Timothy Jr. Russell

Timothy Willie Russell Jr., a 32-year-old Black man from New Orleans, Louisiana, died on March 22, 2012. The fact of his death is simple in print, but the weight of it is carried in the long list of people who had to go on living after that date—people whose lives were permanently rearranged by the sudden silence where his voice used to be.

He was a son, first and always, and his family named that bond clearly: Timothy Willie Russell Sr., Barbara Johnson, Vickie Russell, and Aaron Johns ...