1.

Brief Biography of Nic Stone

Nic Stone grew up in a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia in 1985. She attended Spelman College,
earning a degree in psychology. During a self-professed “identity crisis” when she was 23,
she took a trip to Israel, where she met soldiers, militants, refugees, and families from both
Palestinian and Israeli cultures. On this trip, she realized she wanted to be a writer, since she
was so compelled by the stories she heard. As a result, she began writing Young Adult fiction,
especially focusing on narratives that address identity and belonging, issues she herself
struggled with as one of the only African American girls in her high school’s accelerated
programs. Her debut novel, Dear Martin, was published in 2017 and became a New York
Times Bestseller. In the following two years, she published Odd One Out and Jackpot, and
has continued to publish essays and short stories.

2. Historical Context of Dear Martin

Dear Martin is based in part on the death of Jordan Davis, a seventeen-year-old black boy
who was shot and killed by a white man in Jacksonville, Florida in 2012. Davis and his
friends were listening to loud hip-hop at a gas station when an armed white man parked next
to them and instructed them to turn down the music. One of Davis’s friends listened to the
man, but Davis asked that the music be turned back up, at which point the man was heard
saying, “You aren’t going to talk to me like that.” He then took out a pistol and started
shooting at Davis and his friends, killing Davis. The shooter was found guilty on three counts
of attempted murder, but not on murder in the first degree. The judge declared a mistrial
regarding this final count, and the shooter was finally found guilty of first-degree murder in
his retrial, where he earned a life sentence in prison without parole, in addition to another 90
years. It’s also worth mentioning that Nic Stone was moved to write Dear Martin as a reaction
to a number of other instances of racist police brutality, including the shooting of Michael
Brown, Jr. in 2014.

3. Characters:
Justyce McAllister is a seventeen-year-old African American boy from a “bad area” in
Atlanta, Georgia. A hardworking and intelligent young man, Justyce is a scholarship student
at a prestigious boarding school called Braselton Preparatory Academy. When he hears one
night that his on-again-off-again girlfriend, Melo Taylor, has gotten too drunk to drive and is
ignoring her friends’ calls, he sets out to find her. Wearing a hooded sweatshirt, he ventures
into a wealthy neighborhood, where he eventually comes upon her near her car. He takes her
keys from her, but she resents receiving help when she’s drunk, so she slaps him and tells him
to go away before suddenly vomiting on his sweatshirt. He then gently places her in the
backseat, at which point a white police officer named Tommy Castillo pulls up and unjustly
arrests him. Apparently, Castillo followed him from a distance when he saw him walking with
his hood up. He punches Justyce in the face and accuses him of trying to take advantage of
Melo. This instance of racial profiling rattles Justyce, even after his friend’s mother, Mrs.
Friedman, uses her legal expertise to have him released. In the aftermath of this event, Justyce
decides to write diary entries addressed to Martin Luther King, Jr. This is partly because he
has very few people to commiserate with at school. Although his best friend Manny is black,
Manny constantly defers to racist white kids like Jared Christiansen, which upsets Justyce.
Luckily, Justyce can confide in his favorite teacher, Doc, and Sarah-Jane Friedman. However,
when Castillo’s partner, Officer Tison, later shoots and kills Manny, Justyce feels especially
alone in a racist world. Consequently, he considers joining a gang called the Black Jihad.
Instead, though, he starts dating Sarah-Jane and focuses on his future, going on to attend Yale
in the fall.

Manny is Justyce’s best friend, and one of the only black students at Braselton Preparatory
Academy. Manny comes from a very wealthy and successful family and, unlike Justyce, has
grown up around privileged white people. As a result, he counts people like Jared
Christiansen amongst his best friends, choosing to ignore their racist comments and jokes
when they arise, which happens quite frequently. Justyce is uncomfortable with this, but
Manny is committed to maintaining his status as an easygoing and well-liked basketball star
and ladies’ man. When Jared uses him as an example in class to argue that racial inequality no
longer exists in the United States, Manny simply tells him to leave him out of the discussion.
Later, though, even he can’t deny that his white friends are quite insensitive, especially after
Blake uses the n-word to refer to him and Justyce. The day after Justyce punches both Jared
and Blake for being racist, Manny spends some time thinking and realizes that Justyce is right
to be upset. That week, he visits the basketball coach to tell him he wants to quit the team. He
admits that he never actually liked basketball and is only playing because everyone expected
him to be on the team since he’s tall and black. Jared happens to be in the office when Manny
quits the team, and he jokes that Manny can’t quit until “Massah set[s] [him] free.” Hearing
this, Manny attacks him. Shortly thereafter, Jared’s family presses charges against him.
Enraged, Manny drives around that weekend with Justyce in his Land Rover, listening to loud
hip-hop. At a stoplight, an off-duty white police officer named Garrett Tison screams at the
boys to turn down their music, and when Manny turns it up instead, Tison shoots at them,
killing Manny.

SJ is a Jewish girl at Braselton Preparatory Academy and is Justyce’s partner on the debate
team. SJ and Justyce have always gotten along, and SJ is quick to speak up as an ally when
people like Jared say racist things in class. In particular, SJ challenges Jared’s notion that
racism no longer exists in the United States, trying to make him see that he only thinks this
because he himself has never truly had to think about the color of his skin. This exchange is
perhaps especially heated because everyone knows that Jared still has feelings for SJ, since
they dated in the eighth grade. To add to this, it’s also common knowledge that SJ is
especially fond of Justyce. However, their close relationship has never gone beyond
friendship, though it almost does when Justyce tries to kiss SJ after they win their debate
tournament. Surprised, SJ turns away from him and gives him the “cold shoulder” for several
weeks. When he appears at her house and cries in her arms after almost joining a gang,
though, she embraces him, and they decide to date. After high school, she attends Columbia
University while maintaining a long-distance relationship with Justyce.

Jared is a conceited white boy who attends Braselton Preparatory Academy with Justyce.
Jared is one of Manny’s closest friends, despite the fact that he often expresses racially-
charged ideas and casually cracks bigoted jokes. In his Societal Evolution class one day, he
argues that racial inequality no longer exists in the United States, refusing to hear SJ’s
argument that he’s only able to say this because he’s fortunate enough to have never
experienced discrimination. To prove that equality is alive and well, Jared persuades his
friends—including Manny and Justyce—to dress up as “stereotypes” for Halloween. Jared
himself goes as a “Yuppie/Politician,” while Justyce dresses as a “thug” and Manny puts
together a “token black guy” costume. However, even Jared seems uncomfortable when he
sees that Blake has decided to wear a Ku Klux Klan outfit, though he doesn’t say anything—
another indication that he’s unwilling to fully admit the prevalence of racism. In yet another
argument in Societal Evolution, he angrily upholds that Justyce has only been admitted to
Yale during the “early action” period because he’s black, claiming that Yale has to meet a
“quota” of black students. Jared himself has been deferred, which is why he’s so upset about
Justyce’s success. Later still, Jared gets into a fight with Manny after making a racist joke,
and his parents decide to press charges against Manny for hitting their son. This lawsuit never
comes to fruition, though, since Manny is shot and killed by Officer Tison. This deeply upsets
Jared, who eventually does go to Yale. When he’s home for Christmas the following year, he
bumps into Justyce at Manny’s grave, and he tells him that he has decided to become a civil
rights lawyer. Standing over Manny’s grave, the two boys decide to be friends.

4. Themes:
a) Police brutality:
There are four specific instances of police brutality in Dear Martin. Police brutality can be
defined by the unjust and unwarranted use of force by a member of law enforcement against a
citizen. The novel's major concern is with police brutality, as Jus must learn how to live in a
world where he might be killed by a police officer at any moment. Every instance of police
brutality upsets Jus on varying levels, culminating with Officer Garrett Tison's murder of Jus's
best friend, Manny, over a dispute about the volume of Manny's music.
The first occurrence of police brutality in Dear Martin appears in Chapter 1. Jus goes to help
his ex-girlfriend, Melo, who is extremely drunk and all by herself in a supermarket parking
lot. He does not know, however, that an officer, Officer Castillo, has been trailing him.
Officer Castillo racially profiles Jus and believes that he is trying to attack Melo instead of
help her. He does not ask Jus any questions and instead attacks him while Jus's back is turned
because he is helping Melo into her car: Officer Castillo's unjust use of force in this moment
leaves lasting scars on Justyce, who is forced to reevaluate the way others see him in this
world. Justyce is a good kid with an excellent academic record; he never thought that he
would be in this kind of situation. Despite the fact that Jus has always remained on the right
side of the law, however, Officer Castillo sees him through the lens of racist stereotypes and
assumes that he is committing a crime.

One of the stories of police brutality that Jus learns about is the murder of Shemar Carson.
Jus recounts that a police officer murdered seventeen-year-old Shemar Carson in Nevada even
though Carson was unarmed. Jus's encounter with Officer Castillo makes Jus take a closer
look at the Shemar Carson case. Before he was racially profiled himself, Jus assumed that
Shemar Carson was a "thug . As Jus has discovered, however, how a Black man dresses has
little impact on whether he will be racially profiled and abused by the police. He also
questions what would have happened if Officer Castillo had seen Jus as a threat and killed
him that night.

Later in the novel, Jus learns that a police officer killed another unarmed Black teenager in
Florida. Tavarrius Jenkins, a sixteen-year-old who was unarmed, was trying to help a white
lady who was having car troubles when a police officer shot him. Jus spends a lot of time
thinking about Tavarrius Jenkins's unjust death. He tells Manny that he keeps thinking that
Tavarrius's fate could have been his in Chapter 10.

Finally, the tragedy of police brutality comes to a head in Jus's life when an off-duty police
officer shoots Manny in Chapter 14. Manny and Jus had been riding around in Manny's car,
trying to cool off after Manny learned that his ex-childhood-friend's father was pressing
charges against him. A man in the car next to them takes issue with the fact that their music is
loud and tells them to turn it down. Manny refuses to do so and says, "'I'm done bending over
backwards to appease white people'" (118). The man, who is off-duty police officer Garrett
Tison, pulls out a gun and opens fire on Jus and Manny. Jus is shot in his shoulder, which
leaves him in the hospital for almost a full month. Manny is killed.

b) Injustice and racism

Injustice and racism are major themes in Dear Martin. Despite the fact that his name is a
different spelling of the word "justice," he faces much injustice through the book. In the very
first chapter, his attempts to help his extremely drunk ex-girlfriend, Mel, backfire when a
police officer believes that he is trying to do her harm. Jus is unable to explain himself as the
police officer physically assaults him. Another injustice of this encounter is Officer Castillo's
racial profiling of Jus; he believes that Jus's race is an indicator of criminal activity and that
he is in Oak Ridge, a wealthy Atlanta neighborhood, to cause harm. He also assumes that Jus
and Melo don't know each other and makes assumptions about Melo's race.
The injustice that Jus faces at the hands of the police in Chapter 1 leaves a lasting impression
on him. Jus knows that the encounter with Officer Castillo would have gone differently if he
weren't Black and it bothers him that he was racially profiled even though he goes to a good
school, gets excellent grades, and dresses and acts respectably in public. In his first letter
addressed to Dr. King, Jus writes that it opened his eyes to the racism that is still alive and
well today in the United States.

Racism is definitely the main theme in this book, because it is the theme that is constantly
there and it is being mentioned in many different cases. The first case of racistic action
happened at the very beginning of the book. As we already know, Justyce was attacked by a
white police officer who accused him of attacking his girlfriend just because of his race. After
that night, Justyce became interested in investigating another racistic actions by police
officers from around the world. He found out that there were other teen Afro American boys
who were murdered by officers and since that traumatic experience he became extremely
sensitive to racist comments and jokes, as he should be, because he knows from his own
experience that there are lots of black people who are being falsely accused and even
murdered just because of their race. Justyce has also experienced rasics jokes and comments
at his school. They mostly came from Jared and his squad, and it is even worse because they
were acting like they are friends, and that Justyce was just being too sensitive. Jared even said
in front of entire class that Jus was only accepted into Yale because of his race, but after he
said a similar thing to Manny, the boys had a fight and Jared pressed charges against him.
Racism was even Jus and SJs topic on the debate competition, but the worst racistic action
happened at the beginning of part 2 when Manny was murdered by a police officer just
because the music in his car was too loud.
Apart from racism, an important topic in this book is also justice. Sadly, it seems that justice
is only present in white peoples lives in this book. If the officers who attacked Manny and Jus
did not die, I personally think that they would not face any kind of punishment for what they
did, firstly because they are officers, and secondly because they are white. Jus is deeply
bothered by the attack from the beginning of the book, because he knows that it would not be
like that if he was not black, and we can see that injustice and racism in this book are very
connected.
c) Friendship
In this book, we have many diferent types od friendships, but the strongest bond was
definitely between Jus and Manny, and between Jus and SJ. Jus and Manny were best friend
who spent most of their free time together, even though they came from very different
families. Jus came from a poor family and his dad was an alcoholic who passed away when
the boy was only 10 years old, so he lived with his mom. On the other hand, Manny comes
from a wealthy family with a big house and amazing cars, but despite these differences, they
loved each other unconditionally. Justyce appreciated Manny and their friendship very much,
but he has also appreciated his race, so when Manny ignored all the racistic comments that
came from his friends, Jus was extremely mad at him. In that part, we have a different type of
friendship: The friendship between Manny and Jared. The boys were friends since childhood,
but I cannot really understand whether their friendship was the honest one, because it seems
that Jared only accepts Manny because he is rich and popular at school, but if he was like Jus,
he probably would not hang out with him. The bond that I liked the most was the bond
between SJ and Jus. Sj was my favourite character because she was so smart and kind, and it
seems like she does not even see that Jus is black. She treats people equally, and is very fierce
when defending her justice.
d) Connection with Martin Luther King:
Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an
American activist who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the Civil Rights
Movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. King is best known for advancing civil
rights through nonviolence and civil disobedience, inspired by his Christian beliefs and the
nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi. He was the son of early civil rights activist Martin
Luther King, Sr.
King participated in and led marches for blacks' right to vote, desegregation, labor rights, and
other basic civil rights. King helped organize the 1963 March on Washington, where he
delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover considered King a radical and made him an object of the FBI's
COINTELPRO from 1963, forward. FBI agents investigated him for possible communist ties,
recorded his extramarital liaisons and reported on them to government officials, and, in 1964,
mailed King a threatening anonymous letter, which he interpreted as an attempt to make him
commit suicide.
On October 14, 1964, King won the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality
through nonviolent resistance. In 1965, he helped organize two of the three Selma to
Montgomery marches. In his final years, he expanded his focus to include opposition towards
poverty, capitalism, and the Vietnam War.
In 1968, King was planning a national occupation of Washington, D.C., to be called the Poor
People's Campaign, when he was assassinated on April 4 in Memphis, Tennessee. His death
was followed by riots in many U.S. cities. Allegations that James Earl Ray, the man convicted
of killing King, had been framed or acted in concert with government agents persisted for
decades after the shooting. King was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of
Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal. Martin Luther King Jr. Day was established as a
holiday in cities and states throughout the United States beginning in 1971. Hundreds of
streets in the U.S. have been renamed in his honor, and the most populous county in
Washington State was rededicated for him. The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the
National Mall in Washington, D.C., was dedicated in 2011.
Jus wrote his diary in form of letters that were addressed to MLK. He wanted to follow the
example of this man who fought for the rights of people his race. Every time when Jus was
affected by racistic comments, jokes or actions, he wrote that in the diary and thought about
what would MLK do. He chose Martin to be his example, because Martin never used violence
in order to fight for his people. Later in the book, Jus stopped writing to Martin because he
was very disappointed and sad. He thought that solving his problems non violently is not
possible, so he wanted to join the gang.