’13th’ screened at Orange’s library and discussed afterward

ORANGE, NJ — When the new documentary film “13th,” by filmmaker Ava DuVernay, was screened at the Orange Public Library on Friday, Oct. 14, those in attendance included Orange Mayor Dwayne Warren, library director Timur Davis, Orange City Council President Donna K. Williams, at large Councilwoman Adrienne Wooten, People’s Organization for Progress Chairman Larry Hamm, Pastor Thomas Reddick, Tarrick Tucker and former Gov. James McGreevey.

After the screening, attendees joined panelists for a discussion of the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and racial inequality in the U.S. prison system, the subject of the film.

“I’m a black American and so it is my job, it has always been my job, to inform the communities and that’s what I’m going to do,” Wooten said Friday, Oct. 14. “As a mother, as a grandmother, as a lover, as a human being; that’s what we do. I am a community stakeholder on many levels and it goes back to growing up in Greensboro, N.C. My father went to North Carolina (Agricultural and Technical State University); I went to A&T, so that’s a family college. But most importantly, he taught us how to protest before we even knew what the word ‘protest’ was and I give that honor to my father.”

Wooten said the screening of the movie was a protest in many ways: “It’s the start of a protest and I’m learning so much from Larry Hamm.”

McGreevey currently works in Jersey City, helping Mayor Steve Fulop with prisoner-re-entry issues and economic and social empowerment concerns by helping people find jobs and gain employment.

“I want to give thanks to mayor, to all the reverends, to the clergy, to the council, for having this opportunity to talk about prison reentry; talk about the problems and concerns of mass incarceration, the new Jim Crow; and to talk about opportunities for change and also services that are available for people coming back from jail and prison,” McGreevey said. “(We work) in Jersey City, but we also work in Newark at the (Greater Newark) Conservancy on 32 Prince St. So we want the community from Orange to share and I’m passing out my brochures and I’m just asking people to remember that we’re all God’s children, and giving people that are coming back a second chance.”

Quoting the old spiritual that states: “We all fall down, but we all get up,” McGreevey said he has seen the movie “13th” and recommends it.

“It’s powerful, so powerful,” he said.

Hamm agreed with McGreevey’s assessment of the movie, adding he was glad to have been part of the panel discussion afterward, since “everybody is concerned about the criminal justice system” and “almost every black family is somehow touched by the criminal justice system; we’ve got a family member in prison or a relative or a friend and even those of us that are in the movement, we’re called upon to go into the prisons.”

Hamm said, the film is “about the criminal justice system and it’s called ‘13th’ because it’s based on the fact that the 13th Amendment, when it was written, abolished chattel slavery for everyone except those convicted of a crime. It’s actually in the amendment itself, so it kind of laid the Constitutional basis for the creation of the criminal justice system that we have today.

“We had a very expert panel here today with Rev. Reddick, Gov. McGreevey, Council member Wooten, Mayor Warren and young Tariq. It was a great program today and, as you can see, there was a large turnout here tonight,” Hamm said. “I guess, in a manner of speaking, tonight was a form of protest, because people are outraged about the direction that the criminal justice system is going, because it’s not rehabilitating people. There are more people under the authority of the criminal justice system today than were enslaved in 1860, according to the U.S. Census of 1860.”

  Adrienne Wooten, James McGreevey, Larry Hamm