It’s been eight years since Dr. Tiffany Crutcher’s life was irrevocably changed. On Sept. 15, 2016, she was running a growing clinical private practice outside Montgomery, Alabama. She had big plans for the future.

As Crutcher was leaving work the next day, she got the call that her twin brother, Terence Crutcher, had been shot by Officer Betty Jo Shelby of the Tulsa Police Department during a traffic stop. Terence, who was unarmed, would later die from his wounds.

Shelby was indicted but was found not guilty of first-degree manslaughter and was free to resume her career in law enforcement.

In that moment of anger, grief and bewilderment, Crutcher decided she wouldn’t let her despair overwhelm her. Four years after the murder of Trayvon Martin and four years before the death of George Floyd at the hands of police sparked outrage and protests around the country, Crutcher began her own fight for social justice.

“I was leaving work and going to meet friends for dinner; got a call that Terence was shot and killed,” Crutcher says. “It shook my world. It totally altered my life. This was my twin brother. I had to figure out how I was going to pick myself up off the ground. I didn’t want for this to just be another Black man in America pushed under the rug, or another hashtag.”

That was the genesis of the Terence Crutcher Foundation and Dr. Crutcher’s new life as an advocate for police reform, social justice, reparations, voter registration and a litany of other causes that have seen her partner with the NBA, travel to D.C. to speak with Vice President Kamala Harris and work with the Tulsa Community Remembrance Coalition, among other organizations.

“I started the foundation in his name to make sure that I keep his name and legacy alive and that we thrive and that we overcome, and that we receive the respect that we deserve as a community—and the repair,” Crutcher says. “I started the Terence Crutcher Foundation with three simple pillars: strengthening communities, [honoring the legacy of our ancestors and] advancing policies to make sure that what happened to Terence doesn’t happen again.”

Born the only daughter among three brothers to a gospel musician and educator, Crutcher is a descendant of a 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre survivor, Rebecca Brown Crutcher. Further up her family tree, Crutcher said her two-time great-grandfather was a Creek Freedman whose family came to Indian Territory on the Trail of Tears as enslaved Africans.

With her pedigree stretching back more than 75 years before Oklahoma’s statehood, Crutcher began her journey toward justice by asking some hard questions about the city she loved.

“Here in Oklahoma, you invest in what you truly believe in,” Crutcher says. “Where’s the same Oklahoma Standard when it comes to policing and mass incarceration and meeting basic needs and making sure that a little Black kid on the north side of the track in North Tulsa thrives like a little white kid on the south side of the tracks? Where is that Oklahoma Standard?”

Instead of just waiting for answers from city and state politicians, Crutcher wanted the Terence Crutcher Foundation to be a “good partner” and be part of the solution as well.

That meant getting to young men and women early to put them on the right path. And for someone who has a master’s and doctorate in physical rehabilitation and physical medicine, it’s not surprising that education is the key.

“In order to disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline, in order to stop the racially biased policing, we got to make sure that there are initiatives in place that reach our kids early, teaching them to know their rights, launching high-dosage literacy programs,” Crutcher says. “Because if your kid can’t read by the time they’re in the third grade, there’s a prison cell waiting for them. And it starts with the negative interactions with cops policing us, the gateway to mass incarceration. We started that reading program, T.E.A.C.H., for elementary school kids because one in three Black male babies are predicted to go to prison.”

Other initiatives include partnering with the USA BMX Foundation, which focuses on STEM Education. But just as important as guiding the youth toward a bright future is teaching them about their past.

 “They get grounded in history,” Crutcher says. “They get a bike, they get a helmet, they get to ride and do a riding tour of Greenwood. They learn STEM education, and we continue to supplement their learning through this middle school program.”

Programs like these continue through high school where students are taken to the state Capitol and are taught to read bills and advocate for issues they care about, such as school safety, gun reform and sentencing reforms.

“Some of them have parents who are locked up,” Crutcher says. “They’ve ripped families apart in Oklahoma because they would prefer to profit off people. Oklahoma has some of the longest sentences than any other state, 80% longer for nonviolent crimes, and property crimes. And the statistics show that locking people up and throwing away the key does not rehabilitate them. It does not keep communities safe. It’s actually investing in communities [that works]. It’s actually investing in people.”

In 2022 the Terence Crutcher Foundation purchased a 65,000-square-foot property on 5.8 acres of land that occupies the northern boundary of the historic Greenwood district. The plan is to continue to rebuild Black Wall Street, which will house doctors, insurance agencies, a Bank of America branch and other Black-owned businesses. 

But while Crutcher has seen some wins, she has also had to endure even more defeats. That includes the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s dismissal of a lawsuit that had been filed by 110-year-old Viola Fletcher and 109-year-old Lessie Benningfield Randle, the last two known survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre, who were seeking reparations for the destruction of their community and its aftermath.

“When you ask me, ‘Has it changed?’ ask Mother Randle who’s 109,” Crutcher says. “She says, ‘I haven’t seen a change and I’m 109.’”

But it is the lack of reform within the Tulsa Police Department since her brother’s death that has Crutcher most exasperated.

“I’m a data-driven individual, so let’s just talk about the data,” Crutcher says. “There was an equality indicators report that the current mayor rolled out using the city’s own data. There are four areas: use of force, adult arrest, youth arrest and I think equity inside the Tulsa Police Department. Since 2018, the score has gotten worse. And it started with an F at like 38%. Now, it went down to 32%.

“According to their data, Black people are still five times more likely to be victims of the use of force. Black adults are two and a half times more likely to be arrested.”

Despite her frustrations, Crutcher isn’t ready to throw in the towel and give in to the apathetic mindset of “it is what it is” that permeates her hometown. Every tragedy and roadblock that Crutcher has had to overcome in the past eight years has taught her she is tougher than she thought she was.

“I think that I am stronger spiritually. My body gets tired. I’m exhausted physically, but I’m stronger spiritually because I had to really stand firm in my faith and commit my thoughts to a higher power,” Crutcher says. “If I didn’t work on my mind and stay grounded in my spirituality, then I would’ve given up a long time ago. My community … they’re counting on me to stay strong. They’re counting on my voice to be their voice. I don’t take that lightly. And it’s a huge responsibility and a heavy burden at the same time.”

Crutcher continues to be guided by the words she exchanged with her twin brother on their birthday, almost a month before his death.

“Terence’s last words to me, and I’m still getting emotional eight years later, but he said, ‘I’m going back to school. I’m going to make you proud.’ And the last words were, ‘God is going to get the glory out of my life.’ He wanted to make me proud, and I didn’t know what those words meant,” Crutcher said. “God is going to get the glory out of my life now. I understand that those words were prophetic, and the work that I’m doing in his name is living proof of that prophetic word. And I truly believe that he is proud.”