Chicago Premiere
NOTES FROM THE FIELD
DeRon S. Williams, Dramaturg
Camille Pugliese, Assistant Dramaturg
BY ANNA DEAVERE SMITH
DIRECTED BY MIKAEL BURKE
Performance Lobby Display
ANNA DEAVERE SMITH
Anna Deavere Smith is an actress, playwright, teacher, and author. She is credited with having created a new form of theater. Smith’s work combines the journalistic technique of interviewing her subjects with the art of interpreting their words through performance.
Smith has created over fifteen one-person shows based on hundreds of interviews. Her most recent play, Notes from the Field, looks at the vulnerability of youth, inequality, the criminal justice system, and contemporary activism. The New York Times named it among The Best Theater of 2016 and Time magazine named it one of the Top 10 Plays of that year. In 2018, HBO premiered the film version of Notes from the Field. Smith’s play Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 was recently named one of the best plays of the last twenty-five years by The New York Times.
Smith has appeared on television programs including Shonda Rhimes’s For the People, Black-ish, Nurse Jackie, and The West Wing. Her film work includes roles in The American President, Philadelphia, RENT, and Rachel Getting Married.
President Obama awarded Smith the National Humanities Medal in 2013. Additional honors include the prestigious MacArthur Award and the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize for achievement in the arts. She has been honored with the George Polk Career Award in Journalism, a Ridenhour Courage Prize, and the Stanford University School of Medicine Dean's Medal. Her work has received two Tony nominations, and she was runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama. Her honorary degrees include those from Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, Juilliard, Dartmouth, Spelman, and Swarthmore.
She is a University Professor at Tisch School of the Arts and the founding director of the NYU Institute in the Arts and Civic Dialogue.
Anna Deavere Smith Talks Process
“It's not psychological realism. I don't want to own the character and endow the character with my own experience. It's the opposite of that. What has to exist in order to try to allow the other to be is separation between the actor's self and the other. What I'm ultimately interested in is the struggle. The struggle that the speaker has when he or she speaks to me, the struggle that he or she has to sift through language to come through. Somewhere I'm probably also leaving myself room as a performer to struggle and come through.” - Anna Deavere Smith
Interviews with Anna Deavere Smith
“Anna Deavere Smith is a remarkable chronicler of the human character and condition. In her examination of such thorny subjects as race relations or our feelings about death, she has applied her virtuosic talent to questions that most of us would prefer to avoid.”
WHAT IS DOCUMENTARY THEATRE?
A History of U.S. Documentary Theatre in Three Stages
Both in content and form, documentary theatre in the U.S. has always been at theatre’s cutting edge.
Broadly conceived, American documentary theatre (also sometimes called docudrama, ethnodrama, verbatim theatre, tribunal theatre[1], theatre of witness, or theatre of fact) is performance typically built by an individual or collective of artists from historical and/or archival materials such as trial transcripts, written or recorded interviews, newspaper reporting, personal or iconic visual images or video footage, government documents, biographies and autobiographies, even academic papers and scientific research.
I locate three significant moments of innovation in the form, content, and purpose of documentary performance over the past 100 years of American theatre history and practice. The first is marked by the work produced under the auspices of the Federal Theater Project (1935-1939), particularly “living newspapers,” a form itself borrowed from agitprop and worker’s theatre in Western Europe and Russia. While the content of these early American documentary plays was drawn from everyday life, particularly the experiences of first- and second-generation working-class immigrants, their form was decidedly modernist, embracing collage, montage, expressionism, and minimalism in a symbiotic relationship with new forms of visual art, early cinema, and atonal musical compositions.
These plays were sometimes built with the input of communities where artist-workers were stationed as part of FTP and the Works Progress Administration. But mostly artists crafted and performed them as an educative or cultural service, using techniques that may or may not have resonated with audiences who reflected the stories or characters depicted. This tension between ethnographic content and modern or postmodern artistic form remains a hallmark of documentary performance, whether defined by features or practices.
“Documentary theatre … goes beyond pure documentation: it’s about questioning the meaning and significance of truth and information,” writes Mona Mehri in “Staging ‘the Document’ at the Avignon Festival.” Documentary theatre uses existing nonfiction sources—interviews, oral histories, articles, governmental reports, etc.—to create works of performance.
—Howlround Theatre Commons
John McAdams, James Asher, Andy Paris, Amanda Gronich, and Greg Pierotti in “The Laramie Project” at Berkeley Repertory Theatre in 2001. (Photo by Ken Friedman)
PRODUCTION HISTORY
“Notes From the Field” by Anna Deavere Smith at American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass., through Sept. 17. Pictured: Marcus Shelby Orchestra and Smith. (Photo by Evgenia Eliseeva)
"Notes from the Field: Doing Time in Education," written and performed by Anna Deavere Smith, is a powerful one-woman play that addresses the complex issues of race, inequality, and the American education system. The production premiered at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2016.
Anne Deavere Smith, renowned for her innovative style of verbatim theater, is known for creating works that explore important social and political issues through a series of monologues based on interviews with real people. In "Notes from the Field," she turns her attention to the school-to-prison pipeline, a system that disproportionately pushes young people of color out of the educational system and into the criminal justice system.
The production draws on a wide range of interviews with individuals directly affected by the issues at hand, including students, parents, educators, and policymakers. Smith transforms these interviews into a series of compelling and authentic monologues, embodying the diverse voices she has encountered. Her ability to channel the emotions and perspectives of her subjects creates a gripping and thought-provoking theatrical experience.
After its premiere at the American Repertory Theater, "Notes from the Field" had successful runs in various theaters across the United States. The play received critical acclaim for its timely and impactful exploration of systemic issues within the education system. In addition to its success on stage, the production was adapted into a film for HBO, further extending its reach and impact.
"Notes from the Field" showcases Anne Deavere Smith's extraordinary talent as a performer and her commitment to using theater as a platform for social commentary and change. The production's exploration of the intersection of race, education, and the criminal justice system resonated strongly with audiences, contributing to ongoing conversations about systemic inequality and the urgent need for reform.
Production Reviews
WHO’S WHO AMONG THE STORYTELLERS . . .
WHO’S WHO AMONG THE STORYTELLERS . . .
Sherrilyn Ifill
President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF)
Sherrilyn Ifill is a civil rights lawyer and scholar. From 2013-2022, she served as the President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), the nation’s premier civil rights law organization fighting for racial justice and equality. She most recently served as a Senior Fellow at the Ford Foundation. In 2024 Ifill will become the inaugural Vernon L. Jordan Chair in Civil Rights at Howard Law School, where will become founding Director of the 14th Amendment Center for Law & Democracy.
Ifill began her career as a Fellow at the American Civil Liberties Union, before joining the staff of the LDF as an Assistant Counsel in 1988, where she litigated voting rights cases for five years. In 1993 Ifill left LDF to join the faculty at University of Maryland School of Law in Baltimore. Over twenty years, Ifill taught civil procedure and constitutional law to thousands of law students, and pioneered a series of law clinics, including one of the earliest law clinics in the country focused on challenging legal barriers to the reentry of ex-offenders, an environmental justice offering, and a clinic on reparations. Ifill is also a prolific scholar who has published academic articles in leading law journals, and op-eds and commentaries in leading newspapers. Her 2008 book “On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the 21st Century,” was highly acclaimed, and is credited with laying the foundation for contemporary conversations about lynching and reconciliation. A 10th anniversary edition of the book was recently released with a Foreword by Bryan Stevenson, the acclaimed lawyer and founder of the national lynching memorial in Montgomery, AL.
As the President & Director-Counsel at LDF, Ifill’s voice and analysis played a prominent role in shaping our national conversation about race and civil rights. She led the organization in groundbreaking litigation in the areas of voting rights, economic justice, and education, and took a prominent role in confronting police violence against unarmed Black people. Ifill raised the profile of LDF, growing the organization in staff, resources, and influence. Her strategic vision and counsel are highly sought after from leaders in government, business, law and academia. She continues to write scholarly articles and is currently completing a book about race and the current crisis in American democracy entitled, “Is This America?” which will be published by Penguin Press in 2024.
Ifill graduated from Vassar College with a B.A. in English and earned her J.D. from New York University School of Law. She is the recipient of numerous honorary doctorates and was named by TIME Magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the world in 2021. Ifill is a recipient of the Radcliffe Medal, the Brandeis Medal, the Thurgood Marshall Award from the American Bar Association, and The Gold Medal from the New York State Bar Association. She was inducted into the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2019. Ifill serves on the board of the Mellon Foundation, the Baltimore Museum of Art, and the Board of Trustees of New York University School of Law.
Kevin Moore
Videographer of the Beating of Freddie Gray | Deli Worker | Baltimore, MD
Kevin Moore (30) is a Baltimore native and deli worker. On April 30, 2015, he witnessed and filmed the arrest of Freddie Gray, who was being detained for an “illegal” switchblade. The video Moore captured showed Gray being handcuffed and pinned to the ground, screaming in pain, followed by being dragged to the police transport van, unable to move his legs. On the same day, Moore was also arrested at gunpoint following what he describes as “harassment and intimidation.” Moore cooperated with police, giving over his video of Gray's arrest for investigation. Despite aiding in the investigation, his photo was made public by police, who asked the public to identify him because he was "wanted for questioning". Moore said the police obviously knew who he was when they posted his photo. He was released from custody the next day, but two other individuals who were arrested along with Moore remained in custody. The same day as Moore's arrest, medical examiners reported Gray sustained more injuries as a result of slamming into the inside of the transport van, "apparently breaking his neck; a head injury he sustained matches a bolt in the back of the van."
IG: annadeaveresmith. This is my interview with Kevin Moore, the man who filmed the last moments of Freddie Gray's life. I’ve been in the theater now for the greater part of my life, and one of the most extraordinary things that has happened is a young friend of Freddie Gray came to my play. He cried and cried, and could not be consoled, and he said this was the first time he had to grieve Freddie Gray’s death. Sometimes we have to go from rage, to grief, to transformation.
Allen Bullock
Young Baltimore Protestor
Allen Bullock, 18, a maintenance laborer employed through Baltimore City’s YouthWorks, joined the Baltimore protests after Freddie Gray’s death, where he was recorded smashing a police car with a traffic cone. On April 27, 2015, encouraged by his parents, Bullock turned himself in to face misdemeanor charges, was given a $500,000 bail, and was held for ten days in a Baltimore jail until someone anonymously posted his bail through a bondsman. The bail set by the court was criticized as too high for the crime and exceeded the bail of the six officers involved in the death of Freddie Gray, which ranged from $250,000 to $350,000. Neither Bullock, his family, nor Gordon seem to know who provided the minimum $50,000 required to make this bail, although they acknowledge contributions made through crowdfunding efforts.
Nearly a year later, after pleading guilty, Bullock received a 12-year jail sentence under the plea deal, with all but six months suspended for damaging property during the protest. He also received five years probation, 400 hours of community service, and a mandate to get his GED.
Jamal Harrison Bryant
Pastor and Founder of Empowerment Temple AME Church
Dr. Bryant embodies the rare balance of spiritual gifts and practical educational experiences that connects pastoral leadership and discipleship teaching with prophetic preaching and courageous social action. Dr. Bryant is equipped and poised to initiate theological revival, decisive commitment and rededication to the teachings of Jesus the Christ as the foundation for personal living, family stability and community development.
Dr. Bryant is not only known as a riveting speaker but has earned a reputation as a social justice activist. Prior to pastoring, he served as the national youth and college director of the NAACP for six years, leading about 70,000 young people worldwide on non-violent campaigns.
Dr. Bryant earned his Bachelor’s Degree from Morehouse College and a Masters of Divinity from Duke University. He studied at Oxford University in Great Britain and earned a doctorate from The Graduate Theological Foundation.
An audio clip of Pastor Jamal Bryant delivering the eulogy for Freddie Gray is included.
Pastor Jamal Bryant delivers powerful speech about violence at Freddie Gray protests in Baltimore
Two days after eulogizing Freddie Gray, who sustained a deadly injury while in police custody, Pastor Jamal Bryant spoke talked to CBS Correspondent Jeff Pegues about the unrest in the wake of Gray's funeral.
Michael Tubbs
Politician | Former Councilman and Mayor of Stockton, CA.
At 26 years old, Michael Tubbs became the youngest mayor in history and Stockton, Calfornia’s first African American mayor when he was elected in 2012.
Michael Tubbs grew up in Stockton, and witnessed the economic challenges his community faced and was impacted by the culture of overpolicing and crime. He recieved a scholarship to continue his education at Stanford University, where he earned a bachelor's degree with honors in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity. Tubbs later completed a master's degree in Policy, Leadership, and Organization Studies from the Stanford Graduate School of Education.
During his tenure as mayor, Tubbs focused on addressing issues such as poverty and violence in Stockton. He gained national attention for implementing a pilot program called the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration (SEED), which provided a guaranteed income to a select group of residents. This initiative aimed to test the impact of a universal basic income on poverty and economic stability. He is an advocate for criminal justice reform, education, and economic empowerment, not only in his home community, but other underinvested communities in California.
In 2022 he published his memoir “The Deeper The Roots: A Memoir of Hope and Home” which was met with critical acclaim. He currently serves as the Special Advisor for Opportunity and Mobility under California’s democratic governor, Gavin Newsom.
Judge Abby Abinanti
Chief Judge Yurok Tribal Court, Kalamath and San Francisco, CA.
Chief Judge Abby Abbinanti, affectionately known as ‘Judge Abby’, is the first tribal woman to pass the state bar in 1974, and become a judge in California. Judge Abby has served as a Yurok Tribal Court Judge since 1997, and has held the title as Chief Tribal Court Judge since 2007. For 17 years, she worked within San Francisco’s Superior Court in the United Family Law Division, mainly presiding over juvenile cases.
Judge Abby incorporates Yurok culture into her courtroom. She seeks to provide rehabilitation to individuals who need it most and providing justice to people often failed by the criminal justice system. Her approach is allowing tribal courts nontribal courts to serve as a guide as they attempt to move away from a completely punitive system. She focuses on a restorative justice approach, focusing on ways to make her community whole rather than further dividing it.
Leticia De Santiago
Parent | Stockton, California
“Leticia De Santiago has lived in the United States since 1968, and moved to Stockton in 1998. Before moving to Stockton, she worked at the San Antonio Clinic, a community health center in Oakland, where she first began helping to care for those who could not afford to care for themselves.
In 2008, she began cooking meals for Stockton seniors, along with driving them to medical and legal appointments. As that number grew to 70, she enlisted other volunteers, got Mexican restaurants on board with the program, and began also arranging field trips to casinos and other destinations.
Now, De Santiago’s Senior Program feeds, aids and entertains more than 145 seniors on a daily basis.”
Biography Credit
Amanda Ripley
Journalist | Washington, DC
Amanda Ripley is an award winning journalist and New York Times best-selling author. She is a regular contributor for The Atlantic, but has contributions in The Washington Post and Politico. Ripley’s primary area of focus is in conflict mediation, and she trains journalists to cover high conflict topics.
Reference Material
Niya Kenny
Former student, Spring Valley High School
Niya Kenny was 18 years old, sitting in her algebra one class, when she watched her classmate Shakara be thrown out of her desk by Spring Valley High School’s resource officer, Ben Fields. Kenny saw the situation escalating and took out her phone to record the incident, but her actions were deemed a violation of the school’s code of conduct, and she was arrested for simply taking a video of the assault. Because Kenny was 18 at the time of the incident she was charged as an adult and was briefly sent to jail. Kenny recieved an onslaught of media attention that lead to her dropping out of high school despite being on track to graduate.
Niya Kenny later went on to recieve her GED and is now training to be a dental assistant. She also has become an outspoken advocate for issues that disproportionately affect black students including the shool to prison pipeline.
Sari Muhonen
Teacher and Teacher Educator | University of Helsinki Teacher Training School | Helsinki, Finland
Dr. Sari Muhonen has worked in Finnish classrooms since 1994. She has taught all grade levels and specializes in music education. Dr. Muhonen also works within the Teacher Training Program at Helsinki University educating the next generation of teachers, primary education specialists, and music teachers. As part of her practice, Dr. Muhonen not only is part of the organization that writes Finnish curriculum, but she leads international seminars for education specialists around the world to learn about Finland’s education system.
Inmate, Maryland Correctional Institution for Women | Student, Goucher Prison Education Partnership | Jessup, Maryland
Denise Dodson
Denise Dodson is a former inmate from Baltimore Maryland who was enrolled in the Goucher Prisoner Education Program at the time of her interview with Anna Deveare Smith. She was sentenced to 23 years in prison after her ex-boyfriend killed someone who had attempted to rape her. Even though she had not committed the crime herself, she was still charged with first degree murder. There is no public information about her since her release in 2018.
Psychiatrist | Director, Stanford Early Life Stress Research Program, Department of Psychiatry, Standford University School of Medicine | Stanford, California
Dr. Victor Carrion
“Dr. Victor G. Carrion is the John A. Turner, M.D. Professor and Vice-Chair of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University and Director of the Stanford Early Life Stress and Resilience Program. He is in the faculty at both Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital. His multidisciplinary research on the behavioral, academic, emotional, and biological late effects of experiencing trauma has led to the development and implementation of effective new interventions for treating children who experience traumatic stress. Using Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as an anchor, Dr. Carrion is investigating, through longitudinal studies, the effects of stress on developmental physiology and brain development and function.
Dr. Carrion has authored and developed the multi-modal intervention therapist guide, Cue-Centered Therapy for Youth Experiencing Posttraumatic Symptoms. Cue-Centered Therapy (CCT) is a psychosocial treatment approach for children and adolescents who have been exposed to chronic traumatic experiences. CCT derives its name from its focus on the conditioning process that results in sensitivity towards trauma-related cues. Additionally, he is the author of Neuroscience of Pediatric PTSD that examines the advances in the neuroscience of executive function, memory, emotional processing and associated features such as dissociation, self-injurious behaviors, and sleep regulation.
Dr. Carrion has published numerous peer-reviewed articles addressing the social, biological, and policy implications of violence and trauma in the lives of children. He has worked as an associate editor for the Journal of Traumatic Stress and has served as a reviewer for the National Institute of Mental Health and Mental Health and Behavioral Sciences Review Board of the Department of Veterans Affairs' Medical Research Service. His seminal findings identifying biological correlates of traumatic stress have been published in leading journals of the field such as Biological Psychiatry, Depression and Anxiety, Journal of Pediatric Psychology. Most recently, Dr. Carrion edited two published works from American Psychiatric Association titled, Assessing and Treating Youth Exposed to Traumatic Stress and Applied Mindfulness: Approaches in Mental Health for Children and Adolescents; both books serve as tools for clinicians that work with children, adolescents and transitional age youth who have experienced traumatic stress.
Dr. Carrion is a Co-Founder of the Center for Youth Wellness in San Francisco, where he served on the Board and chaired the Scientific Advisory Council. In 2011, Dr. Carrion was appointed by Vice President Kamala Harris, then California Attorney General to the Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission of the State of California, where he served as chair. Dr. Carrion has received awards from the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, the National Association for Research in Schizophrenia and Affective Disorders, the National Institute of Mental Health and the Silicon Valley Business Journal. “
Dr. Carrion’s bio via Stanford University faculty page
Steven Campos
Former Inmate | Dishwasher, Disney Hall | Los Angeles, California
Steven Campos is a former inmate who is working as dishwasher. There is no public nformation on him.
Stephanie Williams
Emotional Support Teacher | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Stephanie Williams is an educator from Philadelphia, PA. After working within the public school system as an emotional support teacher, she became the principal of Belmont Charter, a charter school within Philadelphia.
James Baldwin
From “A Rap on Race”—A Conversation with Dr. Margaret Mead 1971
James Baldwin (1924–1987) was a novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic. His first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, appeared in 1953 to excellent reviews, and his essay collections Notes of a Native Son and The Fire Next Time were bestsellers that made him an influential figure in the growing civil rights movement. Baldwin spent much of his life in France, where he moved to escape the racism and homophobia of the United States. He died in France in 1987, a year after becoming Commander of the French Legion of Honor.
Activist | Lawyer | Founder & Executive Direcor, The Equal Justice Initiative Founder, National Memorial for Peace and Justice
Bryan Stevenson
Bryan Stevenson is a fierce advocate for justice reform. He began his public interest career in 1985 after earning his J.D. from Harvard. Stevenson worked on cases all across the deep south at the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta, Georgia: four years later he founded the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI).
Since 1989 the EJI has worked tirelessly to adress issues such as mass incarceration, racial inequality, and the death penalty. They advocate for reform in the criminal justice system by working to adress issues like over-policing, harsh sentencing , and the disproportionate impact that the legal system has on marginialized communities. The EJI is also comitted to ending mass-incarceration, especially for nonviolent offenders and juveniles sentenced to life without parole. Bryan Stevenson successfully fought to end life-without-parole sentences to juveniles under 17 in 2012. With the EJI, Stevenson has won reversals for over 140 unfairly convicted individuals on death row. Over the course of his career, Stevenson has won countless awards for this work.
Bryan Stevenson also founded the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, AL. which commemorates the deaths of those who died as a result of racial lynchings. He connects the horrors of America’s racist past to the brutal realities of the criminal justice system, today.
Bree Newsome
Artist and Activist | Charleston, South Carolina
Bree Newsome Bass is an artist who drew national attention in 2015 when she climbed the flagpole in front of the South Carolina Capitol building and lowered the Confederate battle flag. The flag was originally raised in 1961 as a statement of opposition to the Civil Rights Movement and lunch-counter sit-ins occurring at the time. The massacre of nine Black parishioners by a white supremacist at Emanuel AME Zion Church in Charleston reignited controversy over South Carolina’s flag. Bree’s act of defiance against a symbol of hate has been memorialized in photographs and artwork and has become a symbol of resistance and the empowerment of womxn.
Activism is one of a trio of pursuits that has driven her since a young age when she showed talent as both a musician and a writer, particularly a writer of plays and films. Her roots as an artist and activist were planted early. Her father, who has served as the dean of the Howard University School of Divinity and the president of both Shaw University and the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, is a nationally-recognized scholar of African American religious history and how it has impacted social justice movements. Her mother spent her career as an educator addressing the achievement gap and disparities of education. Bree’s interest in the arts was fostered early in her life, and she showed promise even then. At the age of seven, she learned to play the piano and wrote her first piece of music. Two years later, she wrote her first play. At the age of 18, Bree won a $40,000 scholarship from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences as part of a short film competition.
In 2011, while an artist-in-residence at Saatchi & Saatchi in New York, she marched with Occupy Wall Street. Much of her activism has focused upon incidents of young Black people being unjustly killed and issues related to structural racism. She traveled with a group of youth activists from North Carolina to Florida during the Dream Defenders’ occupation of the statehouse as a protest against the killing of Trayvon Martin. She also participated in an 11-mile march from the Beavercreek, Ohio Wal-Mart where John Crawford was killed by police to the courthouse in Xenia, Ohio, demanding release of the footage showing the killing.
From 2013-2015, she served as the Western Field Organizer for Ignite NC and she is one of the founders of The Tribe, a grassroots organizing collective. The Tribe was created in the aftermath of the 2014 uprising in Ferguson to address similar issues of structural racism and police violence confronting the community of Charlotte, North Carolina. During the 2016 Charlotte uprising, Bree helped organize protests and community meetings. She continues to organize at the grassroots level in Charlotte focusing on developing models for sustainable community organization.
Her dedication to her community work has not lessened her interest in either film or music. She often interweaves the two. In 2016 she wrote, produced, and directed the performance piece “Rise Up and Go” as part of The Monticello Summit, a four-day public summit on the legacy of slavery and freedom in America held at the site of Thomas Jefferson’s former plantation. The celebration was a collaboration among the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the University of Virginia.
Bree studied film at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. Her senior year short film, “Wake,” won numerous accolades and was a finalist for the prestigious Wasserman Award, whose past recipients include Spike Lee.
Congressman John Lewis
US Representative (D-Georgia, 5th District) | Washington, DC
There was perhaps no single figure whose own life and career embodied the promise, success, and continued challenges of civil rights for Black Americans than John Lewis. Born in 1940 in Alabama, Lewis was at the forefront of the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. A co-founder and chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Lewis led and helped organize many of the seminal moments in the Civil Rights movement, including the Freedom Rides, the 1963 March on Washington, and the Selma to Montgomery Marches. The youngest of the major Civil Rights leaders of the era, Lewis could have been seen addressing the March on Washington before Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream Speech,” and meeting with President’s Kennedy and Johnson as well as personally facing down threats, arrest, and violence, most famously during the “Bloody Sunday” Selma March in 1965. During the late 1960s through the 1980s, Lewis devoted his time to various community organizing and voter registration efforts in order to secure the legal Civil Rights victories of the 1960s and continue to advocate for civil rights. In 1987, Lewis was elected to represent Georgia's 5th District in the House of Representatives, where he served as both a legislator but also as Congress’s de facto representative of the Civil Rights Movement - the "conscience of the Congress."
April 12, 2015
What happened to Freddie Gray?
Freddie Gray
(August 16, 1989 – April 19, 2015)
Freddie Carlos Gray Jr. was 25 years old and had experienced multiple medical, behavioral and educational problems as a result of exposure to high levels of lead in the family’s rental home as a child. On April 12, 2015, Baltimore police officers arrested Freddie for illegal possession of a switchblade. The state attorney’s office noted the knife recovered from Freddie was not a switchblade but instead a spring-assisted knife, which is legal to carry under Maryland law. Nevertheless, a police task force still claimed the knife violated Baltimore code, thereby supporting Freddie’s arrest.
Bystander video recordings of Freddie’s arrest show him being pinned to the ground with his arms in handcuffs behind him, screaming in pain, while police officers are on top of him. The video also shows him being dragged by police into a transport van, his legs appearing to be weak. Multiple bystanders claim Freddie was tased, explaining why he could not use his legs, but police reports deny tasers were discharged. Videos at other stops also support eyewitness accounts of Freddie having his legs shackled and being violently tossed into the van headfirst on multiple accounts. The videos also capture police uttering “jail, jail, jail,” which bystanders said were directed at them to warn them not to interfere. In the final report upon the closing of Freddie’s case, witness statements were not included. Instead, witnesses were shockingly represented by mugshots, criminal histories and brief notes by investigators.
Not once was Freddie properly secured in the transport van, which is in violation of Baltimore police department policy. Some allege that the driver intentionally took sharp turns, allowing Freddie’s body to be thrown around without the ability to brace himself. Baltimoreans call it a “rough ride.” This dangerous practice was widely exposed after Freddie Gray’s death.
When the transport van arrived at the police station, Freddie was motionless and not breathing. He was rushed to a local hospital where he died after lying in a coma for a week. The autopsy report ruled Freddie’s death a homicide as a result of severe spinal cord injury.
Freddie Gray’s injudicious arrest and avoidable death sparked national protests calling attention to police brutality and botched investigations, including claims of police cover-ups. Despite the homicide ruling in the autopsy, one officer received a mistrial, three officers were acquitted of all charges, and charges against the remaining two police officers were dropped. The City of Baltimore settled with Freddie Gray’s family for $6.4 million.
Federal Officials Decline Prosecution in the Death of Freddie Gray
Tuesday, September 12, 2017 | For Immediate Release |Office of Public Affairs
The Justice Department announced today that the independent federal investigation into the death of Freddie Gray, Jr., on April 19, 2015, in Baltimore, Maryland, found insufficient evidence to support federal criminal civil rights charges against six Baltimore Police Department (BPD) officers.
Overview
On May 1, 2015, the Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Office (SAO) charged BPD Officers Caesar Goodson, William Porter, Garrett Miller, and Edward Nero; Lieutenant Brian Rice; and Sergeant Alicia White with criminal offenses related to Gray’s arrest and death. The charged offenses included reckless endangerment, involuntary manslaughter, and second degree depraved heart murder. Ultimately, four out of the six officers took their cases to trial, and in each instance, the prosecution was unable to secure a conviction. The SAO’s first trial, which was against Porter, resulted in a mistrial after the jury failed to reach a verdict. In the next three trials, Nero, Goodson, and Rice were acquitted on all charges following bench trials. After the fourth trial ended in acquittal on July 18, 2016, the SAO dismissed the remaining counts against Porter, Miller, and White, ending all state prosecutions related to Gray’s death.
The Department conducted a comprehensive independent investigation of the events surrounding Gray’s death and carefully reviewed the materials and evidence generated by BPD and the SAO. Career prosecutors examined evidence from numerous sources, including surveillance videos from closed circuit cameras (CCTV) that captured various sites where Gray was taken while in custody; cell phone videos taken by civilian witnesses at the time of Gray’s arrest; numerous witness interviews (transcripts, audio, and video recordings); photos; maps; medical reports; an autopsy conducted by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner for the State of Maryland; police dispatch recordings; reports concerning DNA and blood stain evidence; BPD documents related to Gray’s arrest and the investigation of his death; personnel files and background materials for the subjects; BPD policies and training materials; phone records; demonstrative evidence; the SAO’s investigative file concerning the incident; trial transcripts; and trial court verdicts and findings of fact. Additionally, the FBI and federal prosecutors conducted witness interviews of BPD personnel in order to clarify procedural questions with respect to police investigative practices.
CAUGHT ON CAMERA
“The Shakara Story”
On October 26th, 2015 in Spring Valley, S.C., Niya Kenny’s cellphone video caught School Resource Officer, Ben Fields, throwing a 16 year old black student, Shakara to the ground. The incident began was sparked because of Shakara’s cellphone use. Though absolutely no crime was committed by the two young black girls, both students were arrested for ‘disturbing the school.’ Kenny ,who was no longer a minor, was taken to jail, and it took over a year to drop the charges against Shakara, who was already struggling through the foster systerm. Fields did not face legal consequences.
“Broken”
Nearly five months earlier, on June 5th, 2015, officers interrupted a group of black teens enjoying an annual community pool party. At the one minute mark of this video, you can see Eric Casebolt screaming at several young boys, who look no older than 15 to get on the ground. Three minutes in, officer Casebolt goes after 15-year-old Dejerria Becton, who is just standing. He violently throws her to the ground, kneels on her back, and pulls his gun on the rest of the children stepping up to protect their friend. Becton cries, “I want my mama.”
THE SCHOOL-TO-PRISON PIPELINE
The “school-to-prison pipeline” refers to the policies and practices that push our nation’s schoolchildren, especially our most at-risk children, out of classrooms and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems. This pipeline reflects the prioritization of incarceration over education. For a growing number of students, the path to incarceration includes the “stops” below. (You can also download this information as a PDF.)
Failing Public Schools
For most students, the pipeline begins with inadequate resources in public schools. Overcrowded classrooms, a lack of qualified teachers, and insufficient funding for “extras” such as counselors, special education services, and even textbooks, lock students into second-rate educational environments. This failure to meet educational needs increases disengagement and dropouts, increasing the risk of later courtinvolvement. (1) Even worse, schools may actually encourage dropouts in response to pressures from test-based accountability regimes such as the No Child Left Behind Act, which create incentives to push out low-performing students to boost overall test scores.(2)
Zero-Tolerance and Other School Discipline
Lacking resources, facing incentives to push out low-performing students, and responding to a handful of highly-publicized school shootings, schools have embraced zero-tolerance policies that automatically impose severe punishment regardless of circumstances. Under these policies, students have been expelled for bringing nail clippers or scissors to school. Rates of suspension have increased dramatically in recent years—from 1.7 million in 1974 to 3.1 million in 2000 (3)—and have been most dramatic for children of color.
Overly harsh disciplinary policies push students down the pipeline and into the juvenile justice system. Suspended and expelled children are often left unsupervised and without constructive activities; they also can easily fall behind in their coursework, leading to a greater likelihood of disengagement and drop-outs. All of these factors increase the likelihood of court involvement. (4)
As harsh penalties for minor misbehavior become more pervasive, schools increasingly ignore or bypass due process protections for suspensions and expulsions. The lack of due process is particularly acute for students with special needs, who are disproportionately represented in the pipeline despite the heightened protections afforded to them under law.
Policing School Hallways
Many under-resourced schools become pipeline gateways by placing increased reliance on policerather than teachers and administrators to maintain discipline. Growing numbers of districts employ school resource officers to patrol school hallways, often with little or no training in working with youth. As a result, children are far more likely to be subject to school-based arrests—the majority of which are for non-violent offenses, such as disruptive behavior—than they were a generation ago. The rise in school-based arrests, the quick¬est route from the classroom to the jailhouse, most directly exemplifies the criminalization of school children.
Disciplinary Alternative Schools
In some jurisdictions, students who have been suspended or expelled have no right to an education at all. In others, they are sent to disciplinary alternative schools.
Growing in number across the country, these shadow systems—sometimes run by private, for-profit companies—are immune from educational accountability standards (such as minimum classroom hours and curriculum requirements) and may fail to provide meaningful educational services to the students who need them the most. As a result, struggling students return to their regular schools unprepared, are permanently locked into inferior educational settings, or are funneled through alternative schools into the juvenile justice system.
Court Involvement and Juvenile Detention
Youth who become involved in the juvenile justice system are often denied procedural protections in the courts; in one state, up to 80% of court-involved children do not have lawyers.(5) Students who commit minor offenses may end up in secured detention if they violate boilerplate probation conditions prohibiting them from activities like missing school or disobeying teachers.
Students pushed along the pipeline find themselves in juvenile detention facilities, many of which provide few, if any, educational services. Students of color—who are far more likely than their white peers to be suspended, expelled, or arrested for the same kind of conduct at school (6)—and those with disabilities are particularly likely to travel down this pipeline.(7)
Though many students are propelled down the pipeline from school to jail, it is difficult for them to make the journey in reverse. Students who enter the juvenile justice system face many barriers to their re-entry into traditional schools. The vast majority of these students never graduate from high school.
What Is The School-to-Prison Pipeline?
ACLU “At Liberty Podcast” Episodes
PRISON, POLICE & CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOLS
“Chicago has a school-to-prison pipeline problem and no one is talking about it. Much attention is focused on the daily violence and gang culture that is pervasive in many of Chicago’s neighborhoods. But less attention is paid to the destabilizing policies and institutional barriers that have left an entire swath of Chicago injured and gasping for air while ushering their youth to the jailhouse doors.”
As a result of the murders of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and countless others and the subsequent uprisings, the role of police in our society has become a national and long overdue conversation. The presence of police officers in our schools and their detrimental impact on Black and Brown children is well documented, especially in our hometown of Chicago.
More than 10 years’ worth of data paints a picture of Black and Brown children being targeted, arrested, physically abused, and criminalized without fail. The Advancement Project’s report Education on Lockdown: The Schoolhouse-to-jailhouse Track showed that in 2003 over 8,500 Chicago Public School (CPS) students were arrested in school and 77% of those students were Black. In 2010, Mariame Kaba and Frank Edwards’ report Policing Chicago Public Schools: A Gateway to the School-to-Prison Pipeline showed that in that year over 6,400 CPS students were arrested on school property and 74% of those students were Black. And, in 2017, the Shriver Center’s report Handcuffs in Hallways: The State of Policing in Chicago Public Schools showed during the 2012 – 2013 school year that CPS made over 4,800 referrals to law enforcement and that there were over 2,400 school-related arrests and over 60% of those students were Black.
Young leaders, families, teachers, and advocates throughout Chicago have been relying on this data and their lived experiences to prove to us all that police officers in schools cause harm, don’t make them feel safe, and disproportionately impact Black and Brown students and families in negative, life altering ways. We unequivocally join them in advocating for #policefreeschools. The data is clear — police do not belong in Chicago Public Schools — and the $33 million contract between CPS and the Chicago Police Department needs to be terminated. Chicago should join other cities like Denver, Minneapolis, and Oakland.
The goal of our 2017 report was to elevate the harms of having police in schools. We stopped short of fully responding to and joining the consistent demands of young leaders, teachers, and community activists in calling for #policefreeschools. We recommended, in part, that law enforcement should not be permanently assigned to Chicago Public Schools. While we know that many groups have relied on the data in our report to make the case for #policefreeschools we also know that the data and our recommendations resulted in solutions, which we advocated for, that historically have not always produced desirable outcomes. Going forward, we are committed to always listening to the voices of people directly impacted by laws and policies. We are working hard to become better allies and partners in these efforts for #policefreeschools and in all aspects of our advocacy.
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The Shriver Center on Poverty Law fights for economic and racial justice. Over our 50-year history, we have secured hundreds of victories with and for people living in poverty in Illinois and across the country. Today, we litigate, shape policy, and train and convene multi-state networks of lawyers, community leaders, and activists nationwide. Together, we are building a future where all people have equal dignity, respect, and power under the law. Join the fight at povertylaw.org.
Authors: Patrice James, Audra Wilson, Kate Walz
The presence of police officers in our schools and their detrimental impact on Black and Brown children is well documented, especially in our hometown of Chicago
June 30, 2020
ROUGH RIDING
A rough ride is a form of police brutality in which a handcuffed prisoner is placed in a police van or other patrol vehicle without a seatbelt, and is thrown violently about as the vehicle is driven erratically. Rough rides have been implicated in a number of injuries sustained in police custody, and commentators have speculated that the practice contributed to the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, Maryland, in April 2015. Throughout the U.S., police have been accused of using aggressive driving tactics to "rough suspects up", resulting in numerous injuries, and millions of dollars of damages awarded to victims and their families.
Other terms for the practice include "nickel ride" (a reference to carnival rides), "cowboy ride", "joyride", "bringing them up front" (referring to sudden braking), and "screen test" (as the prisoner may hit the protective screen behind the driver).
CNN's Gary Tuchman demonstrates what it's like to be a prisoner riding in the back of a police van.
Apr 24, 2015 | Joe Johns reports from Baltimore, drawing a connection between Freddie Gray's death and a previous fatal spinal cord injury following police transport.
CNN's Jake Tapper reports that some people are wondering if Baltimore police used a "rough ride" police van tactic and if that contributed to Gray's death.
Five members of a police force in Connecticut face misdemeanor charges stemming from an incident in June when a man was injured during a ride in a police van and left paralyzed. Officials in New Haven say in June of 2022, Randy Cox, 36, was in the back of a transport van when the officer who was driving stopped short to avoid a traffic accident. Video from inside the van shows Cox being thrown to the back of the vehicle and hitting his head. Inside Edition Digital’s Mara Montalbano has more.
Police Brutality in America
What is the definition of police brutality?
The term police brutality is a term used by the general public. It is principally used to refer to the excessive use of force, but also can refer to false arrest, illegal detention, illegal search and seizure, and other civil rights violations. Based on data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the surveys consistently demonstrate that more than 80% who had force threatened or used against them, felt it was excessive or that the officer/s acted improperly. Most injured civilians and the medical staff that treat them do not report these incidents to police review boards, and when the case is reported about 1% will be referred to the Attorney General (the latter is based on Chicago data).
15% of civilians who experience police threat of or use of force during legal interventions are injured.
An estimated 250,000 civilian injuries are caused by law enforcement officers annually.
More than 600 people are killed by law enforcement in the U.S. each year.