Breonna Taylor featured in Vanity Fair as her mother pays tribute in September issue

Vanity Fair has immortalized Breonna Taylor on the September cover of the magazine.

Breonna Taylor in Vanity Fair

The portrait was created by artist Amy Sherald, who also did the painting of Michelle Obama for the National Portrait Gallery.

Taylor, 26, was fatally shot eight times after Lousville Metro police officers raided her apartment in an attempted no-knock warrant for a drug stung and exchanged gunfire with her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, who was legally armed and said he believed someone was breaking into their home.

Taylor’s family later filed a wrongful death lawsuit claiming charges of battery, excessive force, and gross negligence.

Her mother speaks about her daughter

Inside the publication, Taylor’s mother Tamika Palmer encapsulated the essence of who her daughter really was, before opening up about the chaos surrounding her killing and the nationwide protests it inspired.

“Breonna wanted to be a nurse. That was her thing. But her very first job she worked was Steak ’n Shake. She was 15 years old and she worked there for a few years all through school,” said Palmer.

“And then she started working with older people herself. And she liked to drive, like I said before, so she drove this little bus that goes around and gets the older people and takes them places. She drove that for a while. And then she went to do EMT and she did that, but it was a lot. So then she went into the ER and worked as a tech and she absolutely loved it there. And so her goal was just to finish school with being in the ER and be a nurse.”

She went on to call Breonna “bossy,” “so OCD” and “one of them people who didn’t talk about other people.”

Vanity Fair’s September issue will be edited by contributing editor Ta-Nehesi Coates, an author and journalist who writes largely on Black race relations and histories.