New York life | The “Mandela of Harlem” and the “karma” of Trump

Once a month, our journalist Richard Hétu immerses us in current events in New York, where he has lived for almost 30 years.

(New York) Tall and slender, Yusef Salaam towers above all the people who crowd around him in a restaurant in Harlem, where this member of the “Central Park Five” is holding an election activity, on an evening of ‘april.

From the sidelines, Keith Wright, chairman of the Manhattan Democratic Party, watches the scene, while touting the one who was wrongfully convicted along with four other Harlem teenagers for the 1989 assault and rape of a white female jogger. Resounding at the time, the affair has never been forgotten, in particular because of the documentary by Ken Burns The Central Park Five (2012) and Ava DuVernay’s miniseries When They See Us (2019), who cast a harsh light on the racism of the American justice system.

Now 49, Yusef Salaam is running for Harlem’s seat on the New York City Council, which will be the subject of a Democratic primary on June 27.

“He is genuine. He is the Nelson Mandela of Harlem.

– That’s saying a lot, interjects his interlocutor.

– I said it. He was a political prisoner at the tender age of 15. »

Later, in a quiet corner of the restaurant, Yusef Salaam won’t immediately dismiss the comparison. “It is with great humility that I receive this praise,” he said in a soft voice. ‘Cause I remember what it was like to be down. »

From one lynching to another

He is not the only one. At the height of the media lynching caused by the assault and rape of the 28-year-old jogger, the future president of the United States had bought an ad in four local newspapers, including the New York Timesto express his hatred of “robbers”, “murderers” and “criminals” and to demand the restoration of the death penalty in the State of New York.

Raised by a politicized mother, Yusef Salaam recalls that this ad made him think of Emmett Till, the black teenager lynched to death in Mississippi in the 1950s after being accused of whistling a white woman.

“This ad was actually an appeal to society’s darkest instincts. They were ready to do to us what they had done to young Emmett,” says Salaam, who spent almost seven years in prison and describes his experience in a book called Better, Not Bitter.

Ironically, Yusef Salaam now owes Donald Trump for boosting his campaign. On the day the former president was indicted by a New York grand jury in connection with the Stormy Daniels case, the political neophyte summed up his reaction in one word on Twitter: “Karma. »

The word did not go unnoticed, nor did Salaam’s social media post the day Trump was arrested. A fundraising message that was visually inspired by the ad the ex-president bought in 1989.

Salaam said in it, addressing Trump: “Now that you have been indicted and face criminal charges, I do not resort to hatred, prejudice or racism – as you did. in the past. I hope you will fully exercise your civil liberties and get what the Exonerated Five did not get: the presumption of innocence and a fair trial. »

Rivals “green with envy”

Since then, the media have been snapping up Yusef Salaam. “Yusef is doing incredibly well,” said Keith Wright, leader of the Manhattan Democratic Party, addressing the crowd gathered at the Harlem restaurant. “All the other candidates are green with envy. Because they see it on TV. They would give their firstborn to be in his place. »

Wright, born 68 years ago in this predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhood that sprawls north of Central Park, played a key role in recruiting Salaam, motivational speaker, Innocence Project board member and father of a blended family of 10 children. He is counting on him to dislodge the outgoing city councilor, Kristin Richardson Jordan, a socialist democrat whose radical ideas are far from unanimous in Harlem.

“I don’t think that community was really represented by the current councilwoman,” Wright said.

The main interested party does not believe that Yusef Salaam would be more representative. “I think we already have enough millionaires in power,” she said after Salaam’s candidacy was announced last November.

The counselor was referring to compensation totaling $41 million paid by New York City in 2014 to the “Central Park Five.” The latter had been exonerated in 2002 by the Manhattan prosecutor’s office, which concluded that the assault and rape of the jogger, Trisha Meili, had been committed by a man by the name of Matias Reyes.

A speaker who listens

Yusef Salaam prefers not to respond to the city councilor’s attack. But he implies that no amount of money will be able to compensate for his years as a prisoner and those that followed as a “sex offender”. He says he survived by drawing inspiration from the words of Nelson Mandela, Maya Angelou and his mother, Sharonne Salaam, among others.

“I took those words to jail after being convicted of a crime I didn’t commit,” he said. I took them with me after my release. Throughout my journey, I had to activate my ability to survive, but also deactivate what would make me a monster. »

Salaam handles words with the ease of a born orator. But his mother swears that it is not his eloquence that will allow him to be a good politician.

“He knows how to listen,” says Sharonne Salaam, a smiling woman who was born in Alabama and whose grandfather had to flee to Connecticut to escape the Ku Klux Klan. “If you tell him something, he will listen and act on it. It’s more important than public speaking. »

And what do voters in Harlem think?

“We just lost Harry Belafonte, but we have you,” Harold Harris tells Yusef Salaam, who distributes campaign leaflets at the mouth of a 125 subway station^e Rue, two days after the death of the famous Harlem artist and activist. “God chose you,” adds the 59-year-old, who knows the candidate’s story well.

His reaction is nothing special. Other voters will express the same enthusiasm after receiving a flyer outlining Salaam’s election priorities, foremost among which is affordable housing.

Some will even go so far as to recall the role of Donald Trump in the drama experienced by the young Yusef.

“I think it was terrible,” said Malvina Johnson, 60, referring to the property developer’s ad. “It was racist. I didn’t like that. And I think you reap what you sow. Karma. »