Willie Martin

The news of Willie Martin’s death settled over Richmond, Virginia, on February 11, 2008, with the kind of quiet finality that can leave a city feeling suddenly smaller. He was a man whose name mattered to the people who knew him, the kind that doesn’t just belong to a record or a line on a page, but to living memories—shared moments, familiar places, and the ordinary days that become precious once they’re gone. He was a Black male.

In the days that followed, what emerged publicly ...