“We hear that if you want to eradicate racism, intolerance, injustice, all you need is education,” Joseph E. Aoun, president of Northeastern University, said. “That is not enough. There are people with culture, with education, who are racists, intolerant, and hateful. So, education is not enough. What is important is the experience. To bring your education into reality. To understand reality, and to impact reality.” Aoun was addressing the issues faced by African-American people even today.
Davis was a 53-year-old African-American who was brutally beaten to death by Miller, a 20-year old then. Davis’ mistake? He invited Miller to his house for a drink to celebrate the proposal of racial equality promised by the then president Harry Truman. Adam Fischer and Benjamin Bertsch recreated the story on the site of the crime, 71 years later.
Murden in Mobile is a documentary based on this incident, made by Fischer and Bertsch and was premiered in front of an audience in the Boston Campus of Northeastern University. This was organised as a part of the week-long celebrations of the life and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. The event was attended by Davis’ descendants as well.
Margaret Burnham, a law professor at the university, has founded Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project at Northeastern. Burnham’s students have investigated into the cases of six African-Americans who were murdered by white men and whose cases were not taken forward. They have resolved these cases successfully.
It’s easy to say that racism is a thing of the past and to live in a bubble; what is difficult is to recognise the position of privilege that these opinions of ours come from. When we chose to laugh at a racist joke in our favourite TV series, when we say a fairer person is prettier, and when we decide to attack a person on race for being the way they are, we let Miller live through us.
N Malavika Mohan