LEE COUNTY, S.C. — The 2019 film “Just Mercy” tells the true story of the racial inequities in the U.S. criminal justice system in the late 1980s.
While stars like Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx were featured, a Lexington County woman was also among those to play a role.
Scarlet Dunbar, a Swansea native, began her career in healthcare after graduating from The University of South Carolina Aiken.
“I’ve always had kind of this dream of being an actress,” Dunbar said. “I just decided, after being in healthcare for a while and just kind of not feeling fulfilled, just decided to go for my dream.”
She took her first acting class in Columbia.
“From there, it just kind of progressed. I got into more acting classes and ventured off into Atlanta where I booked my first agent and where I started booking projects,” Dunbar said. ““Just Mercy” was one of my first projects that I booked.”
The movie starring Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx tells the story of Bryan Stevenson, a Harvard graduate and lawyer who moved to Alabama to help those wrongfully convicted and facing the death penalty.
Walter McMillian, who’s spotlighted, was one of his first clients – a black man on death row in the ‘80s who was wrongfully convicted in the murder of a young white woman.
Dunbar played McMillian's daughter.
“I wanted to portray that hurt, that pain,” Dunbar said.
Six years later with Stevenson’s help, McMillian’s charges would be dropped.
“…even though we are making efforts to progress… I just feel like it’s a story that needs to be told so people can understand this is something we’re still dealing with, this is something that we still have a long way to go to help fix,” Dunbar said.
As for her career, the Swansea High graduate, who’s also appeared in the shows Good Girls and Black Lightning said, “be on the lookout.”
“I have some more stuff coming,” she said. “If you have a dream and you’re really serious about pursuing it, pursue it…. Just keep at it, keep pushing and never give up.”
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, since 1973, more than 170 people who had been wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death have since been exonerated.
To learn more about the movie and Stevenson’s work, visit the Equal Justice Initiative online.