California’s recently enacted “Ebony Alert” legislation is groundbreaking, as it is the nation’s first law to prioritize the search for missing Black youth.
California recently passed a new law creating an Ebony Alert, a notification system that will keep the public informed about missing Black children and young people in an effort to address the disparity in missing persons cases.
Tens of thousands of Black youth and women go missing across the U.S. each year. But their cases hardly ever grab national headlines, let alone receive the attention and resources dedicated to finding them.
California ranks in the top states where people of color are disappearing at an alarming rate. Sadly, many of our cases are under the radar, like Arianna Fitts of San Francisco, who has been missing for seven years after her mom was found murdered.
In a new initiative designed to address the distressing disparity in missing persons cases, California Governor Gavin Newsom recently signed Senate Bill 673 into law, introducing the nation’s first statewide alert system designed specifically to aid in locating missing Black children and young Black women.
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