Yusef Salaam, one of the exonerated ‘Central Park Five‘ defendants, describes himself as an activist and a family man, but now that he has won the Democratic primary for central Harlem, he will be fulfilling a new political role!
The native Harlemite, a first-time candidate, and father of 10, won an unexpected victory over the Harlem establishment on Tuesday night, trouncing competitor Inez Dickens.
During his initial bid for public office, Salaam mainly relied on his traumatic life journey.
“This campaign has been about those who have been counted out,” Salaam said after thanking those that supported him during this campaign. “This campaign has been about those who have been forgotten. This campaign has been about our Harlem community who has been pushed into the margins of life and made to believe that they were supposed to be there.”
Salaam ran a vigorous campaign on an “Equity & Empowerment Agenda” that prioritized housing and criminal justice reform. He committed to work for criminal justice reforms that address “over-policing and mass incarceration” and to “right-size the scope of the NYPD.”
Salaam had received 50% of the vote as of early Wednesday, when 98% of the scanners had reported their results. Dickens was in last place with 25% of the vote, while Pastor Al Taylor, 65, who was running as the third candidate, received only 14%.
Salaam, now widely referred to as one of the “Exonerated Five,” was one of the teens falsely charged, convicted, and imprisoned for the rape of a woman running in Central Park in 1989.
Source: Taylor Hill / Getty
Salaam was arrested at the age of 15 and spent nearly seven years in prison before his conviction was overturned in 2002 after a career criminal admitted to the attack. In 2014, a civil rights lawsuit was settled with the city agreeing to pay $40.75 million to the five offenders, who had each served between six and thirteen years in jail.
Please join us as we congratulate Yusef Salaam on his flawless victory!
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