'Use it to be helpful': Member of exonerated Central Park 5 looks to address judicial system problems in speech at NCC

BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Dale Fairclough was there.

Fairclough, of Upper Macungie Township, was at Northampton Community College on Tuesday night to hear Yusef Salaam, one of the Central Park Five, condemn a corrupt criminal justice system that put him in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.

Fairclough also was there in New York City in April 1989, when Salaam and four other teenagers of color were wrongly convicted of assault and rape of a 28-year-old woman in the Central Park night and sent to prison.

The case dominated headlines across America.

“This is personal for me,” Fairclough, who, like Salaam, is Black, said.

“That’s why I’m here tonight. We’re three months apart in age. I was growing up in New York when it happened. I remember this case like it was yesterday.

“To come and hear him speak tonight, to see just how far he has come, to have made it through this successfully, to be an inspiration for change, is remarkable.”

Salaam, 51, was the keynote speaker at the college’s 14th annual Endowed Humanities Lecture Program.

Over the 90-minute program, the 800 folks in attendance listened with rapt attention as Salaam shared his life story before, during and after his release from prison after seven years.

Becoming 'The Exonerated Five'

In his presentation, Salaam cast a light on what he said is a corrupt system that incarcerates people of color at an alarmingly higher rate — 4.8 times as high — as those who are white.

Salaam also noted the financial benefits to the government of filling prisons. The cost to house a youth in a facility annually is $200,000, he said.

“There is something to be gained by Black and brown bodies being in prison," he said. "My mom always said, ‘Follow the money.’ Somebody’s making money.

“What is supremely clear is that we need to realize we are right now inside someone else’s plan. We can’t have a five-year plan; we need to have a 50-, 100-year plan.”

In the late 1980s in New York City, the Black community was under assault, Salaam said.

On April 19, 1989, he and four other teen boys were accused and became known collectively as “The Central Park Five.”

They spent seven to 13 years behind bars — all of their lives upended and changed forever.

Their convictions were vacated in 2002 after previously unidentified DNA found on the victim matched that of Matias Reyes, who ultimately confessed.

The convictions of the five were overturned and they were exonerated, becoming “The Exonerated Five.”

'Seeds I needed to water'

Since his release, Salaam has committed himself to advocating and educating people on the issues of false confessions, police brutality and misconduct, press ethics and bias, race and law and the disparities in America’s criminal justice system.

Salaam also released a New York Times bestselling memoir, "Better, Not Bitter," that details how he turned his story into a tool for change in the pursuit of racial justice.

He currently serves as a member of New York City's 9th City Council District, bringing his experiences with the criminal justice system to help make impactful change within the government.

After being detained and as he was being interrogated by police for more than 24 hours without sleep or food, Salaam said he feared for his life, but maintained his innocence.

Then his mother arrived at the police station.

“She walked into the interrogation room, grabbed me out of the clutches of the enemy, and I fell into her arms,” Salaam said. “I wanted the nightmare to end.

“My mother didn’t hug me or ask, ‘How they treating you, baby?’ She stood me up, looked me in the eyes and said something I’ll never forget.

"She said, ‘They need you to participate in whatever it is they’re trying to do. Do not participate! Refuse!’

“My mother’s words were more than words. They were seeds I needed to water: Don’t let them turn you into the monster they want you to become.”

'Use it to be helpful'

At one point during his talk, Salaam held up a copy of a full-page newspaper ad that ran in several New York papers a week after the teens were arrested.

The ad called for the reinstatement of the death penalty so the Central Park Five could be executed for their crimes.

The ad was paid for by Donald Trump.

“The author of this ad is now the president of these United States,” Salaam said. “We wake up another day and, surprise, he’s back.”

The Central Park Five have filed a defamation lawsuit against Trump. Last week, a federal judge in Philadelphia rejected Trump’s efforts to dismiss the lawsuit.

The whispers of some of those in attendance wondered how Salaam has refrained from becoming angry and bitter at a criminal justice system that failed him.

He gave them the answer.

“Nelson Mandela said being angry and bitter is like drinking poison and expecting your enemy to die,” Salaam said. “He said he had to leave it in prison; if he took it with him, it would destroy him.

“And Maya Angelou said you must be angry, but not bitter. She said to use that anger — vote it, march it, talk it. When I read those words, I swore she was talking to me.”

And, perhaps indirectly, to Fairclough.

“I actually have that same philosophy, that having bitterness and anger and not using it in a positive, progressive way is not meaningful,” Fairclough said. “Use it to be helpful.

“You really need to center yourself in using that anger to do something more meaningful and positive. That’s what [Salaam] is doing.”