Yusef Salaam, a member of the exonerated “Central Park 5,” has been elected to the New York Metropolis Council.
After profitable the overall election unopposed on Tuesday, Salaam will now symbolize Harlem on town council. Working as a Democrat, he handily gained the first again in June, receiving greater than 50 p.c of the vote.
Salaam’s marketing campaign was centered on fairness and the empowerment of marginalized teams; housing, environmental and financial justice; security and human infrastructure, based on his web site. He additionally touted his distinct expertise with the justice system, citing an advocacy for prison justice and different neighborhood points that gave him a definite edge over his rivals.
“As we speak we stand right here collectively not as separate people, however as a united power that has collectively triumphed over adversity, as a neighborhood that has chosen hope over concern and as a motion that has embraced the ability of generational change. I’m deeply humbled and honored to face earlier than you because the newly-elected metropolis councilman for the legendary village of Harlem,” Salaam stated Tuesday night time.
WATCH THE VIDEO OF SALAAM’S SPEECH HERE.
After being wrongfully convicted of rape greater than 30 years in the past in a infamous case that made nationwide headlines, Salaam’s fortunes have shifted solely during the last three many years.
A part of why Salaam’s case gained nationwide notoriety was due to full-page adverts former president and now-criminal defendant Donald Trump bought to publicize his need to reinstate the loss of life penalty in New York as a capital punishment for Salaam and the opposite 4 younger males who had been wrongfully accused of the crime.
And now, in an unbelievable flip of occasions, it’s Trump who’s in dire authorized straits, going through a number of prison indictments in a number of jurisdictions in addition to a lawsuit introduced by the state of New York, which accused him of falsifying enterprise data.
Trump and his grownup sons had been all discovered chargeable for inflating Trump’s web price and the worth of his flagship actual property firm, the Trump Group, and a number of other of his property, together with Florida resort Mar-A-Lago. Now, a trial is underway to find out the damages the household will face. He may face a high quality and be barred from doing enterprise within the metropolis, the place Salaam now holds workplace.
“Karma is actual, and we now have to do not forget that,” Salaam stated in an interview, based on The New York Occasions.
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