Marcus McGee

Alberta Marcus McGee

What is legal personhood? Should humans feel threatened by nonhuman persons, which can range from cognitively complex chimpanzees to corporations that live in perpetuity? Are humans the only creatures with emotions, morality and culture? Are all humans entitled to equal rights and protection--even those suspected of crimes, whose freedom and lives are disproportionally forfeited?

Meet Alberta, a seventeen-year-old chimp with a brain resembling Einstein's brain in form and function. With an affinity for abstract math and an IQ of 131, she is arguably smarter than most humans. Alberta wants rights and protections--to become the first breathing nonhuman person recognized by American law.

Yet American law has never treated all its human residents equally. Our Lives Matter is a community protest group focused on the police killing of unarmed civilians. When leaders learn that a secret police order is working to avert a nationwide race war/civil war instigated by a group of selfish businessmen, unlikely allies learn trust and respect in the face of America's greatest crisis and most defining moment.