New Netflix series, The Madness, is a cat-and-mouse, conspiracy-theory-fueled thriller. But it starts with a Black man framed for a murder committed by a white man. It’s a storyline ripped from the pages of history and the annals of historical homicidal racial violence in the United States.
The Madness, released on November 28, 2024, is not based on a true story, although creator Stephen Belber has said in interviews after the show’s premiere that he was inspired by the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Muncie Daniels (Colman Domingo) a Black media pundit escapes to Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains to avoid the chaos that accompanies burgeoning fame and to write a novel. Not long after his arrival, he is running in the woods when he discovers the murdered body of a white man, who also has connections with a local far-right group called The Forge. He is then chased through the woods by two-masked assailants. Daniels makes his escape after stabbing one of the attackers with his fountain pen, only to pass out and wake up the next day, his tires slashed.
So begins the 8-part Netflix series that sees Domingo’s character framed for the white supremacist’s death and dismemberment. To survive, Muncie must reconnect with his estranged wife and fight misinformation to prove his innocence.
Reportedly, Belber has said that he believes American audiences have a “hunger” for entertainment that tackles significant issues. There is perhaps no more significant issue facing the country today than that of reckoning with our own brutal history of racial violence. Although The Madness is set in Maryland’s Potomac mountains, the death, danger and duplicity Daniels faces could have come from one of the many case files on Jim-Crow era violence contained in the Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive.
Echoes from history
This archive, launched by CRRJ and Northeastern University Library archivists in fall 2022, houses thousands of documents from more than 1,000 cases of racial homicide in the Jim Crow South.
One case from the Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive that is reminiscent of The Madness’s essential plot is that of Will Jamison, who was shot and killed in Memphis, Tennessee in 1932.
Like Muncie, Jamison too was an African American man framed for murdering white victims. But, in Jamison’s case, he was framed killing a mother and her child. It would later be proven that this family’s slaying came at the hands of Stanley Puryear, a white man and the husband and father of the victims.
Puryear attempted to pin the double homicide on Jamison, alleging that Jamison murdered his wife and daughter with an axe, after robbing his home of two pistols, $60 and a watch. In the pre-dawn hours of May 2, 1932, Puryear shot Jamison.
Jamison was not killed outright and survived in hospital for a few days following the attack, vehemently denying Puryear’s accusations. Jamison insisted Puryear had picked him up on a downtown corner and taken him to Puryear’s home, ostensibly to remove some whiskey. While at the property, Jamison said he was shot by Puryear. When Jamison was arrested, he had no stolen property on his person.
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About the Archive
The Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive houses case files and documents for more than 1,000 cases of racial homicides in the Jim Crow South. Co-founded by Melissa Nobles, professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Margaret Burnham, CRRJ director and professor of law at Northeastern, these uncovered stories highlight how violence affected lives, defined legal rights and shaped politics between 1930 and 1954.
To both the police and the prosecutor who eventually handled the case, it appeared evident that Puryear had killed his wife and daughter earlier in the night and then sought a Black man to frame for it. Witnesses testified to hearing Puryear and his wife arguing prior to her death.
Puryear was first put on trial for murdering Jamison, but an all-white jury acquitted him. When later put on trial for killing his wife and daughter, Puryear was released after a hung jury failed to convict him.
However, Puryear was brought to trial again and this time convicted of his wife and daughter’s murder. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison for the double homicide. Puryear appealed this sentence and was released on bond. He faces a fourth trial, in which he is again convicted and sentenced to 20 years. He dies in prison in 1941 after serving a little more than 2 years of his sentence.
Records indicate that Jamison endured cruelty not only at Puryear’s hands, and injustice in the criminal system’s failure to hold Puryear accountable. Jamison was confronted with violence and prejudice even in his dying moments, as arresting officers refused to let Jamison, shot and dying, drink water, and they threatened to kill him before taking him to the hospital.
So, while The Madness is not explicitly based on a true story, there are instances of deception, cases in which African American men are charged for the crimes of white perpetrators, to conclude that the show’s elemental plot contains some historical truth. An examination of this past, through the lens of popular culture and shows like The Madness, can hopefully encourage a reckoning with our violent history, and tackle the “significant issues” of racial violence that endure.
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