University of Maryland students learn the story of Lt. Richard Collins III through new film
As the camera lingered on family photos, Dawn and Richard Collins II flipped through albums, their voices breaking as they remembered the son they raised.
“He lived with a purpose. He left a legacy.”
Those are the first words heard in “Rich with Love,” a mini documentary on 2nd Lt. Richard Collins III, a 23-year-old Bowie State student and newly commissioned Army officer who was fatally stabbed at a bus stop outside of Montgomery Hall on May 20, 2017. The murderer was Sean Urbanski, a 22-year-old white student. Authorities found racist imagery on his phone and that he was affiliated with an alt-right Facebook group.
For many University of Maryland students watching, the story is new and devastating. Among them was Emmanuel Dean, a sophomore double major in secondary education and English, who said the film hit him deeply.
“It was heavy for me because I am a Black man, and so seeing something happen to someone who looks so similar to me is a little bit frightening,” Dean said. “But then I was also stunned on seeing the ways that Mrs. Collins and her husband, Richard II, [were] then able to voice support towards creating the Collins law.”
The film, created by this university’s Social Justice Alliance, along with a new teaching module, explores the life and legacy of Lt. Collins and the ongoing work to ensure his name is remembered.
“To whomever I can speak his name, I’m going to say it, because at the end of the day, you can’t give us what we want, and that’s our son,” Dawn Collins said in the film.
Assistant Research Professor Jeanette Snider, who co-leads the Social Justice Alliance, said that while faculty and staff remembered Collins, students often did not. She wanted to create a story that would carry Collins’ legacy forward across generations of students.
Working with sociology professor Rashawn Ray, Snider helped turn the documentary into a classroom module that includes a screening, small and large group discussions and a reflection assignment. She partners with Dawn Collins to spread the module across campus.
The documentary resonated with many students, Snider said in an interview, for some because of its broader racial implications and for others through a personal connection.
Collins’ sister, Robyn Collins, was a student at this university when he was slain. Snider recalled that a student found the film “sobering,” as she currently has a sister at Bowie State.
Dean led classroom discussions around the film in the College Park Scholars Media, Self and Society program. He said he felt a responsibility to use his teaching passions to make a difference.
“This year, now that I’m a TA for the course, I really wanted to find a way to be more involved in the class and specifically this discussion,” he said. “[I thought that] it’d be a good opportunity for me to take on more responsibility in the class and also really feel something that I’m passionate [about], which is social justice and advocacy.”
In addition to the new classroom initiative to dissect the documentary, the Social Justice Alliance hosts an annual day of service around Collins’ birthday, Dec. 12, a symposium near the anniversary of his death, and intergroup dialogues for faculty, staff and students. The next event is a social justice workshop with the Black Student Union, is scheduled for Oct. 24.
Dean and Snider both hope the lessons they have learned will travel throughout the campus.
“We hear about how he was murdered and what he was supposed to become, but we don’t often hear about his childhood,” Snider said. “We don’t hear about the young person he was, the brother that he was, [or] the son that he was.”