At 7:45 on March 4, 2016, while the community roared outside Disney’s The Lion King at DPAC, Le’Andre Diamond Blakeney and Mia Hutchins-Cabibi dropped a banner inside the theater, reading “This Jail Kills: Enjoy the Show.”  They were removed and detained by police and, thankfully, later released without charge.  This is the statement that they wrote ahead of time to explain their action, which was also released to the press while they were in custody.

A great divide exists (Lk 16:26) between the ostentatious entertainment and frivolity of the Durham Performing Arts Center (DPAC) and the starving, tortured, and dying prisoners in the Durham County Jail.  DPAC profits off of the invisibility of the lynching of black bodies across the street while exoticizing all things African on its stage.  On January 19, Matthew McCain died in the Durham County Jail after detention staff had medically neglected him for months.  As…