Rest in Power: Oluwatoyin Salau
She was found dead one week after being reported missing.
By Jendayi Omowale and Cameron Oakes
Oluwatoyin Salau, a 19-year-old Tallahassee activist who spoke out against racial injustice, was found dead Saturday, one week after being reported missing.
Salau’s cause of death is not yet known, but she tweeted that a man offered to give her a ride to shelter and to collect her belongings at a church where she previously found refuge. She wrote that he was aware of a previous sexual assault she experienced in March, but proceeded to molest her anyway. She fled while the man was asleep and had been missing ever since. “He came disguised as a man of God,” Salau wrote. “I trusted the holy spirit to keep me safe.”
Salau’s death is being investigated as part of a double homicide case, according to the Tallahassee Police Department. The police now say a suspect is in custody.
Salau, known to friends as “Toyin,” was like many of us. She found her voice in the call for justice. “Can’t nobody silence me,” Salau said at a protest for Tony McDade, a Black trans man and Tallahassee resident who was killed by police 10 days before her disappearance.
“We’re doing this for [Tony McDade], we’re doing this for our brothers and our sisters who got shot,” Salau said. “But we’re doing this for every Black person, because at the end of the day, I cannot take my fucking skin color off…Our lives matter, Black lives matter. Black trans lives matter.”
The last time anyone saw the radiance of Salau, who was a part-time student at Tallahassee Community College, was on June 6, near Orange Avenue and Wahnish Way. The Tallahassee Community Action Committee conducted a community search party at Bethel A.M.E. Church on Wednesday — no more than 300 ft. away from the intersection she was last seen.
Oluwatoyin Salau was right. Nobody can silence her. We will remember her name and what she fought for. Rest in power, Oluwatoyin Salau.
If you need to speak to someone, the National Sexual Assault Hotline provides confidential support 24/7 and can be reached at 800-656-4673 and through chat services at rainn.org/resources. RAINN is the nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organization and offers assistance in regards to complaints about sexual misconduct, abusive relationships, and other incidents of sexual harassment.
