March aims to highlight deaths, disappearances of Black women

It has been almost 20 years since the remains of Nancie Walker were found on Interstate 94, but her family is still looking for answers.

On Tuesday evening, her sister, Myrna Walker, stood before a row of news cameras holding a photo of Nancie Walker near her chest.

“This is her, who I walk for,” Walker said, holding up the photo. “Nancie Walker. She’s my sister. She’s been missing for 20 years. And my question today is how long is it gonna take before something is done, some justice is done for her? And when is it gonna be an urgency to the City of Chicago to find her killer?”

Walker was one of several people who spoke during a news conference before taking to the streets in the fifth annual We Walk for Her march.

More than 100 people walked south on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive from 35th Street — community organizers, others impacted by the murder of a loved one and Ald. Jeanette Taylor — to push for urgency and call for more attention to the lives of Black women who have gone missing or been killed.

Police on bicycles and a handful of police vehicles closed the road around the march to make way for the group.

“Stop and listen, our girls are missing,” the group shouted, among other chants, as a small marching band played ahead of them.

The march was organized by Good Kids Mad City and the Kenwood-Oakland Community Organization.

An analysis by the Invisible Institute, a nonprofit journalism organization on the South Side of Chicago, found that more than 8,400 people were reported missing to the Chicago Police Department in 2021. Almost 70% of those cases were of Black people.

“Missing persons cases is a Black issue,” said Trina Reynolds-Tyler, data director at the Invisible Institute. “But it’s really important to note that it’s a Black women and girls issue specifically.”

She said more than 3,000 Black women were reported missing in Chicago in 2021.

“In Chicago, Black women and girls are reported missing more than any other race or gender,” Reynolds-Tyler said.

Myrna Walker’s family is still holding out hope that her sister’s killer will be identified.

“We relive it over every day. We’ve been reliving this for 20 years,” Walker said. “It’s just sad to lose a loved one and then to never know is hard.”

Nancie Walker was 55 when she went missing. Her body was found 60 days later dismembered in plastic bags along I-94. She lived in Bronzeville and was an entrepreneur who owned real estate and a trucking company.

“There has been no contact between police, detectives anyone,” Myrna Walker said. “They just dropped it. Said it was a cold case.”

She sometimes wonders if it’s best that her mother, who is now 93, not know who was responsible for Nancie’s death. But knowing who killed her sister would bring closure to the family, Walker said.

“I feel more that my mother needs (closure) than I. I’ve come to accept, but my mom, I want it for her,” she said. “I really want it for my mom, so she could rest.”

Teresa Smith believes the criminal justice system in Cook County failed her mother, Daisy Hayes, 65, who was found dead in her apartment in 2018.

In April, a man who was seen on video wheeling a bulky suitcase out of Hayes’ apartment was acquitted of murder.

Smith wonders what more evidence the judge needed to convict Jimmy Jackson, 75, who was charged with her mother’s murder.

“They failed me,” Smith said. “They failed me tremendously.”

She said it felt like her mother was the one on trial, as the defense talked about her being drunk.

“Whatever she did in the privacy of her own home, she was in her home,” Smith said. “They basically assassinated her character.”

Hayes was a loving mother and dedicated grandmother of 11, Smith said.

Smith said her fight is part of a larger fight for attention and to get help solving the cases of missing and murdered Black women.

“I’m out here to walk for her, to try to send the message that we need help,” she said. “Not just me, everybody.”