One was a young businessman, the other an honors high school student. Their paths never crossed, but Jonny Gammage and Jordan Miles are inextricably linked as black men who were injured, one fatally, while being subdued by white police officers.
Their violent encounters -- Mr. Miles' fight with three plainclothes Pittsburgh police officers in 2010 and Mr. Gammage's fatal clash with five suburban police officers in 1995 -- elicited charges in some quarters that blacks received unfair treatment at the hands of white police officers. Police vehemently denied the allegations.
Both cases provoked outrage and protests and revealed a raw cultural divide between the black community and police.
Parallels between the cases have spurred the production of "The Gammage Project," a docudrama that begins this week at the University of Pittsburgh. The hope of supporters of the project -- produced jointly by Pitt's repertory company and Pittsburgh Playwrights -- is that revisiting a tragedy 16 years in the past will help prevent one in the future...
