Julia Roberts speaks about the life and legacy of Renee Nicole Good at the “Rise Up” 1st amendment event roughly five months after she was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. During her speech, Roberts read a poem by Amanda Gorman titled For Renee Nicole Good: They say she is no more, That there her absence roars, Blood-blown like a rose. Iced wheels flinched & froze. Now, bare riot of candles, Dark fury of flowers, Pure howling of hymns. If for us she arose, Somewhere, in the pitched deep of our grief, Crouches our power, The howl where we begin, Straining upon the edge of the crooked crater Of the worst of what we’ve been. Change is only possible, & all the greater, When the labour & bitter anger of our neighbors Is moved by the love & better angels of our nature. What they call death & void, We know is breath & voice; In the end, gorgeously, Endures our enormity. You could believe departed to be the dawn When the blank night has so long stood. But our bright-fled angels will never be fully gone, When they forever are so fiercely Good.
