In 1888, when a wealthy Irish immigrant, Sister Margaret Mary Healy Murphy, decided to use her personal funds to open the first privately funded school for African American students in Texas, it was a mission which was not universally embraced. The Ku Klux Klan, in addition to many others at that time, did not share her vision that all students were deserving of a free and equitable education. In the one hundred and thirty-one years that have passed since our founding, Healy-Murphy Center continues to exist as a champion for the underserved, the underprivileged and the oppressed—those who have been intentionally marginalized and confined to the peripheries of our society.

It is in the spirit of Mother Margaret Mary Healy-Murphy’s legacy that Healy-Murphy Center issues this statement in honor and memory of George Floyd. We believe that as American citizens, all of us are bound together as our brother’s keepers—a hereditary obligation which we are sworn to uphold. To stand idly by as we witness the exploitation of our fellowmen is to contribute to their abuse. To not stand and make our voices heard when calamity befalls our neighbor convicts us as willing participants in his or her plight.

We express our resolve to stand for righteousness, justice and liberty wherever the shadows of evil threaten to smother them. For all the many lives which have been needlessly lost through the inexcusable means of racial violence, we stand united against the perpetrators. Millions are acknowledging that the brutal and senseless ending of George Floyd’s life appears to have been the tipping point which has been far too long in coming. It has ignited a flame that may finally help our world to understand in action as well as word that all men are created equal…that the color of a man’s skin does not make him any less worthy of humane, fair and compassionate treatment.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men should do nothing.”
Reverend Charles Frederic Aked, 1920