Hi, this is Christian Onuoha, and this is my My Life Matters photo.
I captured this photo on June 2nd of 2020; this is roughly about a week after George Floyd was murdered.
[I was] pretty enraged by the whole event and the things that've been transpiring in the country.
I and my wife decided to get out and protest and be a part of the movement. So, we look for different areas in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and found that Fort Worth was hosting one, and there was a large gathering of people, so, ya know, we decided to go out.
I had no real intentions of catching any particular image, but I just wanted to document the times as it's very kind of nostalgia or déjà vu, as I might say, given that we're kinda livin' in the times that replicate the 50s and 60s and the civil rights movement.
I saw this little boy clenching onto his father and holding the sign, and I just kinda questioned and wondered if he really knew what that sign meant or even why he was there. And it also brought so many emotions because I thought about my four-year-old son and then all the other kids that have died in this country prematurely, like Emmett Till and Tamir Rice.
So, ultimately, I captured so many images, but this one kinda stood out to me and just really - you know, like I said - brought so many emotions to me so...
I just wanted to post it and allow it to be seen and - you know - it, it... I got a lot of reviews from it and how it touched other people. And I just wanted it to show that we are human, you know... We deserve respect and dignity, and we deserve to live a peaceful life and be treated equally because our lives do matter.