If you’re interested in learning about a lawyer and activist who helped outlaw school segregation in Pennsylvania and later became the first Black judge appointed to the Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, then my Raymond Pace Alexander Black History Facts profile is for you.
Tag: <span>justice system</span>
“The Grim Sleeper: The Lost Women of South Central” by Christine Pelisek details the investigation that led to the arrest of Lonnie Franklin, a serial killer dubbed the Grim Sleeper. At the time, South Central was a neighborhood that grappled with low incomes, employment instability, drug addiction, and the crime that often accompanies those social issues. Deaths did not receive the same level of attention or scrutiny as they might have in other communities. For decades Franklin took advantage of that neglect as he prowled South Central Los Angeles attacking and murdering Black women with seeming impunity.
A review of “3 ½ Minutes, Ten Bullets”, a 2015 Sundance-winning documentary that tells the story of the shooting death of Jordan Davis in Jacksonville, Florida. To be more precise, the documentary dives into the events leading up to the murder of Jordan Davis and the resulting trial of Michael Dunn.
“Just Pursuit” by Laura Coates is a memoir about a Black female prosecutor and her time at the Department of Justice. You get the perspective of her coming into the agency as someone new to the office, and then a bit of insight as she gets a bit further along in her career. Now, to be clear, this isn’t a chronological story or a day-by-day account of her career at the Department of Justice. Instead, Coates picks out a few significant cases and discusses what was going on in her life at the time, the details of the case, and how the case affected her.
“LA 92” is a 2017 documentary about the racial tensions that erupted into riots in Los Angeles in 1992. At the core of the unrest was the acquittal of four White police officers who had been caught on video savagely beating a Black man, Rodney King. The relatively light sentencing of a shopkeeper who shot and killed an unarmed Black girl who she thought was stealing also contributed to the unrest. The documentary explains these two contributing events but also explores the city’s decades long history of discrimination and ill-treatment of its Black population.