Four members of the group that had been dubbed the “Central Park Five”—and is now known as the “Exonerated Five”—took to the Democratic National Convention stage Thursday to speak out against Donald Trump.
The group has a history with the former president: After their wrongful arrests in 1989 for the rape of a jogger in New York City’s Central Park, Trump took out full-page ads in major newspapers calling for the return of the death penalty.
After Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, and Korey Wise were introduced by Rev. Al Sharpton, two took to the podium to remind Americans how Trump involved himself in that case—and how he still hasn’t accepted their innocence all these years later.
ADVERTISEMENT
“Thirty-five years ago, my friends and I were imprisoned for a crime we did not commit. Our youth was stolen from us. Every day as we walked into the courtroom, people screamed at us. Threatened us. Because of Donald Trump,” said Wise, now a criminal justice reform advocate.
“We were innocent kids, but we served a total of 41 years in prison,” Wise continued. “Reverend Al Sharpton stood with us. Now, I am proud to stand with him today. Vice President Kamala Harris has also worked to make things fairer. I know she will do the same as president. Now prove that message.”
Reverend Al Sharpton (C) walks with Yusef Salaam, Korey Wise, Raymond Santana and Kevin Richardson—members of the Central Park Five, who were exonerated after being wrongly convicted of rape as teenagers and incarcerated for years—on the fourth and last day of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
MIKE SEGAR/AFP via Getty ImagesSalaam, who since January has been a New York City councilman for the Harlem-based 9th District, then noted that Trump “still stands by the original guilty verdict”—even though the perpetrator confessed.
All five wrongful convictions were vacated in late 2002. Yet that didn’t stop Trump from insisting that the men were guilty, including during his 2016 presidential campaign.
“He dismisses the scientific evidence rather than admit he was wrong,” Salaam said, referring to DNA evidence confirming that a man named Matias Reyes committed the rape and assault. “He has never changed, and he never will. That man thinks that hate is the animating force in America. It is not.”
Salaam then encouraged everyone to support the Harris-Walz ticket, in so doing allowing America to “finally say goodbye to that hateful man.”
“We will say what I have said after seven long years of wrongful incarceration,” Salaam concluded, with a nod to Martin Luther King Jr. “‘Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty we are free at last!’”
