Say His Name: Arthur Miller

Episode Transcript

Florence Miller Arthur wanted to get involved in everything. You know, he was excited about the city and excited about doing things. And leaving a legacy, not wanting his footsteps to be washed away. When he left this earth, he wanted something left behind to say, I was here. 

Constance Leslold Arthur was a good friend. It's very hard for me to believe that anybody would want to murder him. He just wanted to clean up his neighborhood.  

Bob Law Arthur Miller was in handcuffs, put in a police car, and they choked him to death. That's an atrocity. That's police criminal behavior, and so in response to the criminal behavior of the police, the entire community would be outraged. 

[Music]

Marcia Ely A Black man killed by police chokehold; a community rising up in protest. These ring of headlines we see today and the racist policing that led to the deaths of George Floyd, Freddie Gray, Alton Sterling, Breonna Taylor and so many others. 

[Sound here from 2020 protests “I can’t breathe”] 

Virginia Marshall But, the incident those voices are talking about ... took place on June 14, 1978, over 45 years ago. 

Marcia Ely Arthur Miller Jr. was a father of four, and a leader in his Crown Heights community. Outside of Brooklyn, his name has largely faded from memory. But at the time, his killing let loose the simmering outrage and fury of Brooklyn’s Black community. It was a ‘catalytic event’ propelling the budding movement for justice. 

Virginia Marshall That history is documented at Brooklyn Public Library’s Center for Brooklyn History in the “Voices of Crown Heights Oral History Collection.” The voices you just heard – Arthur Miller’s widow Florence Miller, and community members Bob Law and Constance Lesold, are archived in that collection. 

[Music]

Marcia Ely Today on Borrowed, we  tell the story of a Black community leader who was killed by NYPD chokehold, the family dedicated to preserving his memory, the movement pushed forward as a result of his tragic death, and the ways that one Brooklyn institution, Brooklyn Public Library’s Center for Brooklyn History, helps to keep the story alive. I’m Marcia Ely, Director of Programs at the Center for Brooklyn History. 

Virginia Marshall And I’m Virginia Marshall. You’re listening to Borrowed, stories that start it the library. 

[Music]

Virginia Marshall Before we talk about Arthur Miller’s death, it’s important to talk about his life. Arthur Miller was a respected, beloved Crown Heights leader. He owned a small grocery store and a construction business. He got federal money to improve the community, organized field trips for the neighborhood kids, and started The Four Star Block Association. And he worked out with off-duty police officers in his basement. 

Marcia Ely He was an active member of the Black Crown Heights community, deeply committed to improving the lives of his neighbors. He found inspiration in the examples of New York City’s most prominent Black leaders. Here’s how his wife, Florence Miller, described those influences. 

Florence Miller He met Shirley Chisholm, that didn't live too far from us. Shirley Chisholm introduced -- took him to Harlem to meet Adam Clayton Powell. And between the two of them, he really got gung-ho about community and changes. The information that they presented to him just made him feel that there was nothing that he couldn't do. And he needed to -- as a Black man, he needed to step up and do something positive. 

LoLisa Miller-Bradford He was just the best. He was the best father anyone could ever have. 

Marcia Ely This is LoLisa Miller-Bradford, one of Arthur Miller’s daughters and the founder of the "Arthur Miller Jr. A Daughter Never Forgets Foundation." I talked with her last June. 

LoLisa Miller-Bradford We had breakfast every morning together as a family. We had dinner together every night as a family. After dinner, we would watch a little television and they would put us to bed. On the weekends, we did family outings, we did family vacations. It was so much fun. 

Marcia Ely Then came June 14, 1978, the day that would come to shatter all others for the Miller family. 

[Music] 

Virginia Marshall Official documentation of Arthur Miller’s death is contained in a 1000-page congressional report on police brutality, published in 1983. The entry for Arthur Miller comes on page 1,017. It reads: “At 5:35 P.M. on June 14, 1978, Police Officers Anthony Curcio and Christopher Scheibel, stopped Sam Miller’s truck on Rogers Avenue in the 77th Precinct, in order to serve a summons for a previous littering infraction…” Sam Miller was Arthur Miller’s younger brother. 

Marcia Ely  The report continues, and here’s where the description might be triggering for some listeners. “All witnesses agreed that a violent struggle took place, but witnesses disagreed as to whether Miller was struck by nightsticks, whether the police had headlocks on Miller, and whether a nightstick was ever locked on Miller’s neck.” And then it reads, “Officer Johnson noticed that Miller did not look right, and had a white foam substance about his mouth.  Miller was immediately taken to St. Mary’s Hospital, a block and a half from the 77th Precinct, where attempts to revive him were unsuccessful, and he was pronounced Dead on arrival.” 

Virginia Marshall The report concludes that “Arthur Miller was not savagely beaten by anyone” and that "There is no indication that anyone acted recklessly or with criminal negligence toward Mr. Miller so as to cause his death.”

Marcia Ely But using police reports and investigations is only one way to look at history, and one that might leave out the experiences of those closest to the event. Oral histories can be a way to fill in those gaps. They complicate history and counteract the impulse to simplify. 

Constance Leslold Arthur came out to help his brother, and the police jumped him. He was carrying a gun legally, and they, they could see it with his hands up.

Virginia Marshall This is Constance Lesold. She worked with Arthur in the community, and her story is archived in Center for Brooklyn History’s "Voices of Crown Heights Oral History Collection." We played excerpts from that collection at the start of this episode, and we’re going to play a few more now. 

Constance Lesold The police department does not like for me to say that he was murdered by the police. But they have no objection to me saying that he died in their custody because they know it's the case, and they threw him out in the yard. And Stanley Gibbs was a community officer at that time, in the police department. Marvelous person, and he said-- so, of course, he knew Arthur-- so he said to them, "Do you know who you have killed?" 

Florence Miller There was a loud banging on the bedroom window. 

Marcia Ely This is Florence Miller, again, Arthur’s wife. 

Florence Miller And a lot of the people -- I don't know why they didn't know my name or -- they used to call me Miss Arthur. And he was banging on the window, hollering, "Miss Arthur, Miss Arthur, Miss Arthur!" I think, what is -- so, I, of course, ran outside right away and he said, "The police have Arthur, they put him in the back of the car, and he doesn't look right."

Constance Lesold The elected officials told us to back off. 

Marcia Ely Constance Lesold’s oral history again.

Constance Lesold The district attorney had promised that he would do a full investigation and he would open up the records. There were a lot of witnesses, they were all around, watching, and saw what happened. I doubt many of them were ever called before the grand jury. 

Virginia Marshall Ultimately, no one was held accountable for Arthur Miller’s death. And the Miller family believes that Arthur was set up. Here’s Florence Miller again.  

Florence Miller I think he was targeted. I think he was moving too fast for the establishment. You know, a lot of time, when you have a Black man who speaks his mind and backs it up, that makes a lot of people afraid. And I think because he was a man of color, they wanted him out of the way.

[Music]

Dominique Jean-Louis One of the things that I think our Voices of Crown Heights project point to is that it's very difficult but necessary to highlight moments of tension. 

Marcia Ely  This is Dominique Jean-Louis, the chief historian at the Center for Brooklyn History. When I interviewed her last year, I asked her about the importance of oral histories in building out a historical record. 

Dominique Jean-Louis When you look through the transcripts of those oral histories, you see people remembering things in very different ways. Being reminded of certain dates or events and not remembering them. And I think that's such important memory work because if you try to move away from histories that are tense, that are contested, that are emotional, huge absences remain, right? You can't only tell the histories that are easy or that are straightforward or that are well-documented.   

Natiba Guy-Clement ... and they definitely kind fill in the silence. 

Marcia Ely Natiba Guy-Clement, Assistant Director of Collections and Public Services at the Center for Brooklyn History. 

Natiba Guy-Clement The idea of sitting down and having a conversation with someone now about something that happened to them years ago ... it's just really  an important piece of storytelling Brooklyn.

Marcia Ely Oral histories like the ones in the Crown Heights Oral History Collection are one way to make sure that stories like Arthur Miller’s aren’t forgotten. Another way is to re-animate the past through public programs... which is part of what I do at the Center for Brooklyn History. 

[Applause]

Marcia Ely Good evening. Good evening, everyone. My name is Marcia Ely, and it is truly my honor ...

Marcia Ely This is sound from June of last year, when we presented a program at the Center for Brooklyn History commemorating the 45th anniversary of Arthur Miller’s death. As part of the public program, I invited a panel of experts and scholars who study and write about police brutality, racism and social movements. Arthur Miller’s three daughters were there, having flown in from Florida. The room was packed and solemn.  

Paul Butler There’s a clear risk of death, when the police put their hands on your neck.

Marcia Ely This is Paul Butler, a lawyer and professor at Georgetown University Law Center. He’s the author of Chokehold: Policing Black Men.  

Paul Butler Sometimes we have this romantic idea that back in the day, the police treated us differently. There's never been, not for one moment in American history, peace between Black people and the police. 

Marcia Ely Elizabeth Hinton was also on the panel that night. She teaches at Yale University and is the author of From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime and America on Fire: Police Violence, Black Rebellion and the Fracturing of a Nation. 

Elizabeth Hinton These incidents of police violence are really the kind of most tangible material expression of a history of oppression, exploitation, brutality and systemic racism. And so when a community is faced with the loss of life and a complete disregard for the lives of Black people, it forces people to take action in new ways.  

[Sound from 2020 protests "No Justice, No Peace"]

Virginia Marshall We can all remember the uprising that occurred after George Floyd’s death in 2020. People took to the streets to demand change.  And that happened in 1978, too. One of the benefits of being able to return to the archive is that you can uncover moments of resonance. There are pictures of protestors from 1978, up to 3000 of them, walking across the Brooklyn Bridge carrying hand-written signs. 

Marcia Ely One of the leaders of the protests after Miller’s killing was the Reverend Dr. Herbert Daughtry, who is now 92 years old, and a civil rights legend. He spoke a bit about that time during our program last June.

Reverend Daughtry To understand Arthur Miller, what happened to Arthur Miller, and what happened thereafter, we have to go back and understand the tenor of the times in which Arthur Miller was choked to death. The police was really running rampant. In 1964, they killed a teenager named Jimmy Powell in Harlem. In 1967 they killed a young lad named Richard Ross in Brooklyn. And then in 1972, they killed Ricky Bodden out in Staten Island. He was 11. In 1973, they killed Clifford Glover. He was ten. In 1974, they killed Claude Reese. He was 14. In 1976, they killed Randy Evans. And all of these cases had a consistent factor. The policemen, for the most part Caucasian, and they all got off free.

[Music] 

Virginia Marshall In response to Miller’s killing, Reverend Daughtry focused the community through marches and protests and the creation of the Civil Rights organization, the Black United Front. Here’s Lolisa Miller-Bradford again. 

Lolisa Miller-Bradford Reverend Daughtry was actually the first person that came that actually wanted to do something, wanted to protest, wanted to, you know, help. And so there I was, eight and a half, I mean, thousands of people. And we're on the front line of thousands of people. And then, my father's picture is everywhere. Everyone is angry. But the message was clear, you know that we're fired up and we won't take this anymore. 

Marcia Ely That line, “We won’t take this anymore,” echoes across the decades and lands with us, today. Part of the mission at the Center for Brooklyn History is to document the past so that we can learn from it.  

Virginia Marshall In Arthur Miller's case, the Voices of Crown Heights Oral History Collection and public programs like the one excerpted here, help to paint a more nuanced, accurate picture of an incident that occurred decades ago. Complicating that historical record helps in its own small way to prevent history from repeating itself.  

[music]  

Marcia Ely Borrowed is brought to you by Brooklyn Public Library. This episode was produced by Virginia Marshall and written and hosted by me and Virginia. You can read a transcript of this episode and watch a recording of the Center for Brooklyn History’s public program, "Say His Name, Arthur Miller: A Death By Police Chokehold 45 Years Ago” on our website. Photos of the 2020 Brooklyn protests in response to the police killing of George Floyd are now archived in the Center for Brooklyn History’s Brooklyn Resists collection. We’ll put links to all of these resources in our show notes, and you can always find us at BKLYN Library [dot] org [slash] podcasts. 

Virginia Marshall The Center for Brooklyn History has over 1400 oral histories, collected from 1973 to the present. Many of them are accessible online, for free, at oralhistory [dot] brooklynhistory [dot] org. There’s another wonderful episode about Arthur Miller on Flatbush + Main, the podcast from the former Brooklyn Historical Society that ran until 2020. We’ll also put a link to that episode in our show notes.

Marcia Ely The Center for Brooklyn History is a hub of research, education, public programs and more. It also holds the largest collection of Brooklyn-related materials in the world. All are welcome to explore our special collections and landmark building, which is free and open to the public at 128 Pierpont Street in Brooklyn Heights.

Virginia Marshall Brooklyn Public Library relies on the support of individuals for many of its most critical programs and services. To make a gift, please go to B-K-L-Y-N-library [dot] org [slash] donate.  Our Borrowed team is made up of: Virginia Marshall, Adwoa Adusei, Fritzi Bodenheimer, Robin Lester Kenton, Damaris Olivo, Virginia Marshall and Ali Post. Jennifer Proffitt and Ashley Gill run our social media. Our music composer is Billy Libby. Meryl Friedman designed our logo.  

Marcia Ely Borrowed will be back in a couple of weeks with another episode.