By Clare McKinley, Editor-in-Chief

Faith-filled music, emotional dances, rap battles, monologues, real news footage, videos and truth is how their voices get heard. 

“The Lynched Among Us: Tales of the Wrongfully Convicted” is a play that took the stage at Cincinnati School for Creative & Performing Arts last weekend, and it was nothing short of powerful. 

Produced by the Voices of Injustice, a group dedicated to uplifting the voices of those who have been wrongfully convicted, the play was written entirely by the exonerees themselves as a way to take back and tell their stories. 

“They’ve been wrongfully convicted. They’re more than what happened to them. They’re fathers, mentors, artists and advocates,” emcee of the event Leticia Cunningham shared about Voices of Injustice. “Understanding is the first step toward change, so they started with, what? Their stories, told with humility and heart. And can I add bravery because it’s not easy to get in front of people and tell your story. They are not here to place blame but they are here to build bridges.” 

Directed by Voices of Injustice President Alfred Cleveland, the play tells the tales of Michael Sutton, RuEl Sailor, Lamont Clark and Charles Jackson with Laureese Glover’s story to be featured in future renditions. These men served a total of 126 years in prison and were freed with the help of the Ohio Innocence Project (OIP), a branch of the not-for-profit National Innocence Project founded right down the road in Cincinnati, Ohio. 

The four exonerees featured in Friday’s show told their stories with courage and truth.  They were supported by an ensemble of actors equipped with insane vocals, emotion evoking dance moves and rapping skills, who all embraced many different roles in order to tell these stories. 

The production began with a dance number in which dancers were dressed to work on a plantation, with a noose around each of their necks. It is a painful but necessary reminder of the past to set up the present. The dance abruptly ended and the audience was transported to Sutton’s interrogation room for the first story of the night. 

Sutton explains that he was out in Cleveland celebrating his high school graduation and a full ride scholarship to the University of Akron when he and his friends witnessed a shooting. His trial is conveyed through a rap dialogue in which the prosecutor maintains his vile persona in attacking Sutton then puts on a polite, respectful front to curry favor with the judge after he is done performing. 

During each exoneree’s section, dance and music helped tell their stories. The music and choreography made tangible the uplifting, hopeful tone that underscored the entire show. No matter what challenges they faced, no matter how dark times seemed, each stood firm in their faith and held tight to the belief that they would be able to live their lives again. 

Next, Sailor took center stage with his orange jumpsuit and sweeper broom to tell his story. His experience with the criminal justice system highlights the abuse of power that can take place inside maximum security prisons when corrections officers take it upon themselves to make inmates’ lives miserable.  

After a brief intermission, the final two stories were told. 

After Clark gets into an unthinkable situation where a gun goes off and shoots his unborn child’s mother, he is convicted of killing her maliciously. Clark’s story is a reminder that the criminal justice system can play with people’s freedom by offering them dark plea deals that let someone walk free right away if they plead guilty. At the same time he is offered this deal, Clark’s mother gets terminally ill, forcing him to make a difficult choice. 

All four stories utilize projections of real footage of the mens’ lives to help show that these criminal cases are more than just a statistic. When the criminal justice system gets it wrong, there are real people and real lives affected. There is nothing more uplifting than watching a family member get to hold their loved one after being denied their company for so long. 

The last story told is Jackson’s. He brings a lighthearted, humorous energy to cut through the, at times, disheartening subject matter with a dramatic reenactment of him running from the police across the stage in a Scooby-Doo style chase. Spoiler alert, he gets away but is then picked up for a shooting that happened miles away from where he was. Despite having two police officers as his alibi, he was given poor advice from his legal counsel and was sentenced to life in prison. 

In spite of a few technological glitches to iron out, the show was imperfectly perfect at showcasing the raw emotion of anger, joy, sadness and hope that comes along with having one’s life in the hands of a broken system. 

On April 10 and April 11, the Voices of Injustice hope to take their show to Chicago to share their stories at the annual Innocence Network Conference.