“Us mothers were also tortured”

For International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month, we spoke with Dorothy Holmes, an activist, CTJC community member, and mother of three. On October 12, 2014, Dorothy’s only son Ronald “RonnieMan” Johnson was killed by police. Since then, Dorothy has been active in the fight not only for justice for her son, but for all mothers and families that have experienced the same pain she has gone through.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Dorothy: I'm a mom of three, even though my son is no longer here, I still say he's still mine. I'm a grandmother of eleven grandkids: eight girls, three boys. Everybody at CTJC knows them. I lost my son in 2014. I was a single mom when I raised all my kids. I did what I had to do to make sure they had a roof over their heads. I think the hardest part was when I lost my only boy. I was lost for a minute, but I knew I couldn't accept what they were saying. That's how I met a lot of BYP 100, Black Lives Matter, BLM Chi, Aislinn, CPAC, Frank [Chapman]. I met a lot of different organizations that stood out there with me on the front line: rain, sleet and snow. We stood out there marching, shutting the expressway down, shutting the streets down. Our voices were being heard, sitting down on City Hall. Whatever we had to do to get attention on these murderers, we did it. We did it. We shut it down. And I met mothers from Brazil and California. I've been to California. I've been to Colombia. I met mothers there. I’ve met a whole lot of people. We met through the circumstances of losing our kids, but I met them.

How did you first encounter CTJC?

Dorothy: I remember being with Aislinn [Pulley] when I first lost my son. I was going to a lot of different meetings, and it was just something that clinged me to her. She was saying she was going to be part of CTJC, so I just stuck it out with her and went to their meetings. I sat in on a lot of little things, showed up at the meetings, listened to some of the Chicago torture survivors. It's like being at home with people that you don't know. It's just good vibes. On some of my hard days, I can go to CTJC. There might be somebody that's doing therapy, I can talk to the counselors there. We also had aroma therapy or someone that would come in and talk to us, like do massages and stuff like that. I recommend CTJC to other mothers that might want to get involved. Come out, listen. Because even though it’s the Chicago Torture Justice Center, us mothers were also tortured when they took our kids away from us. We still share some type of pain with a lot of the guys and women who were wrongfully convicted that were taken away from their families. That's still pain. They have been very supportive. 

What was it like meeting other mothers?

Dorothy: When we first met, we all cried together. We had dinner together, shared space, shared our stories. We showed each other love, and let each other know, “You’re not alone in this fight. There's a lot of other mothers out here, there's plenty of us out here like this.” One thing I said was, “They took our kids away from us, and they're going to try to hurry up and pay us to shut us up”. There’s not enough money in the world to tell me I can't talk about what happened to my son.

How do you keep going? Are there ways that you find joy and peace? 

Dorothy: I stay busy a lot. I got to stay busy. I can't sit still because if I'm sitting still, my mind is racing, and I'm thinking about what happened to him. 

I started the RonnieMan Foundation. When I first started it, it was me, Fred Hampton Jr., Dalphne, and Rachel. We didn't have a lot of money, but I just wanted to do something because he got killed October the 12th, 2014, and his birthday was December the 14th. So I wanted to do something for him. I couldn't accept that he was murdered. Something I used to always do was go over there to the site where he got killed. I saw some kids out there and I wondered why these kids were watching me. One of the little guys walked up to me and asked, “Why are you always coming here?” I'm  looking at him like, why is this little boy talking to me? I told him, “Well, my son got killed right here. He was my only son”. He said, “Oh, wow. Can I give you a hug?” So the little guy gave me a hug and he said, “Well, you still got a son”. And I'm looking at him and thinking, what is he getting to? He said, “You got me”. And I'm looking at him like, man, I got to do something for these little kids over here in this neighborhood. So that's when I came up with giving back to that community over there. I've kept it going ever since then.

You’ve spent many years giving back to the community. What are some of the ways that you remember and honor RonnieMan?

Dorothy: I do the RonnieMan holiday toy drive and the RonnieMan back-to-school book bag drive. Last year was my first year, where I put candy in different character bags, gave away Pampers to the parents that probably needed them over there in the area, wipes and hygiene items and stuff like that. So I'm going to do it again this year. Just something to keep his name alive, because I’m always fighting. There’s a playground over there, and I have been fighting to try to get that playground renamed after him, and I haven't given up that fight yet. That's going to be my next step because it's like, no justice, no peace. My next step is to keep going, to get that playground renamed after him.

I always wanted a tree right there where he fell at. One day I went through there and I'm like, is somebody going to give me a tree? I'm going to buy my own tree and plant it. So I went through there and my daughter says, “Mom, it's a tree over there where my brother got killed”. I’m like, “Stop playing with me. I just rolled through there. I didn't see no tree”. But when I went through there, there was a tree out there. It's still there. It's growing there. When I go over there, I always put down some little artificial flowers because you can't really put a lot down over there.

Is there anything that you'd like to share with other women or other mothers who have had similar experiences as you?

Dorothy: I recommend that if somebody is going through something and they don't have the money to afford to go talk to a counselor or if they’re being judged, then stop by CTJC. Ask if you can talk to someone inside CTJC. Share your story, open up. Because if you don't open up, nobody would ever know what you’re going through. At CTJC, they don't judge you. They listen. That's what a lot of us mothers need, someone to listen to us instead of judging us or looking at us like dollar signs or as if we are crazy or as if we were the ones that pulled the trigger that took our kids. That's what keeps me going, because I can call, I can talk to people. I can express myself without them trying to say, “Oh, you're crazy”, or, “We're going to put you on medication”. I don't need medicine. I just need somebody to listen to me, to understand where I'm coming from. I buried a child.