- [Announcer] Production of "Applause" on Ideastream Public Media is made possible by funding by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.

- [Kabir] Coming up, the stories of the wrongfully convicted come to the stage, plus some like-minded jammers are making roller derby a safe space, and the Cleveland Orchestra performs a selection from a profound work by Prokofiev.

(compelling orchestral music) (upbeat music) Hello and welcome to another round of "Applause," my friends.

I'm Ideastream Public Media's Kabir Bhatia.

(upbeat music continues) Six men living in Greater Cleveland have a special brotherhood, but it's not the kind of club you want to be eligible for.

They all were accused and convicted of crimes they maintain they never committed.

Now out of prison, they're raising awareness about wrongful conviction and taking their stories to the stage as Voices of Injustice.

- I don't say nothing else any more after that, right?

- Then they both jump back.

- [Charles] I don't know how to act.

I'm totally outta my comfort zone.

- I know I do say that.

I say, "Come on, let's go to school."

- [Charles] You know, it should be seen like it should be easier since it's my story, you know?

And I try to look at it like I'm having a conversation with my nephew, and when I do it like that and think like that, then it get a little easier.

- Sweet man, you know you don't have to be afraid of him, right?

- I want 'em to see like a whole little clip of my life from different stages, like when I was young, then I grew older, and you know, when I got arrested for this crime I didn't do, and when I got out, and just to see my story and how I held on, and how I surprised everybody, 'cause everybody thought that like I was a killer, but in fact at the end of the day, I saved my nephew's life by donating him my kidney.

- I believe using the least amount of words to get across what I'm trying to get across.

So we got a simple job, man, you know what I mean?

Us six are here in Cuyahoga County.

It was just natural, it just gelled for us to come together and form a group that can use the arts.

We're big on mental wellness and local politics as far as judges races, prosecution races, council, you know, we're interested in what's going on right here.

- Ours sheriffs.

- Yes, county prosecutors.

- Our prosecutors.

- The public sees when guys get out and they think everything's gonna be okay, but they don't see the denials, they don't see the appeals that have been denied from one district, one court to the next, the heartbreak.

You know, I mean, we wanna put flesh and blood on to these stories so people can understand what happens to the individual, the trauma to the families and to the community.

- And our system still don't like to admit that they messed up.

You know, they don't wanna admit that.

And you barely ever see a court official or a prosecutor or anything like that apologize for what they did to the person.

You know, it just don't happen.

- So you just listen to me and I can get you a plea, or you can take it to trial and you'll be wishing you're free.

- Look, I ain't do nothing in that soft top.

It was four of us in that car.

- So we called it "The Lynched Among Us" because we did some research and we saw some striking similarities between wrongful convictions and the lynchings from back in the early 1800s and 1900s.

Those similarities were that these mobs were formed because of allegations, many times false allegations.

Many of the men who have been injured by a wrongful conviction, they've had evidence hidden from them, they have fabricated evidence, false accusations hurled against them.

And I could change your life with a entry on my computer.

This is chestnut checkers, you already been outmaneuvered.

You know, Michael Sutton, his judge at one point when he was accused, it was teenagers accused of a horrible shooting two people.

Police even said they shot at them.

But a judge read that evidence in the height of the hysteria of their case and said, "You know what?

Something's not right here."

She chose to release them.

- [Participant] And to this day, 2007 high school diploma, South High, Michael Sutton.

(participants applauding) - For some reason, some decision maker said, "Let's go to this kid's graduation," a moment he'll never forget in his life and arrest him and bring him back to jail, where he was sentenced to astronomical time.

(indistinct) - But we feel like the theatrical part of it makes you be with the story like you in the story, you watching it and live you in it.

So you take away from it when you leave, it becomes more impactful that you were able to visualize what we saying.

- It's a part of the healing journey when you use the arts to express yourself.

It's more about the expression.

You have to remember like we came from a place that tries to take that from you.

(palm slams) - We're definitely raising awareness of that wrongful conviction is a huge problem that needs to be addressed.

And I feel like it's just not being addressed enough.

These are human beings' lives that are being taken away from them.

Like these are people that we losing while we in prison that we'll never see again, moments of our kids life we'll never get back again.

And I just feel like it's not a level of importance for real with it.

Nobody see as though it's something urgent.

Like, this has to stop right now.

We can't keep sending innocent people to prison for crimes they didn't commit, and then just let 'em out and act like everything's okay.

- It's more than just my wrongful conviction, it's my family's as well, you know?

I lost several family members throughout this, and when I came home, I came home to a whole new world, you know, and I'm thinking, looking for the same people who care for me love me the most, and a lot of 'em was gone, you know what I'm saying?

So you know, it's a big, it's deep, you know?

It's more than just you that suffer and go through things.

It's your whole family and the people that you knew, 'cause you come home, you're 27 years, six months, and 20, days it's like, that's a whole lifetime.

So you don't even know the people that you thought you knew, like your family members, 'cause people change, the world change.

- I worked for the city of Cleveland.

I worked at RT, I started my own business.

But like I said, it's been rough since I've been home, been home eight years now.

I have four sons, it's like, and I have a daughter, you know?

Like building a relationship with people is like hard for me 'cause I'm so detached from everybody now, you know?

And everybody was like, "Man, you coming to the party?"

Man, I probably won't come.

- You know, for me, the hardest part for me was to call home and tell my family when I got time at the parole board, like the reaction I was getting to hear 'em crying and different things like that.

Like that hurt me more than anything, and I'm the one that's getting the time, you know?

So that was like a hard pill to swallow for me.

But I think to get out, to bring awareness to this situation is me turning that negative thing that happened to me into a positive, so that's why I try to do as much as I can.

- Everyone is exceeding my expectations.

I plan to keep going with this.

I'm getting great directorial experience.

I'm thinking like this can go on Broadway.

If somebody would just say, "Okay, this is good enough, I will back you," and I can do it in its fullness, This can be on Broadway.

(indistinct) - [Kabir] Voices of Injustice takes the stage at Cleveland State University College of Law, October 11th.

Let's head now to Cleveland Heights to meet the Burning River Roller Derby crew.

See how they mix inclusivity, friendship, and aggressive action to create a unique sports experience for fans.

(upbeat music) (whistle blows) (upbeat music continues) - I didn't even really know that people still played roller derby, and one day I was on vacation in late 2017 and I was thinking about roller skating, and I was like, "I wonder if they do roller derby still."

And then I, you know, I had watched "Whip It," and I looked it up, and lo and behold, there was a thriving community in Cleveland.

And I was like, I think that this is the perfect thing for like 19-year-old me to get into.

- I've been skating since the pandemic.

My husband bought me a pair of skates, and that was like my pandemic hobby that I did.

And then I found roller derby through our pride group at my job.

- I actually had a friend that I played hockey with that they started playing for the team down in Columbus.

And I would watch their videos and I'm like, "Wow, this seems like it'd be a lot of fun."

Like I didn't realize this is a real sport.

And so I saw that they were playing and I reached out to them.

I was like, "Hey, is there a team in Cleveland?"

And they were like, "Actually, yes there is."

- The jammers will begin behind the jam line, our start line.

The blockers will begin in front of the jam line.

At the whistle, which will start the jam and will begin the half, the jammers will attempt to move in a counterclockwise direction, passing each of the blockers.

Once they've gone through the blockers and they have come around again, each blocker that they lap from the opposing team will be awarded one point.

So if the jammer gets through and they're able to pass three blockers on their second pass around, they've been awarded three points.

In general, you can expect jams to last between 30 seconds and two minutes, and you can expect those jammers to try to make it around as many times those blockers as possible.

Those blockers are gonna be doing their best to make sure those jammers don't get through, to help their jammer.

Yeah, that's the gist.

- There's this culture of derby being aggressive and violent, and so that's why sometimes people pick these more like violent names.

You know, we got like a lot of like decay or murder, things like that.

And it just allows people to kind of have this alter ego or this additional expression of themselves that they don't really get to have in everyday life, but it's also just an opportunity to be fun, be creative, really make the sport your own and have that individuality in the place of a group.

- My roller derby name is Chewrakia, like Chewbacca from Star Wars, but they call me Chewy.

- My roller derby name is Golden Malicious, but I go by Goldie.

- Cheeky Blinders is my roller derby name.

Team sports are not always super empathetic, but with roller derby, it's very much of if you're not skating your best, you're not skating your best for your team, and then you're not gonna show up for your team.

So just the terms of like the queer community, the disabled community, and like having each other's back, this is like a very good niche sport that kind of encompasses all of that.

- The community is just so important to me.

These are all of my like best friends.

These are the people that I hang out with outside of, you know, practices.

And I just love really finding my space here and finding a place that welcomes me and sees me for who I am, and they love me, and they encourage me to keep coming back and work hard, and they just, I feel so loved here.

- A lot of folks were like, "Why are you joining this?

You're gonna get yourself injured, like you shouldn't do this," and I was like, "Well, that makes me wanna do it even more," and so that's kind of what got me into joining.

It was just a combination of it looks really neat and everyone told me I would be insane to do it, so I had to do it.

- It's a very safe sport in terms of like, we wear full gear, mouth guards, knee pads, elbow pads, wrist guards, helmets.

Our league in specifics has one of the strictest concussion protocols in the whole conference, so we're stricter than what we should be, just because we know how important it is to keep our brains and our bodies healthy.

Injuries happen, I've got a couple bruises going on.

That's pretty typical for the sport.

(upbeat music) (indistinct announcement) (whistle blows) (upbeat music continues) Why is roller derby a safe space when it's such a violent sport?

We respect each other's bodies, and like the consent of touching other people in a very sometimes intimate way, yeah, if we didn't trust each other, like this would be a very uncomfortable sport to do, and so I think having that aspect of just like fully giving your body over to a sport in a dangerous way, kind of, yeah, if that makes sense.

- The athleticism and the fun that I have and the community, so all of those things are really important to me.

So number one, just being able to go work out with all of my friends and be an athlete, which is something I never thought as a teenager that I could ever be, and then to find that in my adult life is just crazy.

- We get a wide range of personalities, shapes, sizes, and just awesome people that come out on the track and just have a good time.

We have a really fun vibe, and that's the kind of like, we're hitting each other hard, but then we're giving high fives after the hit.

- Derby has a reputation of being a sport for folks who don't know sports or who don't really find themselves getting as invested into other sports.

I think the sport itself is really cool and interesting and it's very athletically challenging, so it's 100% like valid.

But I also think the real draw is, not to be cheesy, but the friends you make along the way.

I think because we do things together and we operate as like a small business putting on our and our practices and organizing training, we end up being more bonded than most other sporting clubs.

And 'cause it's so inclusive, like I can show up and say my pronouns are they, them, and I know that they'll respect it.

Derby as a whole is not perfect, but I think they are making strides in a way other sports aren't, especially nowadays.

- Roller Derby was able to transition from a banked track style of play onto a flat track, which really just increases the amount of places that we're able to skate in.

So as you see now, we're in a ice rink.

We've also skated in old roller rinks.

People have basketball courts that we've used.

So it really just increases the places that we're able to play at so we don't have to put up this gigantic banked track.

Burning River was founded in 2006.

We changed our name from Burning River Roller Girls to Burning River Roller Derby in 2015 to try to encompass all of the non-binary and gender expansive people that we love to have on our league.

So since that change, we've been exclusively Burning River Roller Derby.

We've played all over Cleveland.

We used to play at Mig's Pla-Mor in Euclid.

We've played at United Skates in Wycliffe, CE Orr in Euclid, Brunswick Skate Station, and now our home is the Cleveland Heights Community Center.

- All encompassing is a good way to put it.

Like friends that are here, they're friends for life, which is shocking as an adult to make friends.

(upbeat music) - [Kabir] Burning River Roller Derby plays their home games at the Cleveland Heights Community Center through November.

From art exhibits to film festivals to literary events, there's always something to do in Northeast Ohio, and we've got a great way for you to stay on top of the local arts and culture scene.

It's our free weekly arts and culture newsletter, "The To-Do List."

Sign up online at arts.ideastream.org.

Now to Columbus to spend some time with artist Beverly Whiteside.

She has a warm, engaging personality that shines through in her paintings and collages dedicated to her family's roots as African Americans.

(lively music) - I started out with wood because I didn't really have canvas.

Lemme go back a little bit even further.

I'm really not an artist.

No, I'm just kidding.

(laughs) I started out as a dance teacher, K through five in the elementary school, and I had so many wonderful art teachers in the elementary school, and it was at Fair Arts Impact when I first caught the fire for visual art, and it was because of so many beautiful elementary art teachers that allowed me to look at the process, allowed me to come in and play with the other kids, and I use that word a lot because that's joy.

Sometimes when I go past the playground, you hear this sound, pure joy, just skipping, running, jumping.

Can you imagine that feeling of love and joy, doing nothing but playing?

So that's what I do, I play.

I started with just painting chairs, just painting anything on wood that I could find.

I started making the strokes of the paint.

It was just acrylic paint.

That was it, I was gone.

I was hooked.

It's something about the way that paint went across there and that (exhales) peace, and the silence of just that movement pulled me in.

So of course now I'm painting everything in town, you know, all over my house.

I'm just painting, painting, painting this, painting that, and I would just go in my room and I would just paint.

And I'm telling you, it was heaven.

My inspiration today comes from everywhere, in my family, in what's going on in the world, the positive, the negative, and my duty to lift, my commitment to lift.

I have more behind me than I'm going forward with now, and I think time inspires me, the lack of time, the importance of time, and then the ability to treat time as an important factor, a very important factor, because you can't get that back.

(peaceful music) "Homegoing" is about in the African American families, many of them celebrate Homegoing, it's a funeral.

The minister and some of the nurses and other people in the choir are over here.

Those are my three cousins in the middle, and they're grieving and they're at the funeral.

And then over here, my uncle and my aunt and a couple other people are going to the cemetery.

We're all at the cemetery, and we just, in those footsteps that go out that way.

I was at the funeral, and I'm sitting there, and I'm saying, "I can't let these, these moments are so important.

Do I sketch something down?"

Which I was doing during the, I was sketching.

I said, "I gotta retell this, she's 98.

She was 98, I knew her all my life.

I can't let this moment be gone and never talked about or said again."

But I said, "But they will remember this.

If I explain this to them, that's like a picture in time."

You know, like how you write, painting is somewhat like writing because you're trying to get all these valuable concepts in, the beginning, the middle, and the end.

And that's the beginning, the middle, and the end, like a book.

(peaceful music) I wanna tell stories of the Clotilda, the last slave ship that left going to Benin.

Even though it was against the law to enslave Africans, ships still went out, at least this one.

The last ship was the Clotilda.

I want them to know that.

That meant something, and that the descendants of the Clotilda still exist.

There's a story of my grandma, she was a usher.

She went to like the fourth or the fifth grade, but she did her best, and she was a head usher at Mount Pleasant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina.

I want people to know that.

That meant something, and that all of our existence here means something.

It really means something.

I think the most rewarding thing for me, or one of the most rewarding things is that somebody really gets it, they like it.

Now, lemme tell you, when I first started doing this, it wasn't very popular.

People didn't really, really like it.

It's like, "What is she doing?"

You know what I mean?

But I'm telling you, that's why I'm saying time.

If you continue to work and grow, whatever you're growing and doing, it just gets better if you commit yourself to it, because all those little struggles is your strength.

(bright music) I hope they see me.

I hope they see the best of me, because the best of me is in that work.

(bright music continues) - [Kabir] Here's what's coming down the road for the next round of "Applause."

We're drawn to the light at the Akron Art Museum as we step inside the new "Neon" exhibit and meet two local artists in the show.

Plus an illustrator from Sagamore Hills shares the folklore of her homeland in Uzbekistan with future generations.

And Medina County musician, Gavin Coe, treats us to the blues with his homemade guitar.

All that and more on the next round of "Applause."

♪ Papa, Papa are you ready to go ♪ ♪ My father stooped down and buckled up his shoes ♪ ♪ He moved on down by that Jordan ♪ - [Kabir] Okay, it's time to say goodbye, my friends.

Thank you for joining us for this round of "Applause."

I'm Ideastream Public Media's Kabir Bhatia sending you on your way with another fine performance by the Cleveland Orchestra from the Adella app.

Here's an excerpt of Sergei Prokofiev's "Symphony No.

6," written shortly after the devastation of World War II.

(compelling orchestral music) (compelling orchestral music continues) (compelling orchestral music continues) (compelling orchestral music continues) (compelling orchestral music continues) (bright music) - [Announcer] Production of "Applause" on Ideastream Public Media is made possible by funding by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.