Please watch The Burial, which is airing on Amazon Prime. (Y’all can watch the official trailer here.) Most local people who already know about this film will assume that I’m asking y’all to watch it because it’s about an HBCU grad Attorney Willie Gary who has become one of the most accomplished attorneys in America. But, that’s not why. Others will assume that it’s because the film focuses on a major case that was litigated in Mississippi, which shows the power of black judges, black lawyers, black jurors, and was one of the cases that lead to the push for tort reform. But, that’s not why. Some will assume that it’s because Attorney Gary is played by Jamie Foxx who gives an award-worthy performance. But, that’s not why. (FYI, Tommy Lee Jones is great as well, and Jurnee Smollett proves that she is still one of the best actors in Hollywood, worthy of a supporting actress nod. That’s a bad young sister.) I’m begging y’all to watch this film because one of the film’s main characters is Attorney Halbert Dockins who is one of my most significant mentors. The Burial shows that Attorney Dockins was pivotal to Attorney Gary winning the case, while highlighting what a great scholar and man he is. Next to my pops and my uncles, only JSU Professor Dr. Ivory Phillips and Mr. Climent Edmond have had as much influence on the scholar and man that I have become as Attorney Dockins. Most importantly, Attorney Dockins is someone whose life choices affirmed for me that I was doing the right thing by following my heart to become a writer. So, please watch this film because y’all will get to see the portrayal of a man who is one the smartest and most caring people I’ve ever met in my life. Additionally, as the film shows, Attorney Dockins is a selfless human being who puts his client’s interest before his ego. (Y’all can read how Dockins is portrayed in the film here and an article that shows the fact versus the fiction of the film here.)
Now, lemme give y’all a li’l backstory about the role that this man played in my life. First, Attorney Dockins is one of my mentors who knew my pops before he knew me. Along with being a civil rights activist and former executive director of the Mississippi Democratic Party, my pops worked for thirty-plus years as a senior counselor at the Hinds County Juvenile and Youth Detention Center where he, among other things, instituted a parenting program that greatly reduced the recidivism rate of the young people whose lives were entrusted to him. The problem is that for many of those years, he and a couple of other counselors were in this fight alone. Before 1989 when Judge Houston Patton became the first African American to serve as the youth court judge in Hinds County, all of the youth court judges were white and racist, and most of the lawyers were white and racist or just didn’t give a damn about the children. So, when Attorney Halbert Dockins showed up as the court-appointed defender—someone who saw a child rather than a criminal when he looked at the children—my pops knew that he had an advocate in this fight. It didn’t take long for those two to become a dynamic duo who understood that the children in their care needed love, redirection, and, most importantly, counseling and nurturing rather than jail time. They gave the judges fits, and they often found innovative ways to help young people understand the consequences of their behavior while working to ensure that those children didn’t become cattle in the pipeline from schoolhouse to jailhouse. One story my pop would often tell about Attorney Dockins is how he couldn’t be intimidated or sidetracked by racist Judge Karen Gilfoy. She had the habit of turning her back to the attorneys when she couldn’t get her way and remaining on the bench with her back turned until the attorneys would just leave. She pulled this tactic with Attorney Dockins. But, when she peeked over her shoulder, she saw that Attorney Dockins simply took his seat, put his feet on his desk, and said, “Judge, I have all day to be here. So, take your time, get yourself together, and when you are ready to turn around and resume this hearing, I’ll be right here waiting on you.” In his mind, my pops said, “That’s the mofo I’ve been waiting for! We are in business now!” According to former senior youth court counselor Chuck Dawkins, “Hal was a great public defender for the children. He was a go-getter. He enjoyed the challenge. We often had a full house with all types of crazy cases, and Hal was a dedicated attorney who, like your pops, could plow through those cases and find the best solutions for the children.”
I met Attorney Dockins while I was a junior at Jackson State University. I had recently returned after using the fall of my junior year to complete Basic Training and AIT for the Mississippi National Guard where I was certified as a 41D aka paralegal aka legal specialist. (As an aside, I joined the MNG after needing money to finish college unbeknownst to my pops. When I told him I had joined, he asked, “When they start letting Negroes join the National Guard?” Y’all must remember that this was a man who was detained and arrested by the MNG more than once during the 60s. While he didn’t have any issues with military service, having served in Vietnam, he certainly had issues with the MNG. But, I needed money to finish school so that was that.) When I returned from AIT, my pops called Attorney Dockins, who had his own practice, and said, “Do something with the boy.” And, Attorney Dockins did. 1990 to 1993 were some of the best years of my life, especially as I grew to understand what it means to be a professional and what it means to be a black man working at the highest level surrounded mostly by white folks who don’t believe you should be there and who are doing everything they can to ensure that you won’t be there for long. First as a lawyer with his own practice and then later with noted criminal defense attorney Dennis Sweet, III, I saw both Attorney Dockins and Attorney Sweet kick the asses of white attorneys daily. Yet, more than being just great lawyers, Dockins and Sweet were dedicated to locating and preparing the next generation of black lawyers as their offices were filled with black interns who attended Jackson State and Tougaloo College. When I tell you that the interns who worked under Dockins and Sweet were some young guns who later became legal superstars, look no further than JSU alum and current US District Judge Carlton Reeves who was just affirmed as the first African American to serve as Chair of the U.S. Sentencing Commission. But, there is also Tougaloo alum Attorney Azande Wallace Williams who is both an accomplished attorney, having served as the Deputy City Attorney, and a staple in the Jackson community who continues to coordinate various social and cultural enrichment programs for black children. Unfortunately for my parents, I was only interested in being a trifling writer. Yet, true to his character and keeping his word to my pops about “doing something” with me, Attorney Dockins gave me the room, the opportunity, and the push to go from being a runner (whose sole job was to file documents with the court) to handling key research for many of his cases, learning how to certify title searches, and drafting many of the documents for his divorce and estate cases. I even got to do the primary research for an eminent domain case he was working with some other lawyers. Furthermore, Attorney Dockins wasn’t tight with the purse strings as I also went from earning whatever was a few dollars above minimum wage in 1990 to earning close to $500 a week, depending on what I was doing that week, which ain’t bad for a trifling writer who was still an undergrad.
Yet, here is my real tribute to Attorney Dockins. I was able to flower despite how poorly I failed a few times. Attorney Dockins always saw what I could be rather than focusing on what I was at that moment, which is also why he was such an excellent defender of the children in youth court. One day, Attorney Dockins was in Canton, Mississippi, arguing a case. Like the lion that he was, he was circling his prey about to pounce for the kill. For his final move, he stated, “Your Honor, as the document that we filed will show, my client…” At that moment, Attorney Dockins heard papers rattling from where the other attorneys were seated and from the judge. Finally, one of the other attorneys stated, “Your Honor, we don’t have that document.” The judge checked his file and added, “Attorney Dockins, that file seems to have never been filed.” It hadn’t. I forgot to file the damn document. Attorney Dockins asked for and received a recess. Then, he called the office from the courthouse. Luckily, I was there working on another case. I was informed, “Hal is on the phone for you,” in a tone that let me know that I was in trouble, kinda like when Shug Avery asks the children where is Miss Celie, and they reply, “Going to shave Mister,” like it’s about to be on and poppin’! When I got to the phone, Attorney Dockins didn’t yell, curse, or call me the idiot that I was. He simply said, “If you don’t get me that document to his courthouse in the next hour, these black folks are going to be fucked, and it will be our fault.” My wife says that I drive like an ole washerwoman, which is true. But, that day, I had that 1970 Chrysler Newport wide open all the way to Canton. When I parked in front of the courthouse, Attorney Dockins was standing outside. I knew I needed to run that document to him, but I didn’t want to face what I had coming. I had let my pops down. I had let Attorney Dockins down. And, I had let our black clients down. Southwest Airlines hadn’t developed their iconic commercial, but I just wanted to get away! When I gave Attorney Dockins the document, he asked in the most calming voice, “What are you working on at the office?” I don’t remember what it was, but I told him. He then asked, “Do you have class today?” I replied, “No sir.” He finished with, “When you complete that task, wait for me at the office.” I walked back to my car like a whipped pup. I just knew my ass was fired. But, when Attorney Dockins returned to the office, he said, “Luckily, the judge let us file the document.” I sighed in relief, but I knew I wasn’t out the woods yet. But, rather than fire me, Attorney Dockins just talked to me, mostly about professionalism and responsibility. What I remember most is when he said, “No matter what you do for a living, no matter what career you choose, somebody will be depending on you. And, as a black man, it’s often going to be black folks depending on you to do for them what they can’t do for themselves.” Of course, I had heard some variation of that from my parents. However, at that moment, under that circumstance, those words were now very tangible, striking, and heavy. I also clearly understood why my pops wanted me there, in that environment, with successful black professionals. It’s one thing for our parents to encode us with certain sensibilities, ideas, beliefs, and character traits. Yet, it’s something altogether different when those aspects are affirmed and made tangible by life experiences. Working with Attorneys Hal Dockins and Dennis Sweet, III, took all my parental lessons and book learning and made it all concrete, helping me to be the person my parents wanted me to be and the person my community needs me to be.
Next, Attorney Dockins is essentially responsible for me deciding as a undergrad senior that I was going to be a writer and that I wasn’t going to have a “fallback” plan. It was writer or nothing for me. His first law partner, Attorney Patricia Wise, along with Attorney Denise Sweet Owens, became the first two African-American female chancellors in Mississippi when they were elected to the Hinds Chancery bench in 1989. By 1991 or so, the Afro-Mississippi Democratic machine, which included my pops, was looking for another black attorney to run for judge. So, the consortium had decided on Attorney Dockins as the next judge. When they met at his office to tell him that he was the chosen one, Attorney Dockins said, matter-of-factly, “I went to law school to be a lawyer,” and that was the end of the conversation. I know that seems simple, but it was the most amazing thing I had ever seen—a black individual telling a group of organized black do-gooders that he has plans for his own life. That simple phrase, “I went to law school to be a lawyer,” immediately became etched in my head, and, from that moment, I was a writer and nothing else. To this day, I have never defined myself as anything other than a writer. I’m not an activist. I’m not a community organizer. I’m not a do-gooder. I’m a writer. That was my plan, and I stuck to it despite any of the hell or high water that came my way. Of course, my parents supported me in any life decision. But, once again, the theory that I could be anything I wanted to be, which was given to me by my parents, was made material in that short phrase by Attorney Dockins.
All of these reasons and too many more to mention are why I want y’all to watch The Burial. Also, allow me to add for the folks who live in the Jackson-Metro area that many of the more notable black lawyers and judges of today were also lawyers for the youth court, including the aforementioned Judge Sweet Owens, her husband Attorney Bob Owens, Attorney Isaac Byrd, Attorney Larry Stamps, and the aforementioned Attorney Dennis Sweet, III, who is also Judge Owens’ brother, which evokes one final story. When Attorneys Dockins and Sweet were partners, they were limited to trying cases before only two judges in chancery court because Judge Wise was Dockins’ old law partner and Judge Sweet was, again, Attorney Sweet’s sister. (As another aside, Dennis never understood this rule because, as he often stated, “I can’t win a case in my sister’s court any-damn-way ‘cause she tryin’ to be overly fair.”) That left two white male judges before whom they could try cases in chancery court. One of these dudes was so racist that he disseminated a memo among the chancery clerks to assign all of Dockins and Sweet’s cases to him. If you are wondering, yes, that’s illegal as hell. Thankfully, a few sisters working as clerks leaked the memo. Not much came of it other than more Special Masters had to be assigned so that Dockins and Sweet wouldn’t be forced to try cases before that fool. I tell this story because it forced me to realize that white supremacy is ever-present. Yet, Dockins and Sweet continued to stomp a hole in white supremacy daily. Those racist white folks couldn’t do anything with them. So, they did what they always do when black folks show that we can compete on any level. They cheat or change the rules, such as all of the changes to the voting process that’s happening today. Yet, neither Dockins nor Sweet complained, cried, or pitched a fit. They just kept kicking ass. Thus, as a young writer who kept getting rejection letter after rejection letter after rejection letter, rather an complain, cry, or pitch a fit, I just kept writing, kept working to get better so that I couldn’t be denied. I am a product of the legacy of Afro-Mississippians who wouldn’t be denied, and Attorney Halbert Dockins is a key brick in my foundation. So, please watch The Burial so y’all can see just a li’l bit of the man who helped me to get where I am today. That is all. Now, y’all be easy. And, I’mma keep hittin’ ‘em over the head with these poems, short stories, and commentaries ‘cause that’s what my pops and Attorney Dockins would want me to do.