In Memory of Dannielle Brown, 3/11/1971- TBD

Dannielle Brown gets up from her camp chair and steps away from the fire. It’s August, but after a gray afternoon beset with downpours, the evening feels like fall. Close to midnight she picks up a bejeweled pink leash to take Dash, her sweet and sassy pup, for one last walk, then repairs to her tent with the dog.

Others tend the fire all night, keeping watch in the middle of the city of Pittsburgh at a makeshift campground surrounded by skyscrapers. One tall building not too far away is Brottier Hall, a dormitory where Brown’s son, Marquis Jaylen, known as JB, lived as a Duquesne University student and football player.

It’s also where he fell 16 stories to his death. Campus police claim that after smoking marijuana he broke a window with a chair and jumped out, as witnessed by three officers who were present in the tiny dorm room yet unable to stop him. His mother isn’t satisfied with this account, and is seeking answers from the Catholic University.

Tonight it’s late and she needs to sleep, as she has a funeral to plan. Not for JB, he was laid to rest almost two years ago. This is a living funeral, her own, which will gather supporters, honor her son, beseech Duquesne to share their information on the death of her child with the investigator she’s hired. Though this particular ceremony will take place while she’s alive, it’s not implausible that another funeral will soon come, as she continues the action she started over a month ago in hopes of compelling the university to cooperate. After she thanks each and every person sitting guard, she zips her tent shut and closes her eyes on an air mattress a few blocks away from where her son died.

The 33rd day of her hunger strike is over.

* * *

For the living funeral of Dannielle Brown, the camp chairs are folded up and the fire pit moved aside. A gray coffin is covered with flowers and surrounded by handmade signs and portraits. Black patent tuxedo shoes polished to a mirrored shine stand by scuffed and ancient Dr. Martens with laces barely holding together next to platform heels for pole dancing, stomping down drag runways, throwing sass, and, today, paying homage. Red roses are clutched in hands sheathed in blue latex gloves. There are many meticulously pressed Sunday suits with boutonnieres and pocket handkerchiefs, and dozens of t-shirts- for universities, the restaurants the wearers work for, and Wu Tang. Faces are black and white and a few are tattooed and each and every one, hundreds of them, is properly masked.

Dannielle Brown has gained the love of the community.

A month before she was alone. On the fourth of July in the capital of the United States, after travel preparations that included meeting with her attorney to make sure her will was in order, Brown packed her rocking chair into her BMW and set off for Pittsburgh. The date was intentional, carefully chosen to reflect independence- not that of this country, which she doesn’t celebrate, but that of the investigation she was traveling to demand.

Two hundred and fifty some miles later, she pulled in to Freedom Corner. The location in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, bordering and overlooking the city’s downtown, was intentional as well. It’s a place of power and strength, a memorial honoring local civil rights activists at the site where the “urban renewal” that sacrificed Black Pittsburghers was allowed to go no further, halted by local residents who put their foot down against the encroaching development. Brown unloaded her rocking chair and sat down. Her hunger strike began.

For 48 hours she sat. “I spoke to no one,” she tells me when I visit the day after the funeral march. “I watched the police go up and down the street and I know they saw me in my rocking chair, I know they saw an illegally parked BMW with Washington DC tags.” But despite the quite unusual matter of a woman stationed in a memorial park for two full days and nights, the police that passed kept going. “I said, ‘man they’re telling on themselves’,” says Brown. “They didn’t do a wellness check. They didn’t stop and say, ‘you’ve been sitting in this rocking chair for two days, are you okay?’ There’s truly a disconnect between police and the citizens of this neighborhood.”

On the third day, someone stopped. Brotha Ash Woodson, a community member and activist who serves the people as a journalist, photographer, entertainer, and speaker, saw this woman in a rocking chair. He didn’t just drive by. He asked her who she was and why she was there. And from then on, she wasn’t alone anymore. People showed up, with water and ice and tents and chairs and help.

Some days, there are more; some days, and particularly nights, there are fewer. For the funeral, they cover the corner, the sidewalks, the streets, the steps of St. Benedict the Moor opposite.

“Oh my gosh, look at everybody here, oh my heart!” says Dannielle to the crowd. “I’m so grateful for each and every one of you.”

This is a word you hear a lot from Dannielle, “grateful”, along with “gratitude” and “thank you”. When you hear her say these things you are struck by how much she means them. Dannielle Brown is grateful for everything, no matter how small, that is done. This kind of appreciation is humbling to be near. It makes you want to be better. It makes you want to earn it. It makes it incomprehensible that anyone could deny her, but Duquesne University is denying her still.

* * *

The police report on the death of Marquis Jaylen Brown states that on October 4th, 2018, campus law enforcement responded to a 911 call about a fight. Upon arrival, they found Jaylen in his dorm room, his roommate trying to calm him down. Soon after, Brown picked up a chair and broke the window. Then he leaped out. There is nothing describing physical interaction between Brown and the officers, no note of any attempts made to restrain him. It has been stated that there is video documentation which shows irregular behavior from Brown, including recordings in an elevator and hallway.

Dannielle Brown as yet has not seen or heard video or audio documentation. She has not read a moment by moment report detailing what transpired that night. During the funeral, she holds up an aerial depiction of the dorm room, a tight space, and wonders how he wasn’t held back; she points at the picture and begins, “So if Jaylen was standing over here and the chair was over there…” she stops. “But I don’t know,” she says. “I don’t know where he was standing.”

Brown has three demands of Duquesne University- 1) full cooperation with an independent investigation, 2) body cameras for university officers, and 3) crisis and mental health training for university officers.

In an open letter released by the Division of Marketing and Communications on July 21st, the University has stated that they are agreeable to these conditions. For her first demand, they say they will “provide her attorney access to Public Safety files and other evidence, including officer reports, video recordings from cameras in Brottier Hall, and dispatch and radio recordings in its possession, to facilitate an independent investigation.” But so far, Brown says, this hasn’t happened. Her investigator traveled in from DC, and didn’t receive the access promised.

As to the second demand, Duquesne states that they “will continue moving forward expeditiously to obtain body cameras… Research is ongoing to determine the best system for Duquesne. The University is committed to expediting the completion of stage 2 and providing body cameras for its officers.” They have not provided details on when they plan to conclude their research and implement this technology to serve their students.

Regarding the third demand, Duquesne responds that they are “willing to provide information to Ms. Brown’s counsel regarding its existing training and to pursue and incorporate additional training programs for its Public Safety officers.” Existing training led to three officers in a miniscule room being incapable of stopping a man from picking up a chair, breaking a window, and jumping out. No details on how specifically these additional programs will be pursued and incorporated are available.

What Duquesne University has done thus far is put a plaque with Jaylen’s name on it on a bench.

So while there has been talk of meeting the demands, promises to meet the demands, avowals of intentions to meet the demands, as of August 14th, the 42nd day of Dannielle Brown’s hunger strike, the demands have not been met.

* * *

And so we are at Freedom Corner for the funeral of a woman who doesn’t have to die but is willing to, in pursuit of justice for a man who didn’t have to die yet did. The ceremony begins with a slow and steady build, commencing with poems, ritual, prayer, a song that can’t be finished because the singer is filled with emotion that robs her of her voice.

Momentum gathers. Speakers come next, representative of numerous political action organizations. They include the spectators, but they’re addressing Dannielle Brown.

They tell her, I want you to eat tonight.

They tell her, we love you to life.

Energy is growing, surging, and by the time Nicki Jo Dawson, a prominent local activist and a leader of the community organization BLaQK OPS, launches into her turn with “I don’t think people understand how powerful Black women really are; how resilient, magical, beautiful,” it vibrates with purpose and determination.

“This mother came all the way from Chocolate City to the Blackest place in Pittsburgh,” Dawson says. “It is our duty, our responsibility, to protect, uplift, love, and help this woman.” She is followed by Student Minister Victor Muhammad, of Muhammad Mosque 22, who rouses the provisional congregation by citing why all are here. “Justice does not have a gender,” he proclaims. “Justice does not have a color, justice does not have a religious philosophy. Justice only means fair deal. And as we seek justice for Jaylen, what marks his grave is not a tombstone, it’s a stepping stone.”

Because while it is possible for every demand to be met, it’s not possible for Jaylen to come back. The hope, the dream, that Brown is putting everything she has into is not just for her son, but for everyone’s sons, everyone’s daughters, every Black child in the United States of America. And in this city, where the officer who killed Antwon Rose is not only free but fighting for new employment in law enforcement, the officer who killed Johnny Gammage is not only free but is comfortably retired, the officer who killed Romir Talley is not only free but had his identity protected until months after the shooting.

Dannielle is last to speak. She talks about her other son, Jamal, who has been to visit but is not in Pittsburgh now; and about Jaylen, who she describes as humble, spiritual, a mighty warrior.

Originally the plan was to follow tradition and have six men serve as pallbearers. At gametime Brown changes the play, calling for “the mothers’’, any mothers present, who are willing to step up and step in. There’s a brief pause after her summons, then they come. Women too young to parent any but toddlers, old enough to be grandparents of adults, melanated with beaded plaits and batiked masks, non melanated with tennis visors and fanny packs. They come to the casket , they come together to lift it, carrying it several steps to rest it on the wheeled stretcher that will transport it through the city to the final destination of the march. When they pass by, on each face you can see that they’ve thought of it containing a child of their own; while they haven’t felt Ms. Brown’s pain they imagine it. They move to the street, through the streets, bringing the casket along.

* * *

The assembly leaves Freedom Corner, repeating one call and response chant after another. It passes a $321 million dollar arena for a hockey team whose previous home displaced thousands of Black Pittsburghers, and who have stonewalled development of that previous arena’s space. It passes a pizza shop where a Black woman’s head was slammed into the floor by an employee who didn’t receive even close to the punishment he deserved. It passes one reminder after another of injustice and privilege while in search of justice of its own.

There’s pause in a intersection, horn players and drummers are called to the front and swing into “When The Saints Go Marching In”; tambourines shimmy and someone twirls Brown and there is the exuberance of a second line. Cyclists speed forward to form barriers with bodies and bikes at streets and alleyways, demonstrating what protecting and serving can look like. Choruses are sung to freedom fighters who are no longer with us and to Ms. Brown herself; when her name is slotted in there’s a stumble or two to change the tense from the standard “was” to “is”; she’s with us, still, for now. For now.

Below an overpass on a concrete support is a new mural. It’s Jaylen, in his uniform, #40, a football tucked into his arm. In it he is running to the right. To the left at his back are palm trees, mountains, and a glorious sunset; the last time his mother saw him alive was on a trip they shared to Hawaii. In front of him, the landscape is less clear. It’s hard to know what he’s running to.

Another corner is turned, and the column moves down another street and stops. We are at the entrance gate of Duquesne University. Brottier Hall is right behind us, up a short hill. Brown speaks. “On August 5th, 2016, I dropped my son off. I was so excited I cried,” she smiles at the memory. ”I never referred to my boys as boys, I called them my Joys. Joy #1 and Joy #2, because that’s what they were to me.” Rain starts to fall, light, gentle. “Ok, Jaylen, come through. ” She lifts her arms to the skies. “After the storm come the sun, after the rain come rainbows, after injustice come justice.”

The march shifts to climb the hill to Brottier Hall, to where Jaylen stopped living. The campus is empty. There is a shift. This day filled with noise, rich with trumpets and drums, chants and songs, speeches and assent is now silent. All you hear is an occasional footstep as the procession travels, the rustling of signs made of paper in hands and in wind, a truck backing up, unseen but not too far away. The quiet is eerie but feels right.

The top is reached. Dannielle Brown places a wreath in front of the last building in which Marquis Jaylen Brown, her son, was alive, the day after his 21st birthday.

And for the first time all day she breaks.

Her head bows. She covers her hands with her eyes.

And she cries.

“I miss him so much,” she laments.

“I miss him so much.”

And it is quiet but for the sound of a mother weeping for her child and of hundreds of hearts breaking.

“My heart beats for two, and one has been silenced,” Brown says. “And it is so unfair to Jamal, but his mother was dying until I got to Freedom Corner and took in air. I’ve been crying almost two years now, and still I want to know.” Her voice cracks, but she yells her cry to heaven. “What happened here?”

Behind her Brottier Hall looms, stone and glass and tragedy. All around, a campus sits silent. Several of its buildings bear an emblem incorporating a dove and a flame, representative of the Holy Spirit. In Christian teaching this part of the trinity is the manifestation of divine inspiration, responsible for motivating Christians to spread the love of God.

Duquesne is a Catholic school, the first Catholic university level institution in Pennsylvania, the world’s only Spiritan institution of higher education. According to the school’s website, Spiritans do not pursue power, prestige, and wealth, but seek to make profound sacrifices to minister to the poor and disadvantaged. Duquesne’s adjunct faculty make less than $20,000 yearly and don’t receive healthcare. The school has shunned unionization of these adjuncts; its staff as employees of a religious institution are exempt from employee rights. Last year it announced a plan to build an 80–100,000 square foot building for its new medical school. It has an Italian campus in Rome near Vatican City. At its Pittsburgh location Duquesne has hosted students from over 80 countries.

The mother of one student is mourning her child.

“Why? Why couldn’t you just GRAB him? Why? Why? Why?” she asks again, and again, and again.

The campus doesn’t answer.

* * *

The day after the funeral, Ms. Brown has moved from Freedom Corner to Duquesne’s gate for daytime vigil. She’s keeping office hours here now, nine to five. “I’ve been waiting for them to come to me and they haven’t come to me so I’m bringing me to them,” she says. She is subdued, spent. She’s drinking water and some other liquids but still has eaten no solid food. It’s day 35. Earlier in her tenure a few Duquesne representatives came to speak with her in person; all recent communication has been in the form of press releases issued from their PR department. What she’d really like is for someone to walk over and talk to her, to see how they can work together towards reformation. Maybe now that she’s closer they will.

A doctor from nearby Mercy Hospital started showing up not long ago, offering what services he can give in sidewalk visits. He takes vitals, tests reflexes, listens to breathing through a stethoscope. “He’s worried about me,” Brown says when he’s finished. His face can’t give away too much, there’s privacy to protect, but it gives away enough. He thanks everyone present for being there before he leaves, he tells me to please get her story told.

It’s a busy corner, the edge of downtown, and traffic is constant. Commuters, shuttle vans, public buses pass ceaselessly. So do police vehicles. The commuters roll down windows, wave, yell, press fists into the air. The professional drivers motoring by on the clock toot their horns and nod their heads.

Dannielle Brown is a beautiful person. She’s lit from inside, glowing, charged. And she is so much, archetypically, a mother, a designation. We might think of “mother” as something personal and specifically familial rather than in a larger sense. Mama Brown makes you reconsider this, embodying what “mother” means. I try multiple times to ask her how she feels. She asks me if I need water. Do I want a Gatorade. Is the sun too much in my eyes. Am I comfortable enough in the camp chair. I ask her how she’s doing. She calls over to one of the companions to make sure she’s not too hot. She takes care of other people, never stops. It’s natural and organic.

She tells me about Jaylen. He was an intentional child, spiritual. He went to Catholic high school, he was humorous and loving and a mama’s boy. He loved school and football and while he appreciated the athleticism that got him to Duquesne, he was an entrepreneur who had his own graphic design business which he wanted to continue. He was trying to figure it all out. As she speaks, she bears the weight of the past 22 months, the burden of the past 35 days. The deliberate, purposeful, concentrated woman who channeled such power and strength as she addressed hundreds of people about the loss of her child is tired, drained, weary.

I ask what’s next, and what I mean is things like rallies, concerts, marches. She says, simply, “death”. I’m thrown; while I try to gather myself a couple who have been helping out walk up with their dog. Brown beams at the pup and asks all about him; when the gentleman tells her he was a Christmas present who literally popped out of a box, she laughs and applauds. I try to go back to the question, her answer, her own death, but she is busy querying whether the dog is thirsty, looking for a bowl to give him water, worrying that he’s overheated in the sun.

A Duquesne University police vehicle stops at the red light at the corner where Brown sits. The car bears a “Stronger Than Hate” decal, a show of solidarity with those affected by the Tree of Life shooting that happened a few weeks after Jaylen’s death, in which eleven people were killed.

As the light goes green he turns and passes directly in front of us, head rigid, eyes straight ahead. He doesn’t even look.

📝 Save this story in Journal.