Yusef Salaam, one of the “Exonerated Five” (formerly called the “Central Park Five”) who were wrongly imprisoned for raping a White female jogger, has won a city council seat in New York.
Salaam, who earlier won the primary election in a landslide, will now represent a Harlem district on the city council.
“For me, this means that we can really become our ancestors’ wildest dreams,” Salaam said in an interview before the election, according to ABC7NY.
Formerly called the “Central Park Five,” Salaam was wrongly imprisoned for eight years for the crime of raping and brutally beating a White woman in 1989.
The case inflamed racial tensions in the city. Former President Donald Trump, then a young real estate investor, exacerbated the matter when he took out a full-page ad in the New York Times and other newspapers calling for a return of the death penalty in New York State.
Salaam, along with Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise were arrested, tried, and convicted of the crime and served between seven and 12 years in prison.
Eventually, DNA evidence — along with a confession — linked a serial rapist and murderer to the crime. The convictions of the Exonerated Five were subsequently vacated in 2002. The city of New York gave the five men a combined $41 million as part of the settlement.
Salaam said the horrors of yesteryear have prepared him mentally and emotionally to lead his constituents today.
“I am really the ambassador for everyone’s pain,” he said, according to CBS News. “In many ways, I went through that for our people so I can now lead them.”
