BRAZOS COUNTY, Texas — Thousands of people go missing in the United States every year, but not every case will get widespread media attention across the country.
Persons of color are reported missing at a rate that is disproportionate to their representation in the population, and the Amber Alert Network of the Brazos Valley is holding a virtual forum to bring awareness to this issue.
“Based on the last census our African American population is right around 13% and what we are seeing in terms of sheer missing persons numbers is the number of missing persons that are listed as African American, its almost three times their demographic,” explained Amber Alert Network Brazos Valley Executive Director, Chuck Fleeger.
The nationally recognized co-founders of the Black and Missing Foundation will be speaking at the forum on Tuesday, Feb. 21 to bring awareness and localize this national issue.
“40% of the missing population are people of color. And according to the FBI's stats there were more than 240,000 persons of color reported missing last year," said Black and Missing co-founder, Natalie Wilson. "So is there someone missing from the community that no ones talking about? No one has reported it or they're just not getting that media coverage so once again we want to hammer away at the issue and get the community involved in trying to bring awareness to their disappearance and to help find them.”
The goal of this virtual event is to create a call to action to protect those that are often overlooked.
"We always tend to get a little bit insulated in our viewpoint in our community; 'Well whatever problem is occurring, oh well that happens someplace else that doesn’t happen here' but it is in fact occurring here and so now then that begs the question: 'Okay, what do we do about that?'” said Fleeger.
Click here to visit the Amber Alert Network Brazos Valley Facebook page, where the online community forum will be held.