By: Jaquira Truesdale

On Nov. 21, Lehman College’s Recital Hall overflowed with Lehman students and staff eager to hear Yusef Salaam, one of the Central Park Five exonerees falsely accused of raping and injuring Trishia Meili in 1989.

Sponsored by the monthly Social Justice Speaker Series, the discussion also featured New York Times columnist Jim Dwyer, but it was Salaam’s presence that caused major euphoria, especially when he invited attendees who did not find seats to sit on stage with him.

Brianna Duvivier, 19, sophomore, computer science major, was brought to tears when the floor was opened to talk to Salaam and Dwyer, and was especially appreciative of the opportunity of sitting on stage with them. 

“I hear too much about issues with unity in the black community,” Duvivier explained to the Meridian. “And I’m sick and tired of the black community not really coming together until someone dies or someone gets shot.”

“It’s very surreal to meet somebody that you revere and respect so much and see them in person, it’s a humbling experience,” said Chanta Palmer, 22, senior, African American studies and political science major. She believes that there is a greater issue in the criminal justice system and there needs to be reform in reference to Netflix series, “When They See Us.”

“Just thinking about how eloquent he is and how poise, people might say ‘that is a redefinition of what a black man is’, but I really don’t believe that because black men have always been like this way. The images portrayed in the media have paint them to be something that they are not,” Palmer said.

The role of the media was a central topic of the discussion. Salaam recalled how approximately 400 articles were written about the Central Park Five that raised assumptions and stereotypes of the then teenagers. 

The falsely accused teenagers received written death threats. Salaam read aloud a letter note that explicitly described how hanging Korey Wise in front of a Central Park tree while the other boys suffer naked, would make the parks safer.

Along with Korey Wise, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana and Antron McCray, Salaam served from adolescence to adulthood, until the actual offender, Matias Reyes, plead guilty in 2002. While in prison, Salaam coped by keeping his faith alive by praying and meditating. “The challenge is that how do you make sure you don’t turn into a monster, which is what they want you to turn into. How do you make sure you can keep yourself refusing to be a part of this process that turns you into a slave?” he said.

Salaam called his case “a love story between God and his people,” and thinks the criminal system of injustice is put on trial to make a miracle into reality. He also identified America’s bigger issue is having two unequal societies, and said this case is not the first nor will be the last.

“It’s a story about how people can be brought low only to rise, because the truth can never stay buried,” he said. “Once you have been run over by the spike wheels of justice, anything that comes after is wanted, needed, and accepted. But at the same time, we should’ve never had to go through that.”

Dwyer spoke about his shock in the courtroom hearing the teens’ fabricated testimonies, especially from Raymond Santana. At one point, a detective read aloud Santana’s statement, “We did altogether jointly the 40 of us or the 34 of us proceed North into the park and then turned Southwest.” Dwyer said he believed that the statement did not come from a 14-year-old boy, but had been invented by investigators. 

According to CNN, there has been more than 2,000 exonerations in the United States since 1989 when DNA testing began.However it was not the same circumstance for the Central Park Five case until later on. 

When the scientists came in to discuss the injuries of the victim, Dwyer was also baffled as there was no evidence of DNA or clothing at the crime scene that connected to the five teenagers. Yet even after Matias Reyes’ confession, Linda Fairstein, the lead prosecutor, stated that Reyes was the sixth man involved in the case. 

Salaam told the Meridian, “I want folks to understand Linda Fairstein in her vilification of us, in her career building off our backs, she knows what she did and is trying to clean up her dirty work. The problem is, how do you consciously try to continue moving forward once you’ve been caught?”

Dwyer affirmed the potential of the media to be a force for justice. He said, “Taking the truth…and making us see a much bigger world is, I think, a way to be a force for good.”