Yusef Salaam, a man who was famously wrongly convicted of a sensationalized violent crime as a teenager, is now set to serve on the New York City Council. In the recent Democratic primary for the City Council, Salaam defeated two incumbents and now is expected to easily takeover Kristin Richardson Jordan’s Harlem seat after she dropped plans to run for reelection.
As The Recount put it on Twitter: “From wrongful imprisonment to City Council? Yusef Salaam appears to have scored a major upset and won the Dem primary in the 9th Council District in Harlem, defeating two sitting state Assembly members.” Salaam is one of the wrongfully convicted, exonerated “Central Park 5.”
“What has happened on this campaign has restored my faith in knowing that I was born for this,” Salaam reportedly said to the crowd at his victory party in Harlem. Salaam has never held a political office before, but he has public popularity, name recognition, and the support of Manhattan Democratic Party boss, Keith Wright.
“He was the prodigal son that has returned. And he was authentic. He is authentic,” Wright said at Salaam’s victory party. “And when Yusef speaks at City Hall, he will speak with a national voice.”
Salaam first became publicly known at the age of 16 for having his voice twisted and taken away when he was wrongly accused and convicted of rape and assault in a high-profile case in Central Park in 1989. He and four other BIPOC teens were scapegoated, coerced into false confessions, and each imprisoned for several years.
They were known as the Central Park Five. And you probably already know that Donald Trump, of all people, spoke out heavily against them and took out huge newspaper ads calling for more police and the death penalty to come back.
As former White Hous aide Keith Boykin tweeted, Trump essentially led a lynch mob against these children: “Thirty-four years after Donald Trump led a lynch mob to execute him and four other wrongly accused young Black and brown men, Yusef Salaam of the Exonerated Five has declared victory in the New York City Council race to represent Harlem.”
Once a confession and DNA evidence from the actual assailant came out years later and went through a tedium of lawsuits and legal proceedings, the Central Park Five were released after wrongfully serving many years in prison and became known as the Exonerated Five.
Salaam is now the bestselling author of two books, an advocate for criminal justice reform, and the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from President Obama. So yeah, NYC City Council Member will be another cool feather in his cap.
(featured image: Johnny Nunez/WireImage)
