CALEB CHANCEY; COURTESY OF EJI; JÖRG CARSTENSEN/PICTURE ALLIANCE/GETTY
EJI sponsored high school essay contests in conjunction with the ceremony to erect lynching markers. Yamiri Mants, a high school senior in Lowndes County, Alabama, won for his 2016 essay “Things Remain the Same,” which included a $3,000 scholarship. Asked to write on a topic related to racial justice, Mants chose systemic bias in sentencing, connecting two men separated by 72 years: George Stinney Jr., a 14-yearold boy wrongly accused and executed for rape and murder in 1944, and a college student convicted of rape in 2016. “You hear in the media how white and black men are treated different, but it seemed like such an exaggeration to me,” Mants tells Newsweek. “It’s one of those situations where you have to see it to believe it.” He will use his scholarship money to attend his local college, Alabama State University, where he plans to study graphic design. Mants is optimistic about the future but sees the enormous work needed “to push forward” beyond bias. “They say things have changed,” he says, “but only some things.”
I am a high school student who has never gotten in trouble with the law or at school. I participate in church and community activities. It seems like these statistics would keep me out of prison. Yet, I am not certain about that! For decades, young men of color like me have endured and received judgments and punishments that are far harsher and longer than those of my white counterparts for the same or similar crimes. I am still growing up and maybe naive about some things. But I am not naive about the injustice happening with the judicial system in America.