Monday, September 27

Stephen Jones, Jr.

Innocence X Headquarters

1111 Justice Road

Birmingham, Alabama 35005

Re: Death Penalty—Intake Department

Dear Steve,

You thought I’d stop, huh? This is going to be my last letter. I bet you wonder what I’m going to be doing. I’m starting my senior year with my own podcast: Corner for Justice. I decided I didn’t need to be the editor of the school newspaper if I can reach a larger audience with social media. I have just over 100,000 followers already! It’s all about highlighting injustice. Would you be willing to do an interview? I’ve got a lot of people lined up, so time’s ticking. I don’t plan to wait seven years for a response.

Thank you again for everything you’ve done. Congratulations on your recent case. Don’t forget us when you’re big-time. I’ve got a couple of cases you might be interested in.

Peace and solidarity,

Tracy Beaumont

Author’s Note

While This Is My America is a work of fiction, it is rooted in US history and fueled by my decades of work in education and advocacy for diversity, equity, and inclusion. Growing up, I was an activist in my community as much as a daydreamer in the library. At the time, I had trouble finding books with characters who looked like me: the gap of diverse literature from diverse writers was (and still is) staggering. Nowadays, I write the stories I wanted to read, to fill the space in between those worlds.

Racism in the criminal justice system was imprinted on me at twelve years old when Los Angeles police officers violently beat Rodney King. I was shocked at the inhumanity of his treatment, and when the video aired on national television, I thought surely justice would finally be served. But it wasn’t. When a jury acquitted the police, the Black community exploded and rioted in anger. I felt their rage. Their pain was my pain.

In 1997, I marched against police brutality for the first time at a youth rally in Pittsburgh during the NAACP national conference. The city was still rife with tension in the Black community from a few years earlier, when Jonny Gammage, a Black motorist, died of suffocation after he was pinned to the pavement by white officers. Those officers were charged with involuntary manslaughter; none were convicted.

With no books to turn to for Black protagonists, I found that rap became my life’s soundtrack, from Lauryn Hill’s lyrical prose influences through Public Enemy, Ice-T, and N.W.A teaching me that art can be used to express discontent. Rap was my generation’s tool for expression, and it was this music, not high school English classes, that taught me how to be a writer.