girls like iona stanley jones, the 7-year-old shot by police while sleeping on the couch when they raidedit, michigan, in 2010. women like shawna francis who suffered with mental illness and died in 2012 after being handcuffed and held face down by the police who were responding to her sister's call for help in getting her to the hospital. it is too easy and too common to mark racial suffering only with men's stories. trayvon, but not renisha. ferguson, but not oklahoma. we must assert. black women matter. and north pole single work of artist rehab more influential for establishing that black women matter than ntozake shange's choreopoem. the first stage in berkeley, california, 1974, this year is the 40th anniversary of "for colored girls" which unflinchingly forces audiences to contend with the brutality, complexity and sheer humanity of black women's lives in their own words. >> because i had convinced myself that colored girls have no right to sorrow. and i lived and loved just that way and kept sorrow on the curb, allegedly for you, but now i know i did it for myself because i just c