Reckoning with Racism: Police, Judges, and the RDS Case by Backhouse Constance;

Author:Backhouse, Constance;
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: University of British Columbia Press
Published: 2022-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

12

Epilogue

The Witnesses

Rodney Small’s first arrest was not his last. Rocky Jones warned him the police would be on the lookout and to steer clear of trouble. But the initial court reversals took a toll on the teenager. He admitted he “started to get involved with things I shouldn’t have.” In 1995, he pleaded guilty to drug trafficking and served two months in the Waterville youth correction facility. An after-school altercation with a student who called him the N-word resulted in another arrest. Then he dropped out of school.1

As he had threatened to do, Small left home before the final ruling and only heard about the decision en route to Toronto.2 He returned in time to be feted at a victory party at Rocky Jones’s home. Years later, he teared up when he remembered the celebration. “Rocky’s family accepted me just like family. Joan and Sharon and all of his kids were all there. I knew I was a part of something bigger than just me.”3

With the help of renewed religious faith, sympathetic teachers, and student support workers, he completed Grade 12 at Queen Elizabeth High and a bachelor of management degree from Dalhousie. An internship at the Black Business Initiative led him to cofound Common Good Solutions, an award-winning social enterprise service assisting young people to start new businesses.4 The 5557 Cunard Street office had earlier housed Rocky Jones’s law office and a community day-care that Rodney attended in his childhood. He volunteered with the 7th Step Society, an organization helping ex-offenders. He supported the Black Lives Matter movement in the wake of the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020, describing the traumatic video as devastating.5 He protested gentrification’s displacement of North End Blacks, a reminder of the forced destruction of Africville.6

Rodney Small beside Burnley (Rocky) Jones’s portrait, Dalhousie Law School, 2018. Reflecting on the turn around, Small added, “One thing I can tell you is statistically I’m not supposed to be where I am today. [M]any young men that I grew up with are either doing life in prison, or are six feet under the ground.”7 Crediting Jones, he mused: “Man, he was special. When I got convicted on drug charges, Rocky was still, ‘Don’t give up young fellow, there’s more to you. There’s something about you.’”8 He felt similarly toward Judge Sparks. One of his proudest moments was hearing her speak at a Dalhousie law school event. Afterwards, he posed for a photograph with her beside a portrait of the late Rocky Jones.9

Donald Stienburg, the arresting officer, enrolled part-time at Dalhousie on top of his police shifts, then took a full semester away from the force between the trial and the final decision. He completed his science degree in 1996. His work ethic stood him in good stead in his career and he was promoted to staff sergeant. Decades later, he emphasized that he “harboured no ill will against Judge Sparks.”

I would think a little differently now than then. The Supreme Court judges said her

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