Missouri Forms Task Force for Missing Black Women Crisis

Written By Lexx Thornton

A Missouri bill going into effect Aug. 28 creates a task force to address the crisis of missing and murdered African American women and girls in the state. The idea, which came from Sen. Angela Mosley, D-Florissant, has been years in the making. 

 Mosley sponsored a bill in the Missouri Senate in the last legislative session to create the task force, and the language for that bill was added into House Bill 495, which Gov. Mike Kehoe signed after it passed the General Assembly. 

 But this isn’t the first year Mosley filed a bill to create the task force. 

Mosley got the idea of creating the bill after it was passed in Minnesota in 2022, following a suggestion from a friend on Facebook. In 2023, while attending the National Organization of Black-Elected Legislative Women’s Annual Legislative Conference, Mosley ran into the woman who passed the bill in Minnesota. 

 “I spoke to her about the bill. She let me know what process she went through and gave me her information,” Mosley said. “We used that same language for Missouri and sent it to our research department to file the bill.” Mosley filed the bill in 2024. 

 “My chief of staff went around to all the senators and all the state reps asking them to support the bill with talking points,” Mosley said. 

The bill went to the House, but it did not pass. Mosley said she ran into issues while trying to get the bill passed in the House, and she was determined to get the bill passed this year. Kehoe signed HB 495 into law on March 26. 

 The issue of Black women going missing has been on the rise in recent years. According to the National Crime Information Center, in 2022, of the 271,493 girls and women reported missing, about 36% of those missing women and girls were Black. Black women and girls only made up about 14% of the female population in the U.S. at that time.