New York | The New York Times
Yusef Salaam, one of five black and Latino teenagers convicted of raping a jogger in Central Park in 1989 and acquitted more than a decade later, was elected on Tuesday (7) to represent Harlem on the New York City Council, which is the City Council corresponds .
Salaam, who ran unopposed, won a significant victory in the Democratic primary in June, defeating two members of the New York State Assembly. Democrat Kristin Richardson Jordan, who holds the council seat, dropped out of the race before the primary.
The elected official spoke frequently during the campaign about his conviction, acquittal and persecution by former President Donald Trump, who at the time of the case was running fullpage ads in newspapers calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty as a response to crime.
“Karma is real, and we have to remember that,” Salaam said in an interview, saying it was ironic that Trump was being prosecuted during his election to the council.
The case in which Salaam was wrongly accused and convicted in the late 1980s, a time of great racial tension in the country, highlighted the flaws in the justice system and was depicted in the 2019 miniseries “Eyes that Condemn.”
The confessions of Salaam and the other four young men convicted with him were obtained under duress. There was no evidence that genetic material linked the teenagers Salaam, Korey Wise, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana and Antron McCray to the attack.
Trump’s racist comments at the time only served to inflame tensions. Salaam says he holds no grudge against the former president and only hopes for justice.
“I hope he was treated the way we weren’t treated,” Salaam said. “They found us guilty before we got a fair trial.”
At his election victory party, Salaam said the story of his wrongful conviction, the nearly seven years he spent in prison, his acquittal and his efforts to reform the justice system were the reasons why Harlem residents felt connected to him.
This life experience, he says, “guides me, informs me and enables me to be a humble servant of the people. Our participation in the common good can lead us to be a community that works together, organizes together and has an inclusive attitude.” Vision, in rather than exclusive.
Salaam is a moderate Democrat, unlike his predecessor Jordan, a Democrat further to the left of the party and one of the City Council’s most progressive members. It took sharp leftwing positions on housing and the Ukrainian War, but did not enjoy the support of many progressive organizations and did not attend more than half of its committee meetings.
Salaam supports the construction of a housing development on 145th Street, which Jordan opposed because he feared the measure would deepen the gentrification process in the area. He also stated that he did not want to defund the police despite his previous experiences with the justice system.
He did not win the support of local progressives during the primary, but Cornel West, a professor and activist running for president, and Keith Ellison, the progressive attorney general of Minnesota, both supported him. He appeared frequently in national media throughout his campaign.
Observers see his election as a glimmer of hope for Harlem, once the black political capital of New York. That title now belongs to downtown Brooklyn.
The neighborhood is struggling with the effects of gentrification, including the loss of Black residents, the increase in drug treatment clinics and a lack of affordable housing.
Keith Wright, chairman of the Manhattan Democratic Party and a former congressman, recruited Salaam, who was living in Georgia at the time, in a conversation in which he referred to him as the “Nelson Mandela of Harlem.”
“He was a political prisoner. He was wrongfully imprisoned and kidnapped as a child,” said Wright, who took a harsher view of Trump’s role in Salaam’s ordeal.
“Yusef called it karma,” Wright said. “I’m going to invent another phrase: What goes around comes around.”