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Yusef Salaam
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Yusef Salaam
Central Park Five Defendant
Yusef Salaam was falsely accused of rape and assault of a jogger in Central Park in 1989 in what has become known as the “Central Park Five” case. He was exonerated in 2002 and is now an activist and motivational speaker.
The following interview was conducted by FRONTLINE’s Gabrielle Schonder on June 30, 2020. It has been edited for clarity and length.
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Manhattan in the 1980s
I'm going to take you to New York City in 1984 to 1987.Can you help describe the atmosphere of the city?Crime was up; tensions were high.Take me there.What do you remember about the New York of the mid-80s?
New York of the mid-80s was a very interesting place.It was dangerous, but it was home.It felt—it felt normal to walk around and to see young people flipping on mattresses that were just out there on the streets.Sometimes those mattresses had coils exposed, which I think about now, and I'm like, ooh, that's—I don't know how we did that, you know.But then as well, there was a huge infestation of drugs, pests.Just everything that you cannot imagine you want to live in was, that's where—that's what Harlem was like; that's what New York was like—you know, a lot of abandoned buildings, a lot of graffiti on trains.It just looked very drab, but just, I would say very nightmarish, almost—almost as if someone was going to create a movie about something, but this was the real scenery that you can see.
It's a much different New York than the city in 2020, right?I think about every neighborhood—I mean, Hell's Kitchen, Times Square.I mean, this is almost— We're talking about two cities here, right?
Absolutely.It's always been two cities, you know.It's the tale of two cities.That's the most interesting part of New York City itself, and really America, that we've been living in this juxtaposition of privilege and nonprivilege.42nd Street, which was a place that we were kind of forbidden to go to, but it was also a place that we wanted to venture into just to—just to see why we couldn't go there.And of course, there was all kinds of—I'm trying to find the right word to use.I don't want to just say nude bars and things like that.I want to use a different type of language that can describe that, and it's escaping me what kind of language I can use, but—debauchery.All kinds of debauchery was present.
Down on 42nd Street, it was the center of what you wanted to avoid and also be in.I mean, imagine right next to what would be like a huge gaming center, you know, going to this place and there's like all kinds of pinball machines, video game machines and all of that stuff, and you came in there with a bag of quarters because that's basically what young people did back then.Right next to that there was solicitation of all sorts going on.And that was normal.That was like, oh, hey, that's 42nd Street.
Let me ask you a little bit about the violence around that time, because I think many people don't remember the amount of violent crime towards Black youth, towards Black men.… There were these other unarmed killings of B
lack men often by white mobs.And I'm trying to, again, place our audience there.How old were you during this period?Can you describe those tensions?Do you have memories of the anger between whites and Blacks around this time period?
I do.I think that also was normal.You know, you're talking about me being the ages—being between the ages of 12 and 15.And it was normal to hear about what was going on, you know, and also to be shocked, but also it was normal, though.It was almost as if now, as we watch social media, we're seeing all kinds of atrocities happen all the time, and it's very shocking, but it's normalizing, because when we turn it on, we say to ourselves, "Oh, this must have happened last year, five years ago, 10 years ago."And it's happening either right now or yesterday.
And that's the thing, to be able to live in a space where, you know, you knew that you were not welcome, even in places like Central Park.But at least in the park that was close to us, that was a welcoming place.But also that was the place that, you know, if you walked around the lake, which we always said was our lake, but you walked around the lake and there were dead fish in the lake; there was algae, overgrown algae in the lake.There was all kinds of solicitation going on.It was—it was almost like 42nd Street, but just uptown inside the park in that area.
And we kind of knew what was safe to go to, what was not safe to go to.And sometimes if you found yourself in a place that was considered unsafe, you knew that it was you venturing into your own curiosity.Well, why?Why can't I go there?Let me just see.Oh, that wasn't that bad.And then, you know.
But it's—it's the craziest—I'm thinking about it now, and I'm like, how did I—how did I live in that abnormalcy and make it normal?It's not a place that children should be raised. …
Do you ever remember feeling the blame that a lot of white New Yorkers put on the Black community for that high crime, for that—that city that felt like, from Rudy Giuliani's perspective, that needed law and order to come in? …
What's interesting about that is that I do remember it, but I never knew.I never placed the weight where it needed to be placed.There was always the assumption, right?You—you went into certain places.I used to go to LaGuardia High School.I actually was in high school since I was about 12 years old.I started high school early.And I remember LaGuardia High School.That's downtown; that's Lincoln Center area.That's a more affluent, more wealthy type of neighborhood.And you would check yourself, you know?You would make sure, OK, if I have a hoodie on, I take the hood off, but I still have my hoodie jacket on or sweatshirt on.You would maybe turn your music down a little bit, just not to draw attention to yourself.And it was the—it was the expectation of you fitting in to that space as opposed to you being accepted as an individual who is valued in those spaces as well.There was that, like, you didn't—like, we couldn't describe it as abnormal.We couldn't describe it as what would be considered—what's the word that they use now in the Harvard study, where people who do the tests and—implicit bias, right?So you have the implicit biases going on.You have racism going on.You have racism perhaps happening that you're not aware of, meaning, like, the person exhibiting the racism may not be aware.
I remember this film that I was in as a commemoration to William Kunstler; he was my appellate attorney during the time I was going and trying to fight this case after we were convicted.And I remember William Kunstler saying all white people are racist.And of course we revisited that in the film, <i>William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe</i>.And what he described was very important.It wasn't the fact that all white people are racist because of their own implicit bias or implicit racism.It was the past that was given without them wanting it because of the color of their skin; the assumption that, you know, this person is less able to commit crime, whereas the ones who are darker or dark-skinned people are the criminals.These are not to give—you're not to give the assumption of innocence until proven guilty to these folks.These folks are guilty and have to prove themselves innocent.
And oftentimes you don't even know that you're fighting a system that is alive and sick.You're fighting systemic racism, systemic implicit bias, all of those things at the same time.And you're not—the unawareness to be able to describe in words what exactly you are feeling or experiencing is always there, but you just continue on as if this is life, that this is how the world is, so to speak.
How palpable was that in the '80s in New York?
Very much palpable.It was—it was there.It was always present.And you never thought that things would ever be different.This was expected.
Trump in 1980s Manhattan
So let me now bring Donald Trump onto the scene.So we're still in this time period, but he's now been in New York real estate for about 10 years.And he's a guy that's come into the local political apparatus by kind of selling himself— … New York City is financially in bad shape.… Trump has used that as an opportunity to come in and infuse capital into commercial projects, commercial real estate projects.… Can you help me understand what he's doing, and what, if anything, is it specific to him?Is it specific to sort of wealth in New York around this time? …
Well, I think that when you look at what was happening, it was the further expression of oppression that we experience today.But we would almost think, well, yesterday was different than today.Well, the fact of the matter is that it's cyclical.It's like we are experiencing what was; we're just now able to describe it and define it.We're able to label it for what it truly is.
And so to have, for instance, slumlords who didn't care about the conditions that you lived in, who oftentimes you would complain now about things like your water not being hot, the water being turned off, rats being in the buildings, roaches, the infestation of roaches, all of those things being a part of your existence without realizing that these things were put there, right?In some ways, one of the worst things that we figured out was that a project, for instance, like King Towers or Taft Projects or any of the others, Carver Projects, we're talking about—and I'm talking about Manhattan, of course, because that's where I'm from, but we're talking about a place that people live in, that if you define "project" in the way that we've understood now as experiment, then you really understand what's going on; you really understand what you're seeing. …
I'll never forget hearing Donald Trump describe: "Hey, anybody can make it.I got a loan from my father, and I made it."Well, how much was the loan?And if you look at that number in relations to what he said when we won our lawsuit, when we justly won our lawsuit, because of the injustice that happened to us, right, he said that we—this was the biggest "heist" in New York City's history.He said that about who we were known as then, the Central Park Five.We won our lawsuits.They found out that they should not have prosecuted us in the first place.But because of bias, he said this was the biggest heist in New York City's history.He got a loan from his father that was almost equivalent to the amount of money that we each received individually before we had to pay our attorneys' fees.That's a lot of money. …
Racial Targeting
Before we get to the ad, what would have put a target on you [for law enforcement] at that time period?
You know, the biggest thing that would have put that target on me in that time period, unbeknownst to me, nothing that I had any choice or say in the matter, was the color of my skin.The thing given to me at birth that said, you have human rights; the thing given to me at birth that said, you have the ability to be treated equally and fairly, no one is above anyone else; the thing that you have to do is your best—but being born with dark skin immediately makes you be born with a weapon, and you can never be disarmed.
And in that expression of yourself, right, in expression of yourself, whether that means you have dreads in your hair, whether that means you have braids in your hair, whether that means you have a flattop, whether that means you have waves and a part, whatever that means, the expression of self begins to further the ability for the system to say: "See?This is why.They are a problem.They are savage."This is what the—this is how we're defined to the world.This is how we're expressed to the world. …
Trump’s Central Park Five Ad
Let me ask you about the ads.… I wonder if I can ask you if you could describe them, where were you when you saw them, when you first heard about them, and if you could just help me understand the effects it had on you and your family.
So I'm going to tell you—I'm going to set the scene in this way.A young woman is raped and almost near death in Central Park.There's a group of individuals that were arrested that night who became part of what we were known as, the Central Park Five.… There's a rush to judge because there's a rush to solve the crime.And in rushing to solve the crime, because the young woman was found in the northern end of Central Park, we as pseudo experts who watch CSI, NCIS, any of these great TV shows that are out there, we understand that they go right into the surrounding communities to try to find out as much information as they can, and they round up people and begin to question them.But the questioning isn't with the assumption of innocence; it's the assumption that you know what happened.You either participated or you know who participated in this.
Two weeks after that process, this ad shows up in New York City's newspaper.And I want you to understand, when anything is presented to the public, especially in a prestigious paper like The New York Times, the Daily News, any of the four dailies at the time that were considered prestigious in New York, those ads have to pass the bar.
And by the bar what I mean is, those ads have to look presentable.They have to—all of the i's have to be dotted, all of the t's have to be crossed.The presentation of it has to be acceptable and able to give off what it is that the—that is the desired result.And when you look at the ad that Donald Trump placed in New York City's newspapers, … as a graphic designer, you see this and you say to yourself, wow, this is captivating. …
We hadn't even gone to trial yet.Two weeks passes, and we are essentially given a death sentence with this ad."Bring back the death penalty," the ad says."Bring back our police," and all of the other stuff as he lays it all out, and then he signs his name at the very bottom.People don't sign their name to things that they're not proud of.He signs his name at the very bottom of this ad, and it's placed in the papers.
Alongside of that happening, our phone numbers, our names and our addresses were also being placed in the papers.This ad was a whisper into the darkest, most sinister parts of society that somebody should come out of that and do to us what they had done to Emmett Till.This is what this ad was.
So immediately the visibility of who we became was heightened.We couldn't go anywhere without being recognized.Our faces were on the front of the paper, above the fold.Our faces were there.The case was there.It stayed there.There were over 400 articles written about us, pulling apart our lives.This was a tsunami.And I remember watching this movie once, and I said, "Is that what a tsunami looks like?," meaning a real tsunami.People aren't supposed to survive a tsunami.We were being onslaughted with articles pulling apart our lives, with the ad that Donald Trump placed in New York City's newspapers, with Rudy Giuliani time.We were a part of what needed to be corrected, what needed to be erased.
Donald Trump believed you were what was wrong with New York, you and your co-defendants.
Absolutely.
Tell me about that.
You know, the biggest belief was that—me in particular, I was a person who thought that I knew how to talk in a way that was compelling, that could describe things and defend myself.And I realized very quickly that I was in too deep.And by that, I remember going on the witness stand and saying, man, I'm just going to tell them the truth.And my truth wasn't received well.My truth was twisted.My truth was turned against me.My truth was me fighting against Miranda, right?In Miranda, the Miranda warning, it says, "You have the right to remain silent.Anything you say," the second part, "anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law."Not used for you; used against you.All of my words were being twisted.All of my words were given meaning other than the meaning that I had desired it to be.
And here I was, this expression of blackness, this expression of humanity, this expression of equality that was not allowed to be.I was what was wrong with the system.We became what was wrong.We became expendable.We became those who—we could live as long as we were relegated to the new slave reality, the prison industrial complex. …
Trump’s Use of Race in Politics
Donald Trump had dipped his toe in the water of a presidential run about two years before the ads run, so in '87 he had gone up to New Hampshire to investigate a potential political run.With that sort of in your mind, what do you think he is considering when he enters the controversy of your case and does it in such a public manner?Do you think he's thinking about politics?
Oh, absolutely.I didn't know that.I didn't know that there was a time where he—yeah, I guess it's something that you should consider and find, of course.Like when you go back into a person's history, it tells you everything about what they're going to do.And so in this particular instance, there is a need for him to be at the top, like brought to the top.Whatever the candidates could be, the pool of candidates, right, if the candidates are coming from the base of white people, then in that space, who can we put as a candidate?And by doing things that kind of allow you to skip grades, skip ahead, skip to the top, you do these outrageous and outlandish things.You do it because you want people to remember you, right?
… And being a person who put these ads in the papers, being the person who came out against what he considered was the worst of the worst—they called us the scum of the earth.They said that we should have been aborted.The hate mail that ensued said things like not only should I not be allowed to live, but my mother should not be allowed to live either because she gave birth to me.All of these rush to judge never came with an apology.Still to this day, we still have not been apologized to from the people who harmed us in that way, that political way, right?There's still this murkiness, this cloud of indecision as to whether we were guilty or innocent.
The truth of the matter is that deoxyribonucleic acid freed us.The truth of the matter is that this woman put up a fight, and when they arrested Raymond [Santana, Jr.] and Kevin [Richardson], who didn't know each other, they were able to divide and conquer.They were able to show a photo to Raymond that looked as if the person in the photo had been in a fight, had been scuffed up without the person looking at the photo realizing that he got beat up by the police officers.But when you look at the details, right, the facts of the case, they said that she put up a fight; they said that she scratched Kevin.Kevin's skin should have been underneath her fingernails.Kevin's skin was not underneath her fingernails.They said she lost three-fourths of her blood.This was a violent rape; this was a violent attack.No one had a drop of blood on them.Not a drop.But yet, because of their rush to judge, two things happened:
One was, they dropped the ball.They got it wrong.We went to prison for a crime that we didn't commit.We served someone else's time.And two—and this is the most unfortunate—the real criminal was out committing more crime.That should never be.Our system should work, and it should work very well.And it should work because we do the right thing.It should work because we are—those individuals who volunteered to protect and serve are doing their job correctly.Those individuals who are prosecuting are doing their due diligence and making sure that all the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed.The judge is making sure that he's weighing the evidence and allowing cases to go forward that should go forward and disallowing cases to go forward that should not.
And more importantly, that means that the people who are given the opportunity to participate with their civic duty don't shirk that responsibility.They don't say to themselves, like in the film Twelve Angry Men, they don't say to themselves, "Something seems off," you know.In the Central Park jogger case, there was a juror who said, "I—there were so many things that weren't adding up in the Central Park jogger case, I was going crazy."He said, "I found some cockamamie excuse to vote guilty just so that I can get out of there."
Let me ask you about Trump's use of media around this ad to magnify society's stereotypes about race.
I think Trump's use of media to magnify the society's stereotypes about race has a lot to do with making people afraid.And when people are afraid, they want to be put in the position where they don't have to fear again.And so when you create these scenarios, you have these points, these opportunities that they call opportunities that allow them to really push the envelope, describing and giving definition to something.You could be looking at something and what you see, you could say to yourself: "This is biased; this is overwhelmingly biased.How is this man placing an ad in the papers two weeks after these folks were accused?They hadn't even gone to trial yet.How was he able to do this?"
And then you have someone else saying: "This is heroic.This is exactly what we want our citizens to do.They need to speak up.They need to put their money where their mouth is."By the way, he paid $85,000 for these ads.There's people today who do not make a salary close to $85,000.So that was a lot of money then; that's definitely a lot money now.
But when you're looking at something and it's being described away from the bias, now you see the problem.
Trump’s Response to George Floyd’s Murder and Protests
… I wonder if you see some of these themes today in how he's handled the death of George Floyd, the way he's described protests, the way he's handled the movement that's happening now.Are there things that you are reminded of that you think back to the Donald Trump of 1989?
Oh, most certainly.The whole way he is moving is screaming to us."We're in trouble."We as a society are in trouble.I'm taking about all of us.I'm talking about we, the people, the unintended reality by that document from the Founding Fathers, but where we are now, we are the people; all of us are in this pot.We are the kaleidoscope of the human family.We are in trouble because at the head of this ship, the captain is directing us not even into treacherous waters as a skilled captain, but lying and saying, "Eh, it's just a little ripple; we can get through it."But meanwhile, to the base, you're being told, "Make sure you have your safety boats and you have your harnesses and you're strapped in."But the rest of the folks who didn't get a chance to fly or to be—or to be in the boat in first class, right, the rest of us, those are the ones who are going to receive the worst of the treatment.
And that's what we're seeing right now.We're seeing that we have to ramp up the fear, and the antidote to the fear is this law-and-order president making America great again.But when we look at that, we look at all of the things that go along with it.In Charlottesville, as an example, you had people walking around chanting "States' rights."They had their tiki torches
And so if the glory days of America was the time when Black and brown bodies were enslaved, what are we saying?If law and order means that many of us will lose our lives, or we just have to accept things as they are, what are we saying?We're in trouble.And this is a fight for our lives.
And by "our," I'm talking about the kaleidoscope of the human family.
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