If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, help is available. Call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233 or text START to 88788 to reach a crisis counselor. You can also find Indianapolis resources on The Domestic Violence Network’s website.
With makeup, nobody knew about the abuse. Not even her mother.
Jimmie Bridges, now 57, would use foundation to cover up the bruises and black eyes from her husband of 15 years. As he struggled with addiction, she bore the brunt of late, drunken nights when he would accuse her of infidelity.
“I suffered in silence,” Bridges said.
So had other women in her family. But when Bridges thought of her five children who carried the secret of what they witnessed at their eastside home, she knew she had to break the cycle.
“I had to get out,” Bridges said, “because eventually, I would have died.”
Black women like Bridges experience disproportionately high rates of domestic violence. In Indianapolis, a little more than a quarter of the population is Black, but the community makes up 45% of domestic violence victims.
The Domestic Violence Network, a local nonprofit, is working to reduce these disparities, especially in the 46218 ZIP code. On Tuesday, the organization announced a four-year community plan called Beyond Equity. More than 60 advocates and community members gathered at Martin University to drink mimosas and sign up for upcoming book clubs and trainings.
“We are really focusing on who has constantly and purposefully been left out of conversations about healing and justice, and that is Black women,” said Rebecca Berry, the nonprofit’s director of strategic initiatives.
Supporting Black women
Before deciding on the goals, the Domestic Violence Network gathered survivors and community members to ask for their stories at listening sessions across the city.
A common theme emerged: Black women long have felt that their needs are ignored, misunderstood or unmet by criminal justice systems and domestic violence organizations that often center the experiences of white people.
“I would not go to resources, but to my mom’s house,” one participant shared. “She has the (mindset) that he’s still the kids’ father.”
“Black women and Black girls are not granted grace,” another said.
One of the new plan’s objectives is to distribute a list of Black therapists in Indianapolis who specialize in domestic violence. Another is to provide healing that accounts for generational trauma, which can spill into families and relationships.
“We’re talking about the way the Black body has been harmed since the creation of this country,” Berry said. “We see that playing out in the roots of domestic violence.”
Whereas the criminal justice system focuses on punishment, the plan’s restorative justice programming emphasizes a survivor-led healing process. The Domestic Violence Network will host monthly healing circles, including one for people who have been harmed by domestic violence and another for those who have caused harm.
In 2021, domestic violence in Indianapolis grew to include 30 intimate partner homicides and 32,000 domestic violence calls to police. Mayor Joe Hogsett’s administration responded by hiring Danyette Smith as the city’s first director of domestic violence prevention.
The numbers have since dropped, Smith said, with four intimate partner homicides reported in 2023. She credited efforts by nonprofits like the Domestic Violence Network.
“Prevention is the city’s biggest priority,” Smith said. “I believe the reduction is coming from domestic violence agencies working together and more education and awareness in the community.”
Later into the event, the Domestic Violence Network held a moment of silence for the year’s first homicide victim to domestic violence, a 27-year-old woman who was fatally shot on the east side. Police arrested her fiancee on a preliminary murder charge.
“We have seen measured progress in the reduction of lives lost in such a horrifically tragic way,” Hogsett told the crowd. “But more must be done.”
‘I forgive you’
Even after their divorce, Jimmie Bridges still saw her ex-husband. They’d arrange times for him to visit the kids. Sometimes, he showed up unexpectedly to watch the house. Once, just as she was about to take their son to a football game, he slashed her tires.
Anger settled in. Some of it hardened into hatred.
But something shifted after Bridges joined a program at her church in 2011. In meetings, the group talked about God and forgiveness. Participants wrote letters to people in their lives who had hurt them.
Bridges never sent her ex-husband the note. But she did eventually tell him over the phone: “I forgive you for all of those years.”
“I really loved you and the kids,” he replied. “Drugs and alcohol got in the way.”
As he got sober, their co-parenting solidified into a friendship. And when a diagnosis came for stage 4 bladder cancer, Bridges took care of her ex-husband for two months.
“The love is still there,” she said.
And it was there at hospice, where she refused to leave his bedside in December.
She was there, the last person there, until the coroner came to take him away.
Mirror Indy reporter Mary Claire Molloy covers health. Reach her at maryclaire.molloy@mirrorindy.org. Follow her on X @mcmolloy7.
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