‘83 Days’ A Short Film by Writer, Producer and College Professor Ray Lenard Brown

Many film Producers’ are very dedicated to creating a movie that will catch their audience’s attention leaving them on the edge of their seats. But what if the story they are writing is true? The short film ’83 Days” (2018) produced by Ray Lenard Brown was like a fire shot-up in his bones he knew he had to do something. He is also known for the film In.san.i.ty (2018) and the author of the book Kidtropolis. 

The story ‘83 Days ‘is about a 14-year old black boy named George Stinney Jr. who was wrongfully convicted of the rape and murder of two white girls in South Carolina. He was executed by the electric chair in 1944. Ray helped him get exonerated in the year of 2019. This story is not told to stir up strife between the Black and White community, it’s told to bring awareness to society that injustice will not prevail in the black community.

“I was taking what they call a creative procrastination break and stumbled across a news article that said a 14-year-old African American boy was executed in South Carolina. I thought it was something that just happened after I did some investigation, I realized it took place in 1944.The question I had after that was why we had never heard about it? He was 14 years old, and it took place 11 years before Emmett Till’s story and he was the youngest in American history to be executed by the electric chair.” After Ray read the article, he went to work on finding out what he could do about the situation.   

“Nobody really explored it and there were various articles and things that showed up online if you googled it but, South Carolina had done a masterful job at hiding it for 70 years. I decided I would make a movie about it; my wife and I went to South Carolina for a couple of days speaking to people and interviewing others. What I found was there were people in his hometown that didn’t know anything about it.”  Ray’s quest to get to the bottom of the story about what really happened concerning this case was not faced without opposition from people who were in high places in that city. Ray and his family received death threats to stop him from finding out the truth but, what Ray felt in his heart was stronger than the evil forces that were coming up against him. Ray got together with his attorney to clear George Stinney Jr.’s name and they prevailed.
Ray is being considered this year to receive an Oscar for his short film ’83 days’ while working on raising funds to make the short film into a full movie. Ray is currently negotiating with the “ALL Black Network” which is owned by the AMC Network on the projects Insanity, Weidos, and Homeless. He’s also relaunching his book “Kidtropolis” which basically is about the minds of mothers that want to have babies but are waiting to meet their daddies. Kidtropolis is a book made up of all the myths about where babies come from. It’s really a fun book. The promotion “83 Days” will be on the Hollywood Reporter on December 2^nd be sure to look out for it.