Arts & Entertainment
TECHNICIAN
PAGE 8 • MONDAY, MARCH 26, 2018
Art project exposes injustice within the criminal justice system
Sarah Gallo
Assistant Arts & Entertainment Editor
Sherrill Roland was watching a movie at home with his mother when his phone rang. While not typically answering calls from unknown numbers, Roland answered the phone because it had a Washington, D.C., area code. He had a few friends there. Unbeknownst to Roland at the time, it was a phone call that lit the fire of a two-and-a-half year fight for justice, the truth and, ultimately, freedom. Roland, who recently graduated from UNCGreensboro’s School of Art with a master’s degree, granted students the opportunity to hear how he turned a wrongful conviction into a powerful art and social justice project on Thursday evening in Talley Student Union. “Firsthand, I would like to say that my story isn’t rare, but sharing it is,” Roland said. “And I don’t think anybody who’s been through this has seeked a way of dealing with it like I did as therapy as well. Just know that I am rep-
resentative of many more who are right now incarcerated for something they didn’t do.” Roland was originally convicted of four felonies – which was later lessened to four misdemeanors – that he didn’t commit. He noted that he does not disclose what the convictions were for, as he didn’t commit them and disclosing that information feels like another loss of control, which is something he has only recently started to get back. As an artist, Roland found much healing in conducting The Jumpsuit Project, a social experiment of sorts in which he wears an orange jumpsuit around campus at UNC-G in order to break stigma, and get people talking about the wrongful incarceration and oppression within the criminal justice system. Sarah Williamson, the president of the Sociology Graduate Student Association, talked on why it is important to talk about injustice. “Being aware of injustices, whether that’s in the criminal justice system or inequality in pay, is something we want to think about and be
aware of,” Williamson said. The Jumpsuit Project was born from a long journey toward acceptance, which Roland laid out on Thursday evening. After receiving an initial call from law enforcement informing him that there was a warrant out for his arrest, Roland was shocked. He thought, “this can’t be right.” The officer told him he had to come to Washington as soon as possible to turn himself in. If he didn’t, he would live day-to-day worrying about whether or not he would be taken into custody anytime his I.D. or driver’s license was scanned. Roland was just about to attend his first day of graduate school at UNC-G. He arrived in Washington in the middle of the night to turn himself in for a crime he knew he didn’t commit. After arriving, the process was not what he expected in the slightest. “I thought I was able to keep most of my clothes on, but they stripped everything,” Roland said. “I got fingerprinted, [and] I got
handcuffed and was put in the interrogation room – this was all at 4 o’clock in the morning. I just got off a flight – this was confusing to me. Everything happened [so fast], and I got put in a cell with no mats or cushions and waited until they collected everybody in that precinct.” The day after appearing before the judge, Roland had to catch a flight back to North Carolina. He had to make it to classes the next day. Left without his belt, shoestrings, wallet or cellphone, all Roland had in his possession was a $20 bill his public defender gave him which was just enough for a cab to the airport. After the first hearing, the court had nine months to reach an indictment in which, he explained, “a jury could decide my fate.” After those nine months, Roland’s felony charges were lowered to four misdemeanors – and his fight for justice was just beginning. It was the fall semester of his second year of grad school, and at the time Roland had a class
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