'Time' Shows The True Cost Of Our Broken Prison System

Time is precious. But it can also be haunting, especially when an outside force is holding the years, minutes and moments we use to clock our lives in the balance. For people who are incarcerated, the United States prison system is adamant about making sure time is something it owns. 

For over 20 years, Sibil Fox Richardson, aka Rich Fox, a businesswoman, and an advocate, has been doing all the groundwork to push for the release of her husband, Robert Richardson. On September 26, 1997, in an act of desperation, Rich and Robert robbed a credit union. Though Rich was able to get a plea deal, serving out three and a half years for her role in the crime, Robert was sentenced to 60-years in the Louisiana State Penitentiary, one of the worst prisons in the United States. Time is their story. 

Told in black and white with director Garrett Bradley's modern-day footage interwoven with Rich's personal home videos of her and their sons, Time unveils a life of waiting and longing. From her own words, prior to and following her release from prison, the audience learns more about Rich. She welcomes us into the life she's carved out for herself. We watch their six boys transform from pamper-wearing babies into towering bearded men. Rich has found joyous moments in the past 20 years. Yet, the fight for her husband's release is the singular goal of her life.

Regal and fearsome, Rich more than takes responsibility for her part in the robbery. What she doesn't accept is the time that has been stolen away from her family. She's constantly irritated by the lackadaisical attitudes of judges and judicial secretaries who can't seem to make the correlation between their day-to-day work and the lives that dangle in the balance. 

As Time swivels between the past and the present, we sit with a self-assured Rich, who never cowers in the face of her past mistakes or what she perceives to be right. It's an interesting contrast to her mother, who suggests on more than one occasion that Rich should humble herself to make headway with Robert's case.

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Spike Lee and The 'BlacKkKlansman' Cast Want You To Know The Past Is Our Present

With almost forty years in the film industry, something has compelled Spike Lee to tell every single story upon which he’s cast his lens. BlacKkKlansman, the astounding tale of now-retired black police officer Ron Stallworth's infiltration of the Ku Klux Klan is no exception. “For the last thirty years, from She's Gotta Have It (1986) to BlacKkKlansman (2018), and all the films in between, the documentaries, Michael Jackson videos, Prince videos, short films, all are important to me," Lee revealed on a Sunday afternoon in late July as we sat in the corner of a swanky New York hotel overlooking Central Park. Stallworth's story, of being the first black police officer to serve in the Colorado Springs Police Department, came to Lee through another visionary filmmaker -- Academy Award winner Jordan Peele. "I had never heard of Mr. Stallworth or his book. So that was the first time," Lee said, as he placed a vibrantly colored backpack with an image of his character Mars Blackmon on the window ledge next to us. "Even before I read the book, Jordan pitched it to me. I thought they were doing the David Chappelle skit again," he said, referring to Chappelle's fictional character Clayton Bigsby the black, white supremacist. "David Chappelle is brilliant, but that was a skit; this is someone's life. We found things in the past that ring true today, and hopefully, people will make the connection and see that this film is not a period piece, but a contemporary piece. It's about the word we live in --this crazy, crazy bananas world we live in today."

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'BlacKkKlansman' Proves John David Washington Has Always Been Working Towards This Moment

As I enter the room, John David Washington is near the window seated comfortably on a lounger, and he’s quiet. The breakout star is staring introspectively out of the window onto the sunny street overlooking Central Park. As I step through the threshold of the room, Washington smiles and stands. Ever the gentleman, he greets me and gestures toward another chair waiting for me to be seated before he takes his seat once more. For someone who grew up on the sidelines of the entertainment industry, there’s no air of Hollywood entitlement about him. At 34, Washington is ready to step into the spotlight; this is what he’s been working toward his entire life. In his role in the latest Spike Lee joint, BlacKkKlansman, the Morehouse College alum stars as Ron Stallworth, the first black police officer in the Colorado Springs Police Department who infiltrates the Ku Klux Klan and thwarts a deadly attack on the city’s black community. The moment Lee called Washington for the role, the actor knew he would be in good hands. "Working with Spike definitely exceeded my expectations," he said. "How inclusive he was as a director; how sharing he was; how much he trusted me -- this is Spike Lee. He wants what he wants, but he also wants what you got. If he wants what you got, then he allows you to give it to him, and that kind of trust from a legend like that, I've never had before on set. That was super encouraging for me and made me feel so much more comfortable and confident to deliver for him. I was calling him Mr. Lee for a couple of weeks; he's like, 'Stop calling me that. I'm Spike.' I was like, 'Alright Mr. Lee. I'll call you Spike, Mr. Lee. Sorry, Mr. Lee.'"

The pressure that came with working with Lee along with continually comparing Washington to his very famous father, another muse of the Do the Right Thing director, were just two aspects of this job with which the Ballers actor had to contend. Washington was also stepping into someone’s life. Ron Stallworth is real and very much alive. "The table read was when we really got to talk, and passed around his KKK membership card," Washington remembered. "We talked a lot there, but then every week we were on the phone. I was hounding him. He began telling me about what it's like being a cop—what to look for, where to stand, how to know where the exits are, just all that tactical stuff. Then we started talking about the motivations and what he experienced in his life. We discussed where his beliefs came from, the foundation of who he was, and his family. I also shared some stuff about me with him, too. It became this counseling relationship between the two of us."

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'BlacKkKlansman' Is Spike Lee’s Most Blunt, Bold And Boisterous Film

Legendary director Spike Lee brings retired detective Ron Stallworth's memoir to life in his piercing new film BlacKkKlansman. An engrossing adaption of Stallworth’s induction as the first black police officer in the Colorado Springs Police Department, the film follows his first year on the force where Stallworth would find himself entangled in a case that would help humiliate the Ku Klux Klan. Set in the late '70s at the height of the Black Power movement, BlacKkKlansman centers on the young and ambitious Ron Stallworth (portrayed by John David Washington), who refuses to be shoved in the evidence room, a black token in an endless sea of white faces. When Kwame Ture, formerly known as Stokely Carmichael (portrayed by Corey Hawkins) visits Colorado Springs, Ron jumps at the chance to infiltrate the crowd and report back to his supervisor about black activism in the city. What he doesn’t expect is to befriend Patrice Dumas (portrayed by Laura Harrier), the leader of the local college's Black Student Union. Though Ron is intent on working within the system to make a change, Patrice uses more “radical” approaches to combat racism, white supremacy and injustices even when it means literally putting her body and life at risk.

Given a position in the police department's intelligence section for his efforts at the Kwame Ture rally, Ron finds himself fascinated with an ad that calls for white people to join the local chapter of the KKK. On a whim, Ron comes up with a scheme to infiltrate the organization and report on its members' heinous activities and behaviors. However, no matter how "white" Ron's voice might sound on the phone, his swagger, deep skin tone and gleaming afro prevent him from meeting the local klansmen face-to-face. Instead, he's forced to partner with Flip Zimmerman (portrayed seamlessly by Adam Driver), a seasoned Jewish detective who wants nothing to do with Ron’s investigation.

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HBO 'King In the Wilderness' Executive Producer On The Film And Examining Dr. King's Final Years

It’s been fifty-years since Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated leaving an unfulfilled dream, a blueprint for humanity, a turbulent country, and a furious race of people behind. In these past five decades, Dr. King has been immortalized; hoisted up as an almost mythical being – a martyr of the Civil Right's Movement. Though history has painted Dr. King in a certain light, his closest friends and allies haven’t forgotten the last few years of his life – years that were full of confliction and uncertainty. In his searing HBO film, King in the Wilderness director Peter Kunhardt chronicles the last few years of the Civil Right’s pioneer's life – a time where even his beliefs and doctrine toward peace and non-violence were tested. A week before the film’s premiere I chatted with novelist, screenwriter, and professor Trey Ellis who served as an executive producer and interviewer for the project. For Ellis, it was essential to look back at Dr. King’s life and legacy through the memories of those who stood by his side day after day. King in the Wilderness gives an alternative view of a man who stood in the midst of an increasingly unstable country, rallying for the end of racism, war, and poverty.

Ellis had been yearning for a project on Dr. King’s life for some time, so when he heard that Kuhardt was putting something together at HBO, he jumped at the chance to get involved. "I talked to HBO a long time ago, but then around January of 2017 Peter approached me about this new take on Dr. King to commemorate the 50th anniversary of his assassination," Ellis explained. "We all decided that the later King, King in the Wilderness was the least told and also the most important for what we're going through today. So I was really excited, to come on board to do most of the interviews. Taylor (Branch) interviewed Harry Belafonte, Andy Young, and Reverend C.T. Vivian and I had the pleasure of interviewing the rest of them. We spent a year traveling around the country talking to real-life heroes for two to four hours at a time. Some of them were heroes that I knew, like John Lewis, or Jesse Jackson and others like Cleveland Sellers or Bernard Lafayette were people that I’d never heard of before, but once I got to speak with them, I was just so amazed by their strength."

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Urbanworld First Look: ‘Shots Fired’ Is a Gripping Commentary About the State of Our Nation

 

Every other week it seems, I awake to news that another unarmed Black person has been slaughtered by law enforcement. Whether it’s a teenager turning his back, a young mother clutching her small child, or a man waiting with his stalled vehicle, the narrative has become a horrific cycle of death, videos and no repercussions for the police. This death and violence are a part of America’s framework, and it’s always been here, it’s simply more visible in the age of advanced technology and social media.

Visionary storytellers Reggie Rock Bythewood and Gina Prince-Bythewood have decided to combine the art of storytelling and activism in order to say something about the state of our very broken country. In a ten-hour miniseries event that for the couple was inspired by their sons, Fox’s “Shots Fired” goes well beyond a hashtag. The gripping story which stars Sanaa Lathan (“Love & Basketball”), Tristan Wilds (“The Wire”), and Stephan James (“Selma”), flips the usual narrative on its head. Wilds stars as Deputy Joshua Beck, a Black police officer who kills an unarmed white college student, and is now being deeply scrutinized in the national media and in his North Carolina small town. Further exacerbating the situation is the fact the Beck is the sole Black officer on the police force.

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