Justice, Made in Durham

“Since Ray been murdered, I have nightmares. I dream of him in the morgue, and when they are cutting his body I wake up because I can feel the knife cutting me,” says Joslin Simms, who weeps at the corner of Broad and Leon Streets in Durham where her son Rayburn, 30, was shot to death on May 21, 2005. © Justin Cook

”I just want to go dig up his body so I can touch his face one more time," says Joslin at her son's grave in Beechwood Cemetery in 2007. © Justin Cook

A summer storm rolls in over Angier Avenue and Driver Street in East Durham at sunset. © Justin Cook

On house arrest for failing to pay his restitution, Rashard Johnson is afraid to set off his monitoring anklet, so he keeps one foot in the house while he smokes a cigarette in 2012. © Justin Cook

Rashard Johnson spoke on a panel about faith and incarceration at Howard University in Washington D.C. on Monday, April 20, 2015. In 2015, Rashard begins to slowly piece his life back together as he works on a construction crew with New Beginnings, a faith-based nonprofit that helps the recently incarcerated find work and stability. © Justin Cook

Shae Simms gave birth to a son, Bryson DeMarcus China, named after her murdered father Rayburn Antonio DeMarcus Simms, at Duke Regional Hospital in Durham in July 2014. © Justin Cook

Demolition and construction continues in Durham's Southside neighborhood. Nonprofits have partnered with the City of Durham to reclaim land in the neighborhood for an urban renewal project. But some residents are weary of gentrification and urban infill in their proud, historically black neighborhood. © Justin Cook

Locals, led by Pastor Sanders Tate, pray for peace at an east Durham intersection at the beginning of the 2013 school year. © Justin Cook

Blood stains remain hours after an overnight shooting death in East Durham. © Justin Cook

In the last decade, Durham, North Carolina has undergone a “rejuvenation,” centered on downtown nightlife and residential redevelopment. But in that time, photojournalist Justin Cook has recorded a counter-narrative to that story about the city—his long-term project “Made in Durham” examines the deep-seated pain in the city, the result of longstanding racial and economic inequality. (Cook is also the subject of a story in PDN’s March 2016 issue, where he discusses how the project began.)

One of the book’s focuses is the grief caused by the murder of young, African American men. Cook follows several women who lost their sons as they try to make sense of the loss, and he records the community’s response to the violence. Looking deeper into the underlying cycle of poverty, crime and incarceration, Cook profiles African American men as they attempt to rebuild their lives after serving time in prison or surviving violence, and finds longstanding, systematic barriers to their success.

“Homicide is the fruit of poverty, and a criminal justice system that doesn’t protect black life from violence,” Cook writes in a statement about the project. But he continues to hope for change: “From the graveyard to the jail, from church basements to corner stores, our mothers, ministers, teachers, neighbors and community leaders gather in grief and solidarity. They improvise their own ways to deliver the next generation to The Promised Land. It’s an American story made in Durham.”

The Realities of Reassimilation

Scenes of the Crimes: Brian Cassella on Justin Cook’s Intimate Look at Crime and Criminal Justice