October 8th 2023.
Yusef Salaam, one of the wrongfully accused Central Park Five who served nearly seven years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, recently spoke to Esquire magazine about his position as the primary race winner for a seat on the Harlem city council. In the Oct. 3 piece, Salaam spoke on his dedication and commitment to the same city that turned its back on him in 1989.
Salaam is expected to face little to no competition in the November election. He remembers the incident that happened to him when he was just 15, wrongly accused and charged with the assault and rape of Trisha Meili, a white woman, in Central Park. He and four other innocent boys were sent to jail by a racially divided society that was extremely prejudiced towards people of color.
“I was a pariah. They said I was born a mistake. I’m not a mistake,” Salaam said. “And I think that what I have been through gives me perspective on what people go through in life. I never thought about politics or holding elective office until recently, but I feel that this—I guess you might call it empathy—will be helpful to me as I serve my community. If, as Nietzsche says, you can find the why, you can live anyhow. We all need a reason to live. This is mine. I was supposed to go through what I went through.”
Salaam is aware of all the problems still plaguing New York as a city: hunger, housing security, public health, race discrimination, and economic instability. Despite his experience, he is still determined to devote himself to the community he intends to serve.
“I’m dedicating my life to being useful to my community, to my neighborhood, to my city. And to do that means letting go of some burdens of the past. Never forgetting, but forgiving. There is power in forgiving,” Salaam said. “I have had to learn how to forgive. It is the only way I know to repair myself. I have to forgive Donald Trump. I forgive the prosecutors . . . I forgive the police . . . I forgive those who have threatened me and who told me to watch my back forever. I forgive. I forgive. I forgive.”
Salaam has used his knowledge of the system to inform his advocacy. He understands the system’s failures and wants to use his voice to help make changes. “I know enough from when the spike wheels of ‘justice’ ran over me and my family 34 years ago that if we are not involved and in numbers and using our voice to change the world, then they will use our voices against us. You have to trust me when I say that divided, we won’t stand a chance.”
He subscribes to the African concept of Sankofa, which is the practice of looking back to life forward. Salaam is determined to use his experience to better those around him. He will never forget what happened to him in 1989, but he promises to use this experience to make a positive impact on his community.
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