Breonna Taylor Gets 2 Big Tributes

Breonna Taylor posthumously covers Vanity Fair's September issue, the magazine tweeted Monday. The issue, titled "The Great Fire" and guest edited by Ta-Nehisi Coates, will feature Taylor's story as told by her mom Tamika Palmer; the Louisville EMT was fatally shot by police officers who entered her home on a no-knock warrant as she slept. None of the officers have been charged. The issue will also feature an oral history of the days following George Floyd's death at the hands of police in Minneapolis and much more; USA Today describes it as being all about "art, activism, and power in 21st-century America." See the cover, which features an artist's rendering of Taylor, here.

"On the one hand, I’m ecstatic that these people are standing up and demanding justice and saying her name,” Palmer tells Vanity Fair. “On the other hand, I don’t want people to be hurt. I don’t want y’all to tear up the city. We still got to live here. And still I understand the anger. Breonna was everybody’s sister and daughter. As easily as this happened to Breonna, it could’ve been anybody else’s child." The Los Angeles Times calls the cover "a stunning portrait," and notes that the September issue of Oprah Winfrey's magazine also features Taylor on the cover. There's disagreement on Twitter over whether it's a good idea to use Taylor's image at all (one commentator wonders whether her family was compensated for it), let alone such an "aestheticized" version, but others were fully behind the cover. See USA Today for more on both sides. (More Breonna Taylor stories.)