Announcing the SMU premiere of Susanne Mason's independent film

"writ writer:
One Man’s journey for Justice"
 
& Panel Discussion on Prisons, Rights, Race, and Violence”

Thursday , April 16, 2009

6:00 pm showing, followed by panel discussion
McCord Auditorium, 3rd Floor, Dallas Hall
3225 University Blvd.
Southern Methodist University

"Maybe it's bad for a prisoner to have too much spirit. Maybe too much awareness and hope pierces the heart, leaving too many sorrows. After 10 years of imprisonment, I felt wasted and barren."     —Fred Cruz

In 1960, a young man from San Antonio, Texas, was arrested for robbery, convicted and sent to a state prison farm to pick cotton. He denied committing the robberies, but couldn't afford a lawyer to appeal his cases. With only an 8th grade education, he read every law book he could find access to and filed his appeal pro se. WRIT WRITER tells the story of jailhouse lawyer Fred Cruz and the legal battle he waged against physical and racial violence, working to secure the constitutional rights of Texas prisoners by preparing writs of habeas corpus. Told by wardens, convicts and former prisoners who knew Cruz, WRIT WRITER weaves contemporary and archival film footage to evoke the fascinating transformation of a prisoner and a prison system still haunted by their pasts.

panel discussion includes:

Benjamin H. Johnson, SMU history professor and Associate Director of the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies, will introduce the film and afterwards moderate a panel discussion about the alarming racial disparity of America’s prison system, prisoners’ rights, and the subject of violence and allegations of torture in these prisons.  Panel participants will include film-maker Susanne Mason, Clements Center Fellow Robert Chase, author of the upcoming book, “Civil Rights on the Cell Block: Race, Reform and Punishment in Texas Prisons and the Nation, 1945-1990,” Rick Halperin, Director of SMU’s Human Rights Education Program,  Ernest McMillan, civil rights veteran, and special guest and community activist Reginald Gordon.

For more information on the film WRIT WRITER, click here.

For directions to SMU and sites frequently used for events on campus and for visitor parking, click here. 

If you need special accommodations, please email the Clements Center at swcenter@smu.edu.

Last updated April 1, 2009.