Sean Gallagher
The Black List
A Civil Rights Documentary
About
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It all began in September 1992, when an elderly woman living in Oneonta, NY reported that in the middle of the night she had been robbed and attacked. Although she did not see a face, she did inform the police that the assailant was a young black male and that he cut his hand during the robbery.
This led to a school administrator at SUNY Oneonta granting the police request for a list of the 125 black men who attended the school. Police used that list to track down every black student on campus and downtown, questioning the young men and demanding to see their hands.
An outcry from the students and community over the release of this list caught the attention of the national media. Protests and demonstrations were held to show that the student s felt their civil rights were violated. Eventually, the incident fell into the court system which led to the longest continually litigated civil rights case in American history…
Currently In Post-Production
The Black List is not just a documentary but rather a project focused on raising awareness of social justice at institutions of higher education.
This project is a reflection of the direct and indirect racism that exists not only on college campuses but in the society we live in at large. The first purpose of this documentary is to shed light, educate and incite discussion with the current and future generations of SUNY Oneonta’s community.
Secondly, the project seeks to use this isolated incident of racism as a platform to speak on similiar injustices at other institutions of higher learning by presenting the documentary and facilitating discussion and conversation with audiences at colleges nationwide.