"Monrovia, 1971" recontextualizes the story of 13-year-old Mark Edward Allen, an African American boy who was found hanging from the bars of his jail cell in the police department of Monrovia, CA. By pairing a reading of the story of Mark's death with 16mm footage of the city as it stands today, the film questions how American suburbs have used the language of liberalism and the ideal of a small-town community to mask deeper histories of racial violence.