About Silver Dollar Road
Excerpts from the ProPublica news article where this story first appeared.
Written by Lizzie Presser | Photography by Wayne Lawrence
Their Family Bought Land One Generation After Slavery.
The Reels Brothers Spent Eight Years in Jail for Refusing to Leave It.
The brothers Melvin Davis and Licurtis Reels were the talk of Carteret County, on the central coast of North Carolina. Some people said that the brothers were righteous; others thought that they had lost their minds. That March, Melvin and Licurtis stood in court and refused to leave the land that they had lived on all their lives, a portion of which had, without their knowledge or consent, been sold to developers years before.
Licurtis Reels, left, and Melvin Davis, right.
In the spring of 2011
Their great-grandfather, Mitchell Reels had bought the land a hundred years earlier, when he was a generation removed from slavery. He didn’t trust the courts, so he didn’t leave a will. Instead, the land become heirs’ property, a form of ownership in which descendants inherit an interest, like holding stock in a company. The practice began during Reconstruction, when many African Americans didn’t have access to the legal system.
In the United States today, 76% of African Americans do not have a will, more than twice the percentage of white Americans.
The waterfront that borders the 65-acre tract.
They had spent decades fighting to keep the waterfront on Silver Dollar Road. They’d been warned that they would go to jail if they didn’t comply with a court order to stay off the land, and they felt betrayed by the laws that had allowed it to be taken from them. They had been baptized in that water. “ They expected to argue their case in court that day.
Instead, the judge ordered them sent to jail, for civil contempt. The brothers hadn’t been charged with a crime or given a jury trial. Still, they believed so strongly in their right to the property that they spent the next eight years fighting the case from jail, becoming two of the longest-serving inmates for civil contempt in U.S. history.
By the time of melvin and licurtis hearing in 2011
One of the most pernicious legal mechanisms used to dispossess heirs’ property owners is called a partition action. Speculators can buy off the interest of a single heir, and just one heir or speculator, no matter how minute his share, can force the sale of an entire plot through the courts.
Licurtis Reels, right, hugs his sister Mamie Ellison, center, as he and his brother Melvin Davis, left, are released from the Carteret County Jail.
Nearly eight years after Melvin and Licurtis went to jail, they stood before a judge in Carteret to request their release. They were now 72 and 61, but they remained defiant. Licurtis said that he would go back on the property “just as soon as I walk out of here.” Melvin said, “I believe that land is mine.”
In february 2019
They had hired a new lawyer, who argued that it would cost almost $50,000 to tear down the brothers’ homes. Melvin had less than $4,000 in the bank; Licurtis had nothing. The judge announced that he was releasing them. He warned them, however, that if they returned to their homes they’d “be right back in jail.”
“You can’t talk to an African-American family who owned land in those counties and not find a story where they feel like land was taken from them against their will, through legal trickery.”
David Cecelski - Historian, North Carolina coast
The first time I met the Reels family was for Grandmother Gertrude Reels' 94th birthday. This was a unique opportunity to meet the immediate and extended family, as well as their friends, who had made the long journey to this small house on Silver Dollar Road, at the edge of Adam Creek. And there, paradoxically, I found myself at home. I relived the same expressions, warmth, happiness, and even ordinary disputes observed between family members, whether they be, uncle, aunt, grandfather, cousin, or nephew. The same festive, friendly, and benevolent atmosphere of a Sunday barbecue, of a solemn birthday, made up of speeches and stories from the oral family memory, of these noisy reunions, complete with happy reconciliations or little family stories still unresolved.
director’s statement
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Raoul Peck is a Haitian filmmaker, of both documentary and feature films. He is known for using historical, political, and personal characters to tackle and recount societal issues and historical events.
Peck is also the founder of Velvet Film, a film production company in Paris, New York, and Port-au-Prince.
Filmmakers
Executive Producers
Lizzie Presser
Stephen Engelberg
Almundena Toral
Robin Sparkman
Viola Davis
Julius Tennon
Rob Williams
Producers
Blair Foster
Remi Grellety
Hébert Peck
Raoul Peck
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Henry Adebonojo
Antonio Rossi
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Alexandra Strauss
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Raoul Peck
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Tom Tierney
Pasquin Mariani
Ben Turney
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Amazon Studios
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ALEXEI Aigui
