It was a gloomy Sunday evening, but the rainy weather didn’t stop the community from gathering to honor the life of Margaret Swan, a 66-year-old woman who was stabbed up to 20 times on a MARTA train near the Oakland City station on May 30. A smiling portrait of Swan was displayed under a canopy of candles, white roses, and fruit just feet away from the station where she was murdered. Swan’s daughters, Shanae and Tiara Sams, stood under a white tent as they listened to local organizers with Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) condemn what officials called an “unprovoked act of senseless violence.”
Police arrested the suspect, 25-year-old John Elijah Matthews, just minutes after the stabbing was reported.
“I don’t know if this was his plan, but he created his own art on my mother’s body — 18 to 20 stab wounds. He stood by my mother, slashed her throat. She got up, he threw her on the ground,” Tiara Sams said as she held her daughter and Swan’s granddaughter in her arms. “I feel like I’m more angry than grieving because he’s still alive. He’s still here.”
The candlelight vigil opened with libations and a rendition of the spiritual and civil rights anthem “Oh, Freedom.” As the rain trickled down umbrellas, Mshairi Siyanda, a lead organizer for M4BL, poured water into a potted plant while giving thanks for Swan’s life and the community for showing up…