"Think of Justice as a Value, not a system"

The actor Michael K. Williams was in Cleveland this past week. He visited the County Detention Center and spoke at Cleveland State University's Cleveland-Marshall College of Law. Shared below is an account of that day written by Dean of the Law School and circulated via his Monday Morning Messages.

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"I want you all to imagine what it was like for me to talk to an 11-year-old dark-skinned boy by the name of Michael, with a scar on his face, who knew to take his pain and suffering of his long eleven years of living - and use it to be a blessing in someone else's life. That broke me down....  It struck a fire in my gut.  And that fire was called:  never again." – Michael K. Williams Actor, Producer, “Raised in the System.”

"When I had difficult times in prison ….where I was housed with 2200 men for every crime you could probably think of …. I said to myself that I want to be a light in this dark place. I understood that I couldn't get over this, I couldn't get under it, I had to go through it." – Dominic Dupont, whose 25 year-to-life sentence was commuted by Governor Andrew Cuomo

"A long time my kids asked me, ‘How can you believe in the criminal justice system that did that to you?’  I said, ‘it wasn't the criminal justice system, it was individuals.... If I didn't believe in the criminal justice system, I wouldn't be able to help people get out of prison who don't belong there’." – Derrick Hamilton, exonerated after 20 years in prison

"I'm asking all of you in this room - be it judges, or prosecutors, or defense attorneys, legal aid society, or service providers - to think of justice as a value and not as a system."  - Dana Rachlin, Founder, NYC Together

"We, as judges, those of us involved in the criminal justice system, we've got to get off the bench. I have a hashtag that I use and I call it #beyondthefourwalls. And so I come off the bench, I come out of my robe, I go into the schools." – Judge Michael Ryan ‘96

“I feel indebted to C|M|LAW and the alumni community for giving me a chance to join this profession, for giving me the skills and the support to do the work I care about, and for joining me in my mission. I look forward to carrying these efforts upward and onward with you!”  -Kim Corral ‘12

We are a law school without walls. Every week throughout the year, we foster a culture where our students learn not only in the classroom but also through forums that inspire honest engagement and respectful discourse and dialogue on society’s most challenging legal issues.

Thanks to the impressive efforts of Kim Corral '12, on Thursday, November 29, the C|M|LAW Alumni Association, led by Judge Michelle Paris ’84, partnered with our C|M|LAW Criminal Justice Center and the ACLU of Ohio to bring HBO star Michael K. Williams (The Wire/ Boardwalk Empire) for a packed day of social justice programing. See Cleveland-Marshall Alumni Association Hosts Documentary Screening and Panel Discussion.

The day started when Williams screened his documentary, Raised in the System, with a small group of boys age 9-17 at the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Detention Center. See HBO Star Visits Cuyahoga Juvenile Detention Center. Joining Williams were Derrick Hamilton and Dominic Dupont. Hamilton was exonerated in 2015 after serving over 20 years in prison for a murder he did not commit. Dupont, Director of the Youth Assistance Program, was recently released from prison after serving 20 years of a 25-to-life sentence. His sentence was commuted by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in recognition of his leadership in anti-violence programs for youth.

Each of these men gave a heartfelt talk to the boys about their own experiences. The response by the young boys was remarkable; they responded by talking about the pain they have experienced throughout their lives. It was a revealing and compelling experience.

On his way to the law school, Michael Williams met with CSU President Harlan Sands. At noon, Williams, Hamilton, and Dupont, joined by Victor Seltzer and Dana Rachlin, spoke to a group of our students about police reform and community development. Seltzer is the CEO of Making Kids Win. Rachlin is the founder of NYC Together.

In the afternoon, the Moot Courtroom was packed for a screening of Michael K. William’s Raised in the System HBO Documentary. After the screening, Kim Corral '12 introduced Williams. Together they announced the creation of the C|M|LAW Alumni Association Live Justice Scholarship which will go to a first year C|M|LAW student who has demonstrated a strong commitment to social justice. Over $19,000 was raised for the new scholarship in just one day, including a contribution from Michael K. Williams.

Professor Jonathan Witmer-Rich then moderated an inspiring panel discussion with Williams, Seltzer, Hamilton, Dupont, and Rachlin. All of the panelists volunteered their time, woke up at 4 a.m. to fly to Cleveland, and spent a full ten hour day inspiring, educating, and challenging their audiences to engage in the important, collaborative work of justice reform. See Photos from C|MLAW Event with Michael K. Williams.

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THE REAL DEAL PRESS is now ​a digital weekly​,​reporting on the interplay of race, class and power in the civic, business and cultural spaces of Northeast Ohio and beyond.​

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One City — Two Tales

This weekend’s Movement for Black Lives may frame next year’s GOP Convention

All eyes will be on Cleveland in July 2016 when the Republican National Convention comes to town. Fifty thousand people, including 15,000 members of the media, are expected to gobble up every hotel room for miles around, rent apartments and condos at exorbitant rates, and create an economic impact of some $200 million dollars. The city fathers are absolutely giddy. If recent history runs true to form, the demographics of most of those spending all that money will skew Caucasian, wealthy, heterosexual, Christian. Party leaders hope that their actions will result in one of their own becoming the next President of the United States, the Leader of the Free World, and the Restorer of the Old.

A year prior to this highly publicized event, which is to say starting today, hundreds of black people will arrive largely by car and bus, for a Movement for Black Lives Convening. The demographics of these attendees will be overwhelmingly African American, intergenerational, and omni-sexual, if that term represents the broadest spectrum of human sexual orientation. The economic impact will be slight — many of them will be crashing in church basements or possibly in the homes of total strangers. They will meet in classrooms at Cleveland State University for workshops to learn, heal, organize and mobilize for what they are determined must be a new American regime where Black Lives Matter equally as much as all others.

The backlash of the Civil Rights Movement, the dawning of the Information Age, and globalization are among the potent forces that have produced the growing divide in America between the relative few who have enormous amounts of wealth, liberty, and secure and expansive personal space, and the vast numbers of other Americans who have increasingly less.

While technology has made it possible to create and transfer immense wealth almost by keystroke — the mortgage manipulation that precipitated the Great Recession is Exhibit A — the smartphones and social media that make us all potential eyewitnesses and video reporters have spotlighted the continuing dangers of being black in America.

One hundred years ago Cleveland was the symbol of great wealth in America. It is currently on a run celebrating the centennials of great civic institutions — the Cleveland Foundation, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and many other cultural gems in and around University Circle. Nobody looks too closely beyond a point at how the fortunes were accrued that launched these proud markers of civic accomplishment.

The choice of Cleveland as the site of the Movement for Black Lives was made intentionally, because our city has come to represent all of the ills that plague black people nationally: indifference and hostility to women of color, especially members of the LGBT community; excessive and outrageous police misconduct, documented by the most recent U.S. Department of Justice report; economic disparity; a public education system that is besieged on all sides; communities with Third World health statistics; and even Ohio’s status as an open-carry state.

For one observer, this week's Movement for Black Lives convening evokes the spirit of the old Chambers Brothers anthem, Time Has Come Today, first released in 1967 ["I don't care what others say. Time has come today!"]. One spokesperson told us the convening is inspired by this spirit of creative resistance, righteous resistance, prophetic resistance.

More than 800 people are expected to register for this weekend’s programs. Registration is open, inexpensive, and begins at 8am. Information is available online at www.movementforblacklives.org.