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Forgiveness
Esquire US
|October - November 2023
As one of the Central Park Five, he served seven years in prison for a horrific crime he didn't commit. Now Yusef Salaam wants to serve the city that condemned him.
Thou shalt not raise a false report: put not thine hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness. Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil.... Exodus, 23:1-2
"I'M DEDICATING MY LIFE TO BEING USE-ful," he says. "To my community, to my neighborhood, to my city. And to do that means letting go of some burdens of the past. Never forgetting, but forgiving. There is power in forgiving." the NEXT Spare a thought for the falsely accused. For the man sent to prison as a boy for something he didn't do. Does anyone ever allow the reality of a false accusation to sink in and upset the equilibrium for even a moment, or is it just in and out and on to the next, like everything else? That accusation, after all, was leveled on our behalf. State power is derived from us. Justice is meant to make us whole. But what does an injustice do to us? When an innocent person serves a full prison sentence, gets out carrying the excruciating knowledge that justice is for other people and facts and innocence don't matter when you're a kid raised by your mom in an apartment on Fifth Avenue, uptown-Harlem, U.S.A. Spare a thought for the falsely accused.
This story is from the October - November 2023 edition of Esquire US.
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