Dana Martin Enjoyed Standing Out in a Crowd
She loved to shop and made fashion and hair trends her own
This story is part of Know Their Names, a collection of articles illuminating and celebrating the lives of Black Trans women.
Dana Martin was a movie fanatic. She was interested in a wide range of genres but gravitated toward dramas and thrillers. Her all-time favorite film was Tyler Perry’s Temptations: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor, a 2013 release about a therapist facing enormous consequences for her infidelity. Misery, the 1990 film based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, was another movie in Dana’s rotation of favorites. So was 2002’s Enough, starring Jennifer Lopez. A fan of edge-of-your-seat suspense, Dana was intrigued by the gravity of what women wrestle with in movies, as well as the redemptive spirit of others.
Dana’s regular film companion was her best friend, Cruz Burnett. The two met in 2007 and hung out almost every day. They shared a nearly identical taste in movies. “We watched Misery one thousand times,” he says. Dana and Cruz trekked to the local theater together sometimes. But more often than not, they’d watch movies at Cruz’s home in Montgomery, Alabama, not far from the suburb of Hope Hull, where Dana resided with her parents.
Though Dana loved her screen time, shopping was also a favorite pastime. At malls, she’d enlist Cruz’s help to assist in her purchasing decisions. “Dress me up like I’m your Barbie doll,” she would tell him. Dana loved to dress sexy. A white Apple Bottom–brand dress was among her favorite outfits. She also liked to experiment with different hairstyles — she’d don green wigs and blonde wigs — especially when she went out with friends.
She made trends her own to stand out from the crowd. About once a month, Dana and Cruz would drive two and a half hours to Cumberland Mall, on the northwest side of Atlanta.
Looking good was important to Dana. But so was feeling good and being active. She loved taking walks and exercising at the gym—anything to help her maintain her figure and nourish her well-being. Her fitness also came with feasts. “We went out to eat a lot,” Cruz says. O’Charley’s is where she typically ordered ribs, and other times she would hit up Outback Steakhouse and Texas Roadhouse, where she always ordered steak. Those were her favorites.
Over time, Dana grew close to Cruz’s family in Greenville, Alabama, and would tag along on trips when Cruz went home to visit them. “She got along with my whole family — my mother, my sisters, my aunts,” he says. “They all liked Dana.”
Dana didn’t just open up to anyone — she needed to get to know a person before she called them a friend. But when she did extend her friendship, she did so with her whole heart, recalls her friend Stasha Nicole. She and Dana first met in 2008 through a mutual friend at the Rose Supper Club, a local club that set aside the first Monday of every month for the LGBTQIA+ community. (The club eventually closed in 2013.) “We had a lot of fun together,” says Stasha, a licensed cosmetologist and freelance DJ.
One thing Stasha admired most about Dana was her work ethic. In the six years before her death, Dana was employed by Wind Creek Casino in Montgomery. She started out in customer service and eventually moved to maintenance. “She worked a lot and loved her job,” Stasha says. “She worked the night shift and had a good, strong work ethic.”
When Dana did extend her friendship, she did so with her whole heart.
What Stasha appreciated most about Dana was her laid-back nature and the easy way she fell into conversations. Though Dana didn’t have a large network of friends, she was very social and had a tight-knit group of friends.
Stasha has many fun memories of Dana, but her favorites are from the trips they took together with mutual friends to celebrate one another’s birthdays. “We went to Miami for my birthday in 2012. That was a favorite trip,” Stasha says. Their group of friends also traveled to Atlanta; Jacksonville, Florida; New York City; and New Orleans.
Though Dana was content with her job at the casino, she hoped to move away from Alabama. She set her eyes on Texas as a possible destination. She also wanted to become a model, according to Stasha. Dana entered a few model searches in Montgomery, but none of them panned out. She also hoped to get married someday, though she knew she didn’t want any children.
Dana’s life took a horrific turn three years before her death. She was shot in the head in 2015, losing sight in one eye. According to her friends, it took a long time for her to recover physically and to work through the trauma. The shooting “dampened her spirit,” Stasha says. “She wasn’t the same. She wasn’t as outgoing. It took Dana a while before she tried to get back herself again.” Her friends, including Cruz and Stasha, rallied to help take care of her.
And then the unthinkable happened. Dana was shot again, fatally this time, on January 6, one month shy of her 32nd birthday. Her body was discovered in her car on the side of the road in Montgomery. The Montgomery Police Department is investigating her death as a homicide. Further details are unknown.
Dana’s presence is missed. Cruz remembers Dana’s visits to his hair salon to keep him company while he worked. Even when Cruz worked late hours, Dana would stay until it was time to close up. “When I needed her, for whatever reason, she was there for me. Whether my car was broken or if I was having man problems,” he says.
For Cruz, Dana represented the epitome of a true friend. “If you needed her, she was there,” he says. “And if she considered you her friend, she was yours.”
