For more than 20 years, US television host Oprah Winfrey has featured on the cover of her monthly eponymous magazine. But not next month.
Instead, the September issue of Oprah Magazine will feature a digital portrait of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency room technician who was shot dead by police in March this year.
Ms Taylor was with her boyfriend in their Louisville apartment when police forcibly entered the home in the middle of the night to execute a search warrant. One of the three police officers involved, the only one who has been sacked, and Ms Taylor was killed.
Her death has helped fuel a campaign against racism and police brutality in the United States that has since spread across the globe. Four months after her death, no legal action has been taken against the officers involved.
"Breonna Taylor. She was just like me. She was just like you," Winfrey wrote in an article , outlining why she featured Ms Taylor on the cover.
"And like everyone who dies unexpectedly, she had plans. Plans for a future filled with responsibility and work and friends and laughter."
In the column, Winfrey detailed a conversation she had with Ms Taylor's mother, Tamika Palmer, about the grief of losing her daughter. "I can't stop seeing her face. Her smile. It's what I miss most about her. I still can't grasp the concept of her being gone," she reportedly said.
The upcoming issue, which will be released on 11 August, "honours her [Ms Taylor's] life and the life of every other Black woman whose life has been taken too soon", Winfrey said on Instagram.
"What I know for sure: We can’t be silent. We have to use whatever megaphone we have to cry for justice," she continued.
