was pivotal for me, because it basically told me I should remain silent about my own harm,” she said.

Burkes was born in Detroit, and moved to Alabama as a child. She’s lived in Minnesota for about eight years.

Before stepping into her new role, Burkes worked for seven years on the state’s Guardian ad Litem Board, which advocates for and represents the interests of children in court matters. There, she worked to implement advocacy and racial equity initiatives. She also worked in criminal justice research at the University of Minnesota’s Law School.

Burkes was adopted as an infant, which inspired her to help those in the child welfare system. Trauma she endured as a child and young adult, such as losing both her parents before she was 20 years old, helps her connect with others who have had difficult experiences, she said.

“I think all of that just gives me a different level of empathy for people,” Burkes said. “And it helps me see the humanity in the people that we’re dealing with.”

Burkes said her main goal for the office is to save lives, even if it’s just one, and to help families. Other goals include building relationships with law enforcement across the state and hiring more staff. Burkes says the office has funding to hire six people; she hopes to hire three by the end of the summer.

Burkes has been setting up meetings with community members, law enforcement agencies and people with firsthand experiences with missing and murdered Black women and girls. Burkes said in an interview in mid-June that the task can feel daunting because she was the office’s only employee at the time.

“I think that is a huge barrier right now, because I’m one person and time is limited,” she said.

To prepare for her role, Burkes spent a day helping the state’s Murdered and Missing Indigenous Relatives Office search the woods for Jeremy Jourdain, who went missing in 2016.

“My thought process was, ‘I can’t hire people and expect them to do this if I’m not willing to do it,’ and it was eye-opening,” she said. “Even though it was informative, it was very heavy to be looking for a young child who may no longer be alive. While I learned a lot, it sort of put into perspective how heavy this can be from day to day.”

Creating the Murdered and Missing Black Women and Girls Office was just one recommendation the task force outlined in 2022. Other recommendations included creating more resources and spaces for Black women and girls, improving coordination between agencies to increase accessibility of services, and hiring more Black staff in the field.

Minnesota’s effort could potentially serve as an example for the rest of the country.

Minnesota U.S. Representatives Ilhan Omar and Betty McCollum, both DFLers, sent a letter to U.S. President Joe Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland in late June urging them to create a national office for missing and murdered Black women and girls.

“This complex issue deserves a whole-of-government approach led by your Administration to help all states protect and care for our most vulnerable communities,” read the letter from Omar and McCollum.

Last year, Omar introduced the Brittany Clardy Missing and Murdered Black Women and Girls Act, named after Lee’s sister. The act was modeled after Minnesota’s legislation, and would create a federal office.

Lee and others are also working with other states to help them introduce legislation that would create task forces like Minnesota’s. Some states, like New York, have passed legislation on the issue.

Wisconsin introduced legislation earlier this year to create a task force to study murdered and missing Black women and girls, but the bill died.

Efforts stalled until George Floyd’s murder

Ruth Richardson, a former Minnesota representative from Mendota Heights, knew she wanted to help the Black community when, in 2018, she was elected as the first Black legislator to represent District 52B. She began working on legislation addressing racism as a public health crisis, and heard from community members that murdered and missing Black women and girls should be a priority.

She was concerned about disturbing trends that showed how Black women and girls were disproportionately impacted by violence, and how little was being done at a state level to support them.

One of the most chilling statistics she found was that nationally, police cases involving murdered or missing Black women and girls stay open much longer than cases for other groups.

“It sends a message to predators, it puts a target on Black women and girls,” Richardson said.

Artika Roller, executive director of Cornerstone Advocacy Services, served on the state task force and has worked to support sexual assault survivors. She said that funding requests for Black women and girls are often met with pushback at the Legislature.

“There is an anti-Blackness thread that pushes back at why these types of services are needed,” Roller said.

According to state data , 786 Black women were reported missing in Minnesota so far in 2024. But those numbers don’t show the full picture, experts say, and are likely undercounted.

Richardson tried introducing legislation in her first year as a legislator to address missing and murdered Black women and girls, but her bills never received a hearing. After George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police in 2020, she said, she started to see more progress on racial equity issues in the Legislature.

Richardson’s bill on the matter passed in 2021, creating the task force, which began meeting later that year and published its report in 2022.

Brittany Lewis helped write the report and is founder and CEO of Research in Action. An advisory council made up of people who had lived experiences with the issue or who were family members of those impacted by violence worked with the task force, she said.

“The reality is this is not being talked about,” Lewis said. “I believe Black women and girls are uniquely vulnerable to be erased from our conversation of who is murdered in this country without much public awareness, and that should change.”

Lee said it’s important that one office houses the efforts and continues research and funding.

“We needed an organization where communities knew that they could come to receive that support, and we needed somewhere where centralized information and resources could be sent out or service the community,” Lee said.

Richardson said Black girls who go missing or are murdered don’t get the same attention from media or law enforcement as their white peers.

“It was not about getting something different or special for people,” Richardson said of the office. “It was about ensuring that our communities were getting similar consideration in terms of thinking about what happens when an individual goes missing within our communities.”

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