More than three decades after Yusef Salaam and four other Black and Latino men were wrongfully convicted of brutally assaulting a woman in New York City’s Central Park, Salaam will be joining the council of the largest city in the United States following his victory in Tuesday’s election.
Salaam ran unopposed after winning his Democratic primary election in District 9 in June with more than 50% of the vote, his closest competitor trailing him by 25 points.
His progressive policy platform centered housing justice including eviction prevention; economic justice; “equitable public safety measures,” including investments in community programs and alternatives to incarceration; and environmental justice.
Two decades after he and the rest of the “Central Park 5” were exonerated by DNA evidence, Salaam said before the election that his opportunity to join the New York City Council, representing parts of Harlem, “means that we can really become our ancestors’ wildest dreams.”
Janai Nelson, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, called Salaam’s ascension to the city council “the sweetest victory” for those who grew up in New York City when the public was wrongly led to believe that the then-15-year-old was guilty of rape and saw him sent to prison for seven years.
“It says so much about the indestructible human spirit and this righteous Black man,” said Nelson.
Since his exoneration, Salaam has been a poet, public speaker, and activist, calling for “criminal justice reform, prison reform and the abolition of juvenile solitary confinement and capital punishment.” He serves on the board of the Innocence Project and is a founder of Justice 4 the Wrongfully Incarcerated.
“Working-class voters, voters of color, and those who are disenchanted with the political process are central to our campaign,” he wrote on his campaign website. “As a victim of a broken criminal justice system, I understand the challenges faced by those who are marginalized and neglected by the powers that be.”
Former Republican President Donald Trump—whose daughter testified Wednesday in his civil fraud trial in Manhattan, one of several criminal and civil cases against him that are now proceeding in court—called for capital punishment for Salaam and the rest of the Central Park 5 in the 1990s, and refused to apologize for doing so nearly twenty years after their exoneration.
“Together, we will rewrite the next chapter of our story ensuring that no one is left behind,” said Salaam at his victory party Tuesday evening. “We will rebuild our community with the principles of fairness, healing, and progress of the forefront of our efforts.”
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