My uncle, Levon Brooks, would have turned 61 today. Levon was such a kind, selfless person — and despite spending 16 years in Mississippi State Penitentiary for a crime he didn’t commit, he found so much joy in life.
Unfortunately, he died in 2018, after a five year battle with colon cancer and only 10 years after being exonerated.
People all over the globe are learning about his story of injustice highlighted in the Netflix series The Innocence Files. Based largely on unreliable forensic science, my uncle was wrongfully convicted. But he was so much more than the injustice done to him.
He was the type of person that you would have wanted to meet. I enjoyed all my days that we spent together from the first till the last
Though 30 years have passed since Levon was arrested for a crime he did not commit, the injustices he faced then are the same injustice many Black Americans face today. Levon was Black and poor, and didn't have the means to fight for justice.
When the Innocence Project reached out to him, Levon had resigned himself to the fact that he would spend his life in Parchman prison — a prison built on and modeled after a slave plantation — for someone else's crime.
In his decade of freedom, he spent time with his family and enjoyed being outdoors, fishing, raising chickens, rabbits, and quail, and tending to his vegetable garden.
Levon will always have a special place in my heart. I get up in the morning and speak to him like he’s still there, and today will be no different.
Thank you,
Gloria Williams
The Innocence Project exonerates the wrongly convicted through DNA testing and reforms the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice. www.innocenceproject.org
