Ruth Whitfield, an 86-year-old Black woman, was killed while shopping at the Tops Friendly Markets on Jefferson Avenue in Buffalo, New York, on May 14, 2022. She had stopped there after visiting her husband at his nursing home, a daily ritual; family described her as the consummate mom and a devoted woman of faith, a mother to four, grandmother to nine, great-grandmother to eight and great-great-grandmother to five. Her death was one of ten Black people killed that afternoon when an 18-year-old man traveled from Conklin, New York, to the store armed with a semi-automatic rifle and carried out a racially motivated attack. He was apprehended at the scene.

Ruth Whitfield’s life and role at the center of a large family were repeatedly noted as part of the tragedy’s human cost.