Précis

Reporter Sally Sara takes to the streets of Baltimore and Chicago to investigate a reawakened civil rights movement that’s fighting to stop the killing of black Americans.

“We’re still fighting to be free. Every once in a while it looks like we’re gonna get there – and then it all gets killed” – J.C. Faulk, community organiser in Baltimore

For African Americans like J.C. Faulk, the great civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s was unfinished business. Battles were bravely fought and won, but somewhere along the way the ball got dropped.

Now, black America is rising up again over the mounting death toll of unarmed civilians killed in encounters with police, and the incomprehensibly routine atrocities that torment gang-infested neighbourhoods.

“What we’re seeing is the birth of a mass movement” – Melina Abdullah, #BlackLivesMatter

This time there’s no Martin Luther King. #BlackLivesMatter is a leaderless movement that wants to shake up America by harnessing direct protest and the mobilising power of social media.

Consider:

One third of black men in the US are likely to go to jail at some time in their lives;

Unarmed black Americans are twice as likely as whites to be killed by police;

In Chicago more than 2500 people were shot last year – one every three hours. Most were black;

In South Side Chicago special safe passage zones have been set up so children don’t get shot walking to and from school.

“Long live Freddie, Black Lives Matter, f… the police!” – young man on Baltimore street

Reporter Sally Sara encounters a Baltimore still simmering over the death of Freddie Gray, 25, whose face looms from murals at the corner where police arrested him in April. Angry protests erupted when he died of spinal injuries after being taken into custody.

Among those who took to the streets was Tawanda Jones. Every Wednesday night for 114 consecutive weeks she has run her own protest for her brother Tyrone – another who died after being stopped by police.

“I will never give up. The day I give up is when killer cops are in cellblocks” – Tawanda Jones

#BlackLivesMatter is not just about changing policing. It is also pursuing real reform in places like Chicago’s South Side, where 40 per cent of kids grow up in poverty, gangs run rampant and violence is nearly all black on black. Here it’s easier to get a gun than a job.

“All the damn demons and devils are running free here” – Nortasha Stingley, whose teenage daughter Marissa was shot dead by a man in a passing car

At Nortasha Stingley’s church nearly every worshipper has lost a friend or relative to gun violence. When Foreign Correspondent follows Nortasha home after church she discovers that her neighbour’s 14-year-old son Tyjuan has been killed in a random drive-by shooting.

“I’m scared to grow up. If I have kids I’d be scared to bring them into the neighbourhood”– teenage girl at Tyjuan’s vigil

Incredibly, Tyjuan’s was just one of more than 50 shootings in Chicago in the single weekend that Sally Sara was there…

In this one-hour Foreign Correspondent special, the people who must live in this pall of violence express their fury and their fear.  Amid the mayhem though, a rich and vibrant street culture thrives; so too does the optimism of the individuals who dedicate themselves to changing and saving lives.

Noel singing

[singing]

00:00

#BlackLivesMatter protest

SARA:  A new generation of African Americans is raising its voice against what it sees as racism and injustice.

DR MELINA ABDULLAH:  “I think what we’re seeing is the birth of a

00:21

Melina Abdullah

mass movement”.

00:32

Protests/ Noel singing

[singing]

00:33

SARA:  The children and grandchildren of the civil rights era say they want freedom.

00:37

JC Faulk/’O Say Can You See…’ lights

JC FAULK:  “I want to be free, and in America you’re not free here if you’re black”.

00:43

Martin Luther King memorial/People on phones

SARA:  This time there’s no charismatic leader.  Instead there are citizens, social media and searing determination.

00:51

Noel singing

[singing]

01:03

Civil rights archival photos/Devin

DEVIN ALLEN:  “This is our generation. It’s a new generation and there’s new ways to fight this battle. 

01:03

Black Lives Matter cartoon

SARA:  The Black Lives Matter campaign has grown from a hash tag to a political force.

01:12

Black Lives Matter protests

WHITE MAN PROTESTING:  “The caskets are getting smaller and smaller”. 

BLACK MAN PROTESTING:  “We have to stop this, we have to let the world know what is happening here”.

DR MELINA ABDULLAH:  “Absolutely I believe that Black Lives Matter is the most important political movement to

01:19

Melina Abdullah

happen in my lifetime”.

01:30

Noel singing

[singing]

01:31

Black Lives Matter protests/Obama/Police arrests

SARA:  It’s unfolding in an America where the dream of a black president came true, but where a third of black men end up in gaol.

US PRESIDENT OBAMA:  “We as a society, particularly given our history,

01:35

Obama

have to take this seriously”.

01:49

Montage of faces

SARA: We are bringing you the stories of Americans who want their country to know that black lives matter. 

01:57

Noel singing

[singing]

02:06

GFX:
#BLACK
LIVES
MATTER

Music

02:07

Baltimore GVs

02:13

SARA:  Only an hour’s drive from the White House, Baltimore is a tough little place.  It’s lost 100,000 jobs since the 1950s and a third of its population. 

02:48

Baseball game

Music

03:02

SARA:   Today, just over 600,000 people call this one team city home.

03:10

Devin walks with camera/Taking photos of Baltimore residents

Music

03:20

SARA:  Capturing the urban upheaval is photographer, Devin Allen.

03:25

Woman #1

WOMAN #1:  “Baltimore means opportunity, opportunity to rethink, regrow, change”.

03:32

Taking photos

03:42

Woman #2

WOMAN #2:  “Baltimore is everything to me.  This is my home”.

03:46

Devin taking photos

Music

03:50

Man #1

MAN #1: “ We are survivalists, we are fighters”.

03:56

Devin taking photos

Music

04:01

Man #2

MAN #2:  “It’s hard to have dreams when you’re stuck in reality.  Tanks on the block making sure we watching loving hip hop.  Man, forget that job. I’m going to bounce back better than I ever did and scream I’m black until it sounds repetitive. 

04:08

Baltimore to me is home. It’s where those thugs and criminals are really fathers and mothers”.

04:20

Devin taking photos

04:25

DEVIN ALLEN:  [Photographer] “One of the greatest moments in my life was becoming a father and then it was finding photography.

04:31

Devin interview

That’s my second baby so that’s what it feels like you know, like it’s just when you find that thing that can, you know, change your life, you know, it’s amazing”.

04:35

Devin taking photos

Music

04:46

SARA  :  When Devin looks though his lens, he sees glimpses of his own life. 

04:52

Music

04:57

Sara and Devin walk/Devin taking photos

SARA:  The 27 year old grew up here in West Baltimore.  He’s lost more than 20 of his friends to shootings and drug violence.

05:05

Mural of Freddie Gray

One face stares out from the walls of this neighbourhood.  It’s the face of Freddie Gray, a young man who was arrested on this corner.

05:15

Freddie Gray arrest video

Music

05:28

SARA: The 25 year old was injured in the encounter and begged for help.  He was loaded into a police van but he never even made it to the cells.

05:38

Photo. Gray in hospital/Memorial mural

Freddie Gray died from spinal injuries a week later, on the 19th of April.

05:50

Photographic montage. Uprising

Music

06:06

SARA:  Community anger over his death erupted on the streets.

06:09

Music

06:13

SARA:  Devin Allen took to the streets with his camera.

DEVIN ALLEN:  “It was like a movie, like I still can’t believe it happened.

06:16

Devin interview

It’s forever changed Baltimore and it changed me forever”.

06:25

Photographic montage. Uprising

SARA:  His local knowledge put him ahead of the media pack and his images went viral – all the way

06:28

Cover of Time Magazine with Devin’s photo/Devin’s photos in gallery

to the cover of Time Magazine.  They told a much deeper story than many of the mainstream media outlets.

DEVIN ALLEN:  “I understood the power of photography and I knew that people needed to see the real story and what was really going on, so I just put them out there and I just let them run wild.  You know, they were just sticking to the script.  If it bleeds it leads and that’s all they were worried about.

06:37

Devin interview

They wasn’t talking about how, you know, we were taking, we took our community back”.

07:00

Faulk on street with guys painting wall

SARA:  Community organiser JC Faulk was one of the thousands on the streets during the uprising.  He sees the anger not only over Freddie Gray’s death, but also the neglect of the city’s poorest neighbourhoods. 

07:04

Faulk interview. Super:
J.C. Faulk
Community organiser

JC FAULK:  [Community Organiser] “Huge swathes of Baltimore have been forgotten. You know, in the East and in the West it just so much like

07:20

Abandoned homes

you could ride around in some of these neighbourhoods and seventy or eighty per cent of the properties are boarded up and they’ve been boarded up since the sixties when Martin Luther King got killed.  It’s insane that we have a major American city where we have thousands and thousands of black people living in squalor in an American city”.

07:26

Archival. 1968 Baltimore riots

Music

07:48

SARA:  Baltimore had burned before, back in 1968, when Dr King was assassinated;

08:00

Devin’s photo on cover of Time Magazine/Archival continues

now a new generation is rising.

DEVIN ALLEN:  “A lot of people say that picture reminds them of the ‘60s, you know, and I think that, basically that picture unites a big generation gap, you know.

08:07

Devin interview

I think that picture basically put everything into perspective, the times that we’re living in and a lot of things have changed, but things can easily progress backwards if you don’t stay on top of these issues”.

08:21

Faulk interview

JC FAULK:  “We’re still fighting to be free, and every once in a while it looks like we’re going to get there.  Every once in a while looks like it’s least there some hope for us to get there.  And then it all gets killed”.

08:32

Video screens of police killings

08:41

SARA:  These graphic images of police brutality have marked a bloody turning point in US history. 

JC FAULK:  “We’re seeing police

09:02

Faulk interview

kill people on camera. Murder them, and nothing gets done”.

09:15

Trayvon Martin killing montage/protests

09:21

SARA:  It was the shooting of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin in Florida in 2012 that set off a wave of fury across America. 

09:25

Music

09:36

President Obama

US PRESIDENT OBAMA:  “If I had a son, he would look like Trayvon”.

09:42

Abdullah interview. Super:
Dr Melina Abdullah
#BlackLivesMatter

DR MELINA ABDULLAH:  [#BlackLivesMatter]  “I think the weight of what had been happening for years in this country

09:44

Security camera screens/Courtroom screens

really helped to amplify what happened in the death of Trayvon Martin”.

JUROR: State of Florida versus George Zimmerman. Verdict.. We the jury find George Zimmerman not guilty.

09:50

SARA:  Security guard George Zimmerman was acquitted of Trayvon’s killing. This was the event that sparked the hash tag –

10:04

GFX:  #Black Lives Matter

Black Lives Matter.

10:14

Protests

DR MELINA ABDULLAH:  “We were blindsided by him being acquitted”.

10:17

Sharpton

REV AL SHARPTON:  “We are tired of going to gaol for nothing and others are going home for something”.

10:21

Abdullah

DR MELINA ABDULLAH:  “But also saying we will protect our children and this cannot happen again”. 

10:27

Police killings

10:32

SARA:  But it did.  Over and over.  Only a year later unarmed 18 year old Michael Brown was shot dead by police in Ferguson, Missouri.

10:38

Riots/ Hash tag spread GFX

The streets exploded and the Black Lives Matter hash tag spread around the world.

DEVIN ALLEN:  “You know, the fight never really stopped.

11:01

Devin interview

When you see some injustice documented, you have to document it”.

11:13

ON SCREEN TEXT: Unarmed African Americans are twice as likely as whites to be killed by police. 

Music

11:17

ON SCREEN TEXT: Last year more than 100 unarmed African Americans were killed by police.

11:27

Faulk interview/Police brutality screens

JC FAULK:  “People say we shouldn’t focus on the police brutality so much we should focus on other things.  Well, you know, when you have a knife at your throat and you have someone standing with a boot on your head it’s really hard to focus on something other than you may die at any moment”. 

11:35

Music

11:53

Fault and man with phone on street

SARA:  The campaign has become more than simply capturing images of injustice. It uses social media to rally support and build political pressure.

12:00

Abdullah interview/kids

DR MELINA ABDULLAH:  “We were able to hit people emotionally and make them understand that this is not simply a cause, this is real black people’s actual lives. So #BlackLivesMatter is a rallying cry to say, to affirm for black people that we matter, but also to make demands of a system to change”.

12:15

Freddie Gray arrest video

SARA:  In Baltimore this year, few were expecting justice in the Freddie Gray case.  But what happened next, made history.  The city’s young prosecutor, Marilyn Mosby announced the six police officers accused of causing Freddie Gray’s death would be indicted. 

12:41

Mosby addresses press. Super:
Marilyn Mosby
Baltimore State Attorney
May 1, 2015

MARILYN MOSBY:  [Baltimore State Attorney]  “To those that are angry, hurt or have their own experiences of injustice at the hands of police officers, I urge you to channel the energy peacefully as we prosecute this case. I have heard your calls for no justice, no peace, however your peace is sincerely needed as I work to deliver justice on behalf of Freddie Gray”.

13:01

Young guys with Segway taking photos

JC FAULK:  “I think it’s huge that Mosby indicted them. Huge. In terms of impact here and in terms of impact everywhere else.  It gives people hope, you know, it makes them think

13:22

Faulk

that maybe, maybe we can stop people from killing us”.

13:35

American flag/ Exterior Baltimore Police Department/Reporters

Music

13:38

SARA:  The indictment has rocked the Baltimore Police Department.  It won’t comment on the detail of the case, which is still before the courts, but one officer has agreed to speak to Foreign Correspondent on the condition he is not identified.

“What was the reaction from officers when you heard the news that charges

14:00

Unidentified police officer interview

were actually being laid?”

BALTIMORE POLICE OFFICER “JOE”:  “Disbelief… shock… and just thoughts that, you know, the officers were out trying to do their job”.

14:22

Police patrols at night

SARA:  “Joe” has been in the force for more than 15 years.  He believes police are blamed for social and economic problems far beyond their control.

14:34

BALTIMORE POLICE OFFICE “JOE”:  “We’re the whipping boys of society, we’re the first symbol of the government.  A lot of people take their anxiety and anger out on the government by seeing the police and saying… ‘f… you’.”

SARA:  “Are there some bad cops out there who really need to be put under greater scrutiny?”

BALTIMORE POLICE OFFICER “JOE”: “There definitely is.  Like any profession, there’s who take advantage of their position, you know maybe they are

14:46

Unidentified police officer interview

missing something in their life and they take it out on unfortunate people, the bullies of the world, they’re bad in life anywhere they go, but then especially is you give them some authority and some power.  It’s a terrible situation”.  

15:18

Abdullah. Super:
Dr Melina Abdullah
#BlackLivesMatter

DR MELINA ABDULLAH:  “Black Lives Matter is of the belief that it’s not simply about bad apples it’s also about an unjust policing system that has to be completely transformed, and so the six officers being prosecuted is one thing, an examination of the policing system is something else and something that’s more necessary”.

15:38

Freddie Gray murals

SARA:  The city of Baltimore has agreed to pay Freddie Gray’s family $6.4 million in compensation but other families are still waiting for justice.

16:03

Tyrone West justice protests

[rapper]

16:16

Tawanda at protest

SARA:  Tawanda Jones’s brother Tyrone West died after being arrested by Baltimore Police in 2013… Every Wednesday night she leads a protest called West Wednesday to keep the case in the headlines.

16:27

TAWANDA JONES:  “I will never give up. The day I give up is when killer cops are in cell blocks.  We need to stand up, rise together, because where there’s unity nothing can break through that,

17:02

Tawanda interview. Super:
Tawanda Jones

they may have guns and weapons but we have voices and we have power, and if we knew how powerful we were, none of this stuff would happen”.

17:16

West Wednesday protest

SARA:  This is the 114th week in a row that Tyrone West’s family and their supporters have gathered to protest not only against

17:25

Sara to camera at protest

his death, but to demand more information to try and find out exactly what happened.

17:40

West Wednesday protest

Music

17:46

Family photo. Tyrone

SARA:  Tyrone West was 44 years old, a father and grandfather. 

17:50

Sara drives with Tawanda

Tyrone’s sister, Tawanda, has agreed to take us back to where her brother was killed.  She’s still driving the same car he drove that night.

17:56

TAWANDA JONES:  “It’s so hard.  It’s so hard, but I’m only doing it today because I know it need to be done, but it’s so hard.  It’s like… it’s like a hole in your heart that I can’t explain.  It’s so hard”.

18:10

SARA: Tyrone West was driving along here on the evening of the 18th of July 2013, giving a lift to a female friend.  He was unarmed and not under the effects of any drugs or alcohol. 

TAWANDA JONES:  “This is it.  Yes,

1831

oh my god. This is where it gets hard… [upset]… I’m sorry”.

SARA:  “Are you okay?”

TAWANDA JONES:  “Yeah”.  [crying]

18:49

Comic book panels

19:14

SARA:  Police pulled over Tyrone West because they thought he was acting suspiciously.  The situation quickly escalated as Tyrone struggled and the police called in back up.

TAWANDA JONES:  “This is like actually where he

19:16

Sara with Tawanda

was drag out my car by his hair.  And they say, witnesses say he was beat from this side of the street all the way to that side of the street. And he’s, help, help… (UNCLEAR) he’s running all up and down here, screaming, help, screaming help, help.  And none of those animals was… [crying]…”.

19:31

SARA: “It’s still very, very painful for your family”.

20:03

TAWANDA JONES:  “Yes, when nobody would stop to help him.  The saddest part is brutal as my brother’s death was, the cover up is more brutal.  The cover up is worse, for the simple fact how can you do that to a human life?  How can people know that wrong happened and not tell what they saw?”

Comic book panels

SARA:  Witnesses say Tyrone West was tasered, pepper sprayed and struck several times by police.  He stopped breathing and died.  More than two years later, no charges have been laid.

20:25

Sara with Tawanda

“Is there justice in America right now?”

TAWANDA JONES:  “There’s no justice.  It’s just us.  We need to stick together and dismantle this corrupt system.  There’s no justice”.

20:43

Faulk interview. Super:
J.C. Faulk
Community organiser

JC FAULK:  “You know we black people have been living in this culture for centuries and we’re afraid of the system that’s supposed to be protecting us.  It’s like we’re in a place that is home on some levels or another but it never feels like home.  It always feels like you’re some place you’re not supposed to be”.

20:53

Rural Pennsylvania/Sara driving

Music

21:11

SARA:  Less than an hour’s drive from Baltimore, it’s a very different America.  Traditions run deep in the countryside of Pennsylvania, but this quiet town is home to a former Baltimore police officer who blew the whistle on racism and brutality in the force.

MICHAEL WOOD JNR:  [Former Baltimore Police Officer]  “I was once

21:22

Wood interview. Super:
Michael A Wood Jr
Former Baltimore Police Officer

proud of my law enforcement career, but I now realise you cannot be in that system. You cannot participate in a system that has structural and institutionalised racism and keeps our fellow humans down.    You can’t participate in that system and be good. I was not good. I was not a good cop because I was in that situation. There’s no other way around it”.

21:50

Wood puts on police uniform

Music

22:10

SARA:  Michael Wood spent 11 years in the Baltimore Police Department before he was discharged with a shoulder injury in 2014.  The uniform and the badge really meant something.  He was a tough young cop who showed little fear on the streets.

MICHAEL WOOD JNR:  “I wanted to be in those bad neighbourhoods.

22:15

Wood interview

But you have to be the big guy, you have to be the boss. You can’t have any weaknesses”.

22:38

Wood on motorbike

Music

22:43

SARA:  But, Michael was a bit of a rebel in the ranks, questioning the law enforcement practices that had been unquestioned for decades.  The death of Freddie Gray and the police denials of responsibility that followed infuriated him.

22:49

MICHAEL WOOD JNR:   “In Baltimore, the citizens didn’t trust

23:12

Wood interview

the police before Freddy Gray and they don’t trust the police after Freddy Gray.  The question is, is why aren’t the police doing something to remedy that?  They’re doing absolutely nothing.  If anything we keep making it worse and worse.  We’re like somebody that’s stuck in this ideology and we’re digging our heels in just refusing to change despite loads of evidence right in front of our faces”.

23:15

Guys on motorbikes in Sandtown

Music

23:37

SARA:  This is where Michael Wood started his police career, in Sandtown Winchester, the very same neighbourhood where Freddie Gray grew up.  To fully understand the

23:56

Sara to camera

context of the Freddie Gray case it’s really important to try to get your mind around what’s going on in this neighbourhood.  The statistics from this area paint a terrible picture of dysfunction and disadvantage. 

24:12

Guys on motorbikes in Sandtown

Young people here have more chance of going to gaol than to university. The numbers are shocking.

24:26

Sandtown neighbourhood GVs

Music

24:36

MICHAEL WOOD JNR:  “So right now, approximately 450 people

24:55

Wood interview

from Sandtown, Winchester neighbourhood are in prison – 450 people from one neighbourhood at a cost of $17 million. 

24:58

Sandtown neighbourhood GVs

Now if we took $17 million, how many college educations, how much socio-economic improvement, how much opportunity can we give the residents of Sandtown, Winchester so they don’t end up in the criminal justice system, so that’s our goal, right?  Our goal is not in the criminal justice system.  So as police officers, we should be looking for goals to not have people end up in the criminal justice system. Instead every solution we has is to push them into the criminal justice system”.

25:05

Music

25:34

Sara and Wood walk in alley

MICHAEL WOOD JNR:  “This was actually my first post where I walked foot in a unit called DSU. So you come down here and this is the Baltimore you think, this is the Baltimore

25:47

Sandtown GVs

that no one cares about, right?”

SARA:  “And when you think back now, how much of your job was in a way filling the prison system?”

MICHAEL WOOD JNR:  “I essentially think

25:54

Wood and Sara on street

that that is what police do and everything else that you think would be good, those are outliers, so helping somebody or solving a violent crime, that’s actually like, I’m going to go with like below 10% of what the totality of police work is”.

SARA:  “So you spent a lot of your time in these neighbourhoods, picking up and locking up black people to go into the prison system”.

26:05

MICHAEL WOOD JNR:  “I’m almost going to say that’s exclusively what I did, because that’s what gets measured”.

26:29

Young men on street

Music

26:35

SARA:  That’s why Freddie Gray’s name echoes so loudly on the streets here. 

26:49

GUY ON STREET #1:  “Everybody out here is Freddie Gray.  He’s Freddie Gray, he’s Freddie Gray, I’m Freddie Gray, he’s Freddie Gray”.

SARA:  These young people not only knew Freddie, they’ve all had their own experiences of being harassed by police.

26:54

GUY ON STREET #2:  “How we dress and talk like they target us. It’s not fair”.

27:08

GUY ON STREET #3:  “When we came out that morning our friend died for nothing, for running man.  He ain’t know the police were going to kill him”.

SARA:  “Every day you’re thinking that it could happen”.

GUY ON STREET #2: “Yeah any day now”.

27:15

Music

277:24

Police helicopter overhead

SARA:  A police helicopter hovers above, the locals nickname it the Ghetto Bird.  It watches over them all day at a cost of thousands of dollars while many basic services are neglected. 

“So they just keep

27:30

Sara and Wood

going round and round and round this same spot?”

MICHAEL WOOD JNR:  “Yep finding somebody else, doing something, constantly monitoring, constantly watching, waiting for the single mistake”.

SARA: “I think they’re having a good look at us just quietly”.

DR MELINA ABDULLAH:  “I think as a black

27:46

Abdullah interview. Super:
Dr Melina Abdullah
#BlackLivesMatter

Mother, you know, getting children through life, being a mum is difficult enough, right?  Being a black mother, right, where I know that they have targets on their back is even more difficult”.

JC FAULK:    “I think it says a lot

28:00

Faulk interview

about America that it throws black people away as if black people are not talented, as if black are not loving, as if black people were not capable.  And so I think that America is doing an incredibly bad thing by taking those kids and making them valueless in this culture”. 

28:15

Police patrol neighbourhood

Music

28:37

On screen text:
2.2 MILLION PEOPLE IN JAIL
$US80 BILLION A YEAR

SARA:  There are now more than 2.2 million Americans in gaol at a cost of 80 billion dollars a year. A small

28:41

coalition of US politicians is trying to do something about it. 

28:51

Booker addresses meeting

Senator Cory Booker is one of the leading voices.  He wants to reduce prison sentences for non-violent criminals and provide more support when inmates return to the community.

28:57

Booker interview. Super:
Cory Booker
Democratic Senator

US SENATOR CORY BOOKER:  [Democratic Senator]  “Well it’s devastated our economy if you think about it just objectively.  There’s studies that show that we would have about twenty percent less poverty in the United States if we had incarceration rates that were similar to our industrial peers. 

29:17

Baltimore GVs/Police

[sirens/Music}

29:31

US SENATOR CORY BOOKER: We understand that there’s no difference between blacks and whites in America in dealing drugs or using drugs.  In fact, some studies show that young white men have a higher rate of dealing drugs.  But the arrests African Americans are being arrested almost four times more, about three point seven times more than somebody that’s white even though there’s no difference.

29:42

It actually makes us more dangerous as a society because when you incarcerate someone most of the people are coming out, but then when we

30:03

do what America does which adds on what are called collateral consequences, tens of thousands of things that prevent them from reintegrating into society as whole citizenships makes it more difficult for them to get a job, more difficult for them to get food stamps or housing or business licences or student loans”.

30:11

SARA:  What’s happening here in Baltimore is part of a much bigger picture

30:37

Sara to camera

of race, inequality and violence in the US.  To take you deeper into that story, we’re on our way to one of the most celebrated, but segregated cities in America --Chicago.

30:41

Chicago GVs

Music

30:54

SARA: There’s nothing shy about Chicago.  America’s third largest city is the home of the world’s first skyscraper and full of ambition. But it’s almost as if there are two Chicagos.

31:11

Train to South Side

Music

31:25

SARA:  Only a few miles from downtown is the South Side, home to most of the city’s black residents.

31:27

Music

31:35

South Side GVs

SARA:  This is where the black lives matter story becomes more complicated.  It’s not just about violence against black communities, it’s the violence within black communities.

31:53

Music

32:05

Women dance, choir sings inside church

[singing]

32:17

SARA:  The church is a sanctuary from the troubles of the neighbourhood.  Almost everyone in this congregation has lost a friend or relative to gun violence.  Last year, more than 2,500 people were shot in Chicago, that’s one victim every three hours – most were black.

32:36

Nortasha addresses congregation

NORTASHA STINGLEY: “This is where I stand on the Word of God.  And I stand here today a strong woman of God. The last time I was here, I was sitting right where you are sitting at, and my daughter was laying here and I was lost”. 

33:10

Congregation applauds

33:23

Photos. Marissa Boyd-Stingley

SARA:  Nortasha Stingley’s daughter, Marissa was only 19 years old when she was shot dead in June 2013.  She was a college student with a promising future ahead of her. 

“What were you most proud of, of Marissa?”

NORTASHA STINGLEY:  “Everything.  Everything about her.

33:30

Nortasha interview . Super:
Nortasha Stingley

I was just proud, proud to be her mother, proud and grateful that God had given me her.  She was my first born.  My one and only daughter.  My best friend”.

33:56

Comic book panels

SARA:  Marissa was with a car load of friends.  The young driver got in an argument with a man in the next car, who then opened fire. Marissa was killed instantly.  All of her friends were wounded.  They saw the gunman, but refused to cooperate with police because they feared retribution.

NORTASHA STINGLEY:   “So you all going to let him walk free but for two years two years two months 21 days,

34:21

Nortasha interview

you all going to let him walk free to shoot somebody else, to devastate some another family and to take the lives of other people?  So you’re all so dirty you ought to let him to do that?  What type of people are you all?  No heart, no conscience, to not them.  Hell empty, you know why?  Because all the damn demons and devils are running free here”.

34:52

Neighbourhood GVs

Music

35:20

SARA:  In some neighbourhoods on the South Side, it’s easier for teenagers to get a gun than a job.  Young black men are turning on each other and catching scores of bystanders in the crossfire.

US SENATOR CORY BOOKER: [Democratic Senator] “I’ve been on the scenes, on the aftermath of shootings, all of these things are very real in my life.  And so I how do I feel about it?  This is outrageous that a

Booker. Super:
Cory Booker
Democratic Senator

country this great should have in it such extreme levels of violence - about 30 people murdered every day.  Countless more that are shot every day.  This is not who we are as a nation or who we profess to be”.

35:53

Neighbourhood GVs

Music

36:06

Sara and Nortasha outside Nortasha’s home/Photo Tyjuan

SARA:  We arrive home from church with Nortasha, but very quickly it’s clear that something is wrong.  We find out her neighbour’s 14 year old son, Tyjuan has been killed in a random drive by shooting. 

36:13

Comic book panels

Tyjuan had begged his mother for permission to go for a walk with friends.  She reluctantly let him go.  A few minutes later, he was shot dead by an unknown gunman, only a few blocks from home.

36:30

Nortasha interview

NORTASHA STINGLEY:  “It’s an epidemic, it’s hurtful. I don’t even have words right now.  All I can do is just pray for that mother”.   

36:49

Security guard outside apartments guarding mayor

SARA:  Security guards keep watch as the mayor of Chicago offers his condolences to the family.  It’s become a grim task of office.  City officials are struggling to keep up with the number of shooting victims this weekend.

37:01

Police van passes

MICHAEL SIMMONS: [Crisis Responder]  “From eleven o’clock yesterday morning until about eleven

37:18

Sara with Simmons on street interview

this morning, I’ve responded to eight personally on my caseload.  And so you never get used to it, this reality is always a shocker and in this line of work

37:24

Simmons super:
Michael Simmons
Crisis Responder

you have to be a man of faith otherwise you will get caught up and find yourself consumed in the madness”.

37:34

Kids do dance

SARA:  Local children are trained about the dangers of getting shot. Nortasha’s eight year old son,

37:40

Levell walks on street

Levell, knows he’s only allowed to walk in his own street, no further.

37:49

Music

37:56

Sara at home with Nortasha and family

SARA:  “How would you explain to mothers in Australia how serious the problem of gun violence is

38:15

Nortasha interview

here in Chicago?”

NORTASHA STINGLEY:  “Don’t come here.  Don’t come.  You can’t even let your kids outside.  For that matter, you can’t go outside;

38:19

you’ve got a chance of being killed or your kids getting killed. And a sickness, this real sickness and nobody cares”.

38:33

Nortasha outside apartment

Music

38:47

Boy children

US SENATOR CORY BOOKER:  “I have extraordinary respect for many mums who are trying to raise their children, especially black boys, in a world that, again, just looking at the data presents tremendous challenges in affecting, in actualising great life outcomes for young black boys.  And the thing we have to realise is that we have this illusion that those children are not ours, that this is a mother struggling alone, but the reality is, it’s because of the interdependency of our society they’re all of our children.  We all are vested in their success. 

38:55

Booker interview

We all benefit when they excel.  The unleashing of their genius in our country and on this world is of benefit to us all,

39:26

Candlelight vigil for Tyjuan

and we all pay the price should they fail.  We’re paying it in hundreds of billions of dollars in this country every year the price of our collective failure.  And so this is what should be motivating us.  And I know we talk a lot about race, but they’re all our kids regardless of what race and we need to be seen in that way, these are our children”.

39:34

SARA:  As darkness falls, a sad ritual unfolds outside.  Mourners gather for 14 year old Tyjuan Poindexter from next door who was shot and killed. 

39:58

Girl mourner

GIRL MOURNER:  “I live just down the street and then like we heard the gunshots.  My mama thought it was my sister, but it wasn’t her.  Then we came down here and I’m like that’s my cousin, and I’m like that’s Tyjuan and then a robber was the other one that got shot and I didn’t know how to react, like I was just hurt”.

40:11

Mourners

SARA:  The shooting happened just a short distance from the Chicago home of President Obama. 

“What would your message be to

40:28

the politicians, the city officials, as a young person growing up here in Chicago, living amongst this violence?”

40:37

Girl mourner

GIRL MOURNER:    “Well, I’m scared to grow up.  Like if I have kids I would be scared to bring them into the neighbourhood.  I think they need to put a change and stop everything that’s going on”. 

40:44

Tyjuan’s sister in crowd

SARA:  Tyjuan’s little sister quietly takes her place in the crowd.  It’s slowly sinking in that her brother will never come home again. 

40:54

Basketball game

Music

41:09

SARA:  The fight is on to save the lives of young people on Chicago’s South Side.  Former gang members are being taught to settle their scores on the court, rather than the street.

41:24

Music

41:37

MICHAEL CARTER:  “All the teams is from different areas

41:47

Carter interview

that we all, like at war with each other with the gun violence but this game is very important as it gives us something to do when there’s nothing to do, because everybody know when there’s nothing to do, you going to do something bad”.

41:49

SARA:   This is much more than a game of basketball, it’s a chance for the community to come

42:03

Sara to camera at basketball game

together, and in this case it’s the church that’s trying to give young people a sense of hope that they don’t have to get into violence, that they should stay in school and sport as a way to push ahead for the future.

42:07

Pfleger at game talks to teams

The man behind the tournament is an outspoken and energetic local Catholic priest. 

FATHER MICHAEL PFLEGER:  [St Sabina Church]  “I’m tired of the carnage in Chicago.  I’m tired of the body count in Chicago.  Last weekend three killed, 30 shot.  Last night there was 18 shot in Chicago.

42:23

Pfleger interview. Super:
Father Michael Pfleger
St Sabina Church

We want to stop that, and we’re not going to stop it by just telling people don’t shoot.  We’re going to stop it by giving these guys options.  We’re going to stop it by telling them we love them, we care about them, we believe in them and have them believe in themselves, so until we give these guys another option, we’re going to continue to see them take it out on the street.  We want them to know we love them”.

42:42

Spike Lee at game

SARA:  Father Pfleger has some high profile help. Filmmaker and activist Spike Lee is backing the cause.

42:59

GVs at basketball game

FATHER MICHAEL PFLEGER:  “There’s the tale of two cities in Chicago.  There’s downtown and then there’s the South Side and the west side.  Until we decide we’re going to equal the playing field in Chicago, communities like this are going to continue to be violent and they’re going to continue to be dying and we’re going to have lives to continue to die because when people feel hopeless, they’ve got nothing to live for.  When you don’t have any value to your life,

43:24

Pfleger interview

you don’t care what happens, to you or anybody else.  Everybody that shoots somebody else, they’ve already shot themselves in internally by saying they have nothing to live for”.

43:45

Pfleger with women at game

SARA:  “What do you think about the Black Lives Matter campaign?”

FATHER MICHAEL PFLEGER:  “I love it.  I love it, because there’s people, young people, rising up and saying we’re tired, we tired of feeling like we’re disposables in America and, you know, people are saying no we shouldn’t say black lives matter, we should just say all lives matter.  No, we know about white lives matter in this country.  We say black lives matter because the fact this country has told black lives they don’t matter.

43:55

Pfleger interview

It’s a cry of saying yes we do, and so we’ve got to validate that, stop trying to steal it and cooperate”.

44:23

SARA: “Is this problem solvable?  Do you think there’s hope and future here?”

FATHER MICHAEL PFLEGER:  “Is it solvable?  Hell, yes.

44:29

Yeah it’s solvable.  We can stop violence.  We can change economics.  We can build houses.  We can do it tomorrow, but we lack the will, and if we don’t start caring about these communities, these communities are going to make people care about them”.

44:36

Montage of news tickers

Music

44:50

Comic  book panels

SARA:  The next morning, one of the teenagers who attended the basketball is shot in the face and killed only a few blocks from the church.

44:55

Woman on news screen

WOMAN:  Who would do that? He has no enemies out here. Who would do that, and why?

45:06

News screens

SARA:  The motive for the killing is unknown.  By the end of the weekend there have been more than 50 shootings in Chicago, leaving eight people dead.

45:12

‘Safe Passage’. Kids coming home from school

The violence is so bad, it’s become part of daily life.  Special safe passage zones have been set up so children don’t get shot when they walk to or from school.  There’s an unofficial agreement that gangs won’t shoot or deal drugs when the pupils pass by.  But, parents know the lure of the gangs is strong.

45:28

NORTASHA STINGLEY:  “This is what I’m telling my son.  So I say, if I ever catch you on the corner or you with your little friends and your friends doing something and you joining in the activities that they’re in, and you acting up or you doing something bad and I found out

45:54

Nortasha interview

about it, I’m going to whoop your ass.  Excuse my language.  That’s what I told my son.  I put the fear, not just the fear of God in him, but he fear of me”.

46:06

Outside basketball game

ON SCREEN TEXT: Young black men are 14 times more likely than other Americans to die from homicide. 

Music

46:15

The unemployment rate for African Americans is twice as high as whites.

46:38

Outside basketball game

46:51

US SENATOR CORY BOOKER:  “When you start seeing the totality of the picture of how the system really is working against certain communities in ways that it doesn’t in others, you begin to wonder about wanting to address this. 

46:58

Music

47:10

Booker interview. Super:
Cory Booker
Democratic Senator

US SENATOR CORY BOOKER:  This idea, which you’re seeing in America today, this Black Lives Matter movement, is not an assertion that black lives matter more than others, it’s really an assertion hey wait a minute, aren’t we citizens too?  Don’t we deserve equal justice?  Don’t we deserve equal opportunity?  Don’t we deserve an equal shot?”

47:16

Man gets into car and drives away

Music

47:33

Sara with Timuel Black

SARA:  There was a time when Chicago’s South Side was a place of hope. Dr Timuel Black is 96 years old and a civil rights legend of the neighbourhood. His family arrived here from Alabama in 1919. 

47:45

DR TIMUEL BLACK:  [Civil Rights Campaigner]  “Chicago was very, very, very important

48:09

Timuel interview. Super:
Dr Timuel Black
Civil rights campaigner

for the basic reason it had greater job opportunities”.

48:13

Archival photos. African Americans in Chicago

Music

48:22

SARA:  African Americans came in their thousands to escape the misery and racism of America’s deep south.  Times were tough in Chicago too, but there was plenty of optimism and talent.

48:29

DR TIMUEL BLACK:  It was a great economic depression, but because of the concentration of talent of music and all - blues, jazz, gospel and all that - we were not depressed.  There was a spirituality of relationship and a feeling, a belief,

48:49

Timuel interview

that one day this was going to be better. 

SARA:  So there was a strong sense of hope?

DR TIMUEL BLACK:  Oh, absolutely.

4907

Music

49:16

South side Chicago

SARA: Dr Black was a local high school teacher in the late 1960s as gang shootings began to take young lives.

DR TIMUEL BLACK:  “I lost more of my boy students

49:31

Timuel interview

on the streets of Woodlawn, that neighbourhood of Woodlawn, than I did in Vietnam”. 

49:44

Rapper walks running his hand along wall

49:50

SARA: Fifty years later, many young people are still reaching out, desperate for something better.

50:01

Rapper to camera

YOUNG MALE RAPPER:  “I’m tired of living life this way.  Why can’t we have more books to carry, less technology.  Dictionaries.   I speak as a teen.  Because I want to live to see my past, instead of living everyday like it’s my last. Good or bad, which door.  Because you have to be prepared for war”. 

50:08

Locked school yard/Closed schools

SARA:  But it’s hard to keep teenagers engaged, when neighbourhoods are left to decay and dozens of local schools are closing. 

50:22

Nortasha interview
Super: Nortasha Stingley

NORTASHA STINGLEY:  “Come on now.  So you don’t want them to read, you don’t want them to go to school tomorrow, you want to close them schools, but yet you’ll go and build a prison to hold these kids in. But don’t nobody want to talk about that.  Everybody want to shhh.  This what’s gonna curb the violence. 

50:31

Neighbourhood people

Get these kids more jobs.  Get ‘em something to do to get off the streets. 

50:48

Music

50:52

NORTASHA STINGLEY: I come to tell them it’s time, get out here, get some structure some back in these streets, it’s happening to us and if we as a people, as a community, if we don’t get up and get out in these streets

51:04

and do it who’s, gonna do it?  Who’s gonna do it?”

51:16

Neighbours play basketball

SARA:  But that’s a heavy burden to carry.  Nortasha and her neighbours are just trying to get by, amid the chaos of the South Side. 

CHARLES HATCH:  “I can

51:21

Sara with Hatch

walk down the street and get a 45, 38 from a 13 year old. They are robbing, stealing and shooting each other.  They can shoot.  That’s why so many kids are dying.  You do something to me on my block, I’m going to do something to you on your block.  And we all the same people!”

51:33

Neighbours play basketball

SARA:  Families like these are still playing catch up, decades after racist laws and practices were scrapped.  Average household wealth for African Americans is still only one tenth of that for whites.  For many, the American dream has been on hold for too long.

DR MELINA ABDULLAH:  “If we think about that period from really kind of the 1980s on

52:00

Abdullah interview. Super:
Dr Melina Abdullah
#BlackLivesMatter

there was an emphasis on incorporation into the existing system so black people were fed this narrative that if we just assimilate, if we just do the right thing, if we can be like the Cosbys, right, then we’ll get the benefit of that, that we’ll be incorporated in. We’ve been friendly for decades = and that hasn’t worked.  There’s a requirement that we say that black lives matter and make black lives matter in this country”.

52:27

Chicago sunsets/Inside club

Music

52:58

Faulk interview. Super:
J.C. Faulk
Community organiser

JC FAULK:    “I don’t know that you can be American and be black and be conscious and not be angry on some level.  I don’t know how you do that when people like you are getting killed.  You know like America is always asking us not to be angry”.

53:29

Band plays

Music

53:44

Faulk interview

SARA:  “Do you feel proud to be an American?”

JC FAULK:   “No.  I don’t.  I read some of our documents that started the country and I’m proud about what those documents say, like they say really good stuff.  But no, I’m not proud to be an American.  I’m not proud that America does what it does to black people. I’m not proud of that.  I can’t say that I am”.  

53:50

Kids dance and sing/Kids centre

54:53

SARA:  It’s unclear whether these children will have to fight their own civil rights battles in the future.  Black Lives Matter is the latest in a long line of social movements determined to deliver justice, equality and opportunity to African Americans. 

US SENATOR CORY BOOKER:  “What are they going say about our generation.  In America we have this long history, it’s an ideal of ours that every generation should do better than the one before.  Well, this generation has

54:41

Booker interview

a lot to go if we’re going to prove worthy of that tradition.

55:09

Gymnastics competition

Music

55:13

US SENATOR CORY BOOKER: America’s greatness will not just go marching on, it’s not a matter of inevitability. It has to be worked at,

55:19

sacrificed for, struggled for, and so white or black I’m hoping that more Americans, in my generation understand that the call of our country”.

55:25

Black Lives Matter protest

55:34

Abdullah interview/Protest

MELINA ABDULLAH:  “I think that’s the call for all of us.  You know the call for all of us is to say we’re not just going to live the way that they tell us we have to live.  We’ve changed our lives to be a part of this movement.  That’s why it’s a movement not a moment”.

DEVIN ALLEN:  “These are everyday people who are standing up,

55:38

Devin interview/Protest

you know, and becoming young leaders.  We have to lay the foundation for that next generation and we can’t drop the ball, so when we are too old to fight, you know, we can sit back and just give them the knowledge to allow them to continue to fight because the buck doesn’t stop here”.

56:03

Noel sings at protest

[singing]

56:17

Credit start over [see below]

56:52

Outpoint after credits

57:24