dvaughan@heraldsun.com; 419-6563
DURHAM -- The 1993 trial of Allen Iverson, then a teenage basketball star, divided the Newport News and Hampton, Va. communities along racial lines. Sports documentary filmmaker Steve James, who is white, grew up there and returned to make the film, discovering that tensions still run high when he brings up the black athlete's name.
"No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson" was screened Friday at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival at the Carolina Theatre downtown. It will premiere on ESPN on Tuesday.
The screening was followed by a panel discussion with Joyce Hobson, who was part of the group supporting Iverson and other black teenagers arrested after a fight.
A fight broke out at a bowling alley in February 1993 between white and black teenagers. Chairs were thrown, and a white girl was injured along with other whites. Four black teenagers were arrested, including Iverson. At the time, Iverson was a football and basketball star player at Bethel High School, leading both teams to state championship wins. No white teenagers were arrested in the bowling alley incident.
Iverson was convicted on the charge of maiming by mob. He and two of the other boys received sentences ranging from three to five years in jail, but after serving less than a year, were granted clemency by Virginia Gov. Doug Wilder. Iverson, as basketball fans know, went on to play for Georgetown University and the Philadelphia 76ers.
He famously crossed Carolina native son and phenom Michael Jordan on the basketball court.
James, who curated the 2009 Full Frame sports-themed programming and is behind "Hoop Dreams," interviewed a slew of people in Hampton and Newport News including his own mother, Iverson's coaches, co-defendants and their supporters, community members and two columnists at the Newport News Daily Press. One columnist, Jim Spencer, was part of the Full Frame panel. A member of the audience asked him about a column he wrote at the time comparing use of the 'n' word to being called a cracker. She asked him what he thinks about that statement today, and Spencer said his opinion has not changed.
Black students said the bowling alley fight started after white students called black students the 'n' word.
"N----- is not a fighting word to excuse what happened," Spencer said Friday.
Hobson told Spencer, "When the 'n' word is used -- a white person saying it to a black person -- it has a totally different connotation," because of roots in slavery and subordination, she said.
James said he made "No Crossover" with hopes of sparking dialogue about race and race and sports. He said that post-show screenings so far have been more about racial issues than Iverson himself.
Iverson did not cooperate with the documentary and is currently on leave from the Sixers. He has had other trouble with the law over the years. Last summer at his Crossover basketball camp for kids in Newport News, he teared up after a boy thanked him for a scholarship.
Hobson said that Iverson is a blue chipper athlete from the black community whose rise was a chance to break oppression. Whenever there is an opportunity to rise above, she said, a posse will follow because of the access to money it creates.
"It's a very tough situation for an African-American athlete to come out of blighted America," she said. Iverson grew up poor, without a father, and was often the one caring for his siblings.
In the film, Hobson said Iverson needs to look in the mirror and decide what he wants his children to see today. On Friday, she said that we don't know what the outcome of his life will be, or how what happened as a teenager has impacted his life. Though she was reluctant to be interviewed by James for the film, she thinks the result is credible.
"The community needed it," she said.
