Thirty five years ago on April 19, 1989, a woman was brutally beaten and raped in New York City’s Central Park. Police soon arrested a dozen teenagers who were in the park that night. After long hours of intense and threatening interogation, five teenagers, four Black and one Latino, were coerced into confessing. Although there was no physical evidence connecting them to the attack and they later recanted the coerced confessions, they were each convicted of attempted murder and rape. The press used terms such as “wolf pack” and “wilding” to describe the teenagers who became known as “The Central Park Five.” Many in the public called for the death penalty to be imposed quickly. Fortunately the death penalty was not imposed, but they were imprisoned for years. Finally in 2002, the actual attacker confessed and DNA evidence confirmed his guilt. Eventually The “Central Park Five” became known as “The Exonerated Five.”
This miscarriage of justice was a direct legacy of stereotypes of Black criminality and sexual aggressiveness toward white women that go back to enslavement and legal segregation. The calls by the press and public for retribution and revenge despite the lack of evidence were the legacy of years of race based lynching. The case of “The Exonerated Five” is a vivid reminder that too often justice is not “blind.” A person’s racial and economic status can still impact how they are treated in the criminal justice system. For this reason among others, the death penalty has never been administered in an ultimately fair way that is consistent with the ultimate consequence of taking a life. The first video posted below is the trailer for the documentary “The Central Park Five” that tells the story of this perversion of justice.
One of “The Exonerated Five” was recently in the news again, but this time for a much different reason. Last November Yusef Salaam was elected as a City Councilman in New York. He is committed to using his experience of gross injustice to work for justice for all the people he represents. The second video posted below tells this part of his story. Please take the time to watch this video. It is both an affirmation of Yusef’s life and a challenge to work for the elimination of systemic racism that still impacts the lives of too many people today.