Unjustly convicted boxer ‘Hurricane’ Carter dies

This music video is called Bob Dylan – Hurricane (original). The lyrics are here.

From the Canadian Press:

‘Hurricane’ Carter dies at 76

April 20, 2014 / 8:04 am

Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, the former American boxer imprisoned nearly 20 years for three murders before the convictions were overturned, has died at his home in Toronto.

Media reports say he was battling prostate cancer.

The Hurricane‘s autobiography, “The Sixteenth Round,” was published in 1975 it helped raise awareness for his case. Also in 1975 Bob Dylan wrote the song ‘Hurricane’ based on the book.

According to CTV, Carter was arrested in 1966, along with acquaintance John Artis, for a triple shooting in New Jersey. His conviction was quashed in 1985, with the help of a group of Canadians who fought to keep his case in the spotlight.

Eventually, Carter moved to Toronto, where he helped to form the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted. He served as the association’s executive director from 1993 to 2004.

in 1999 Norman Jewison made the movie ‘The Hurricane’, Denzel Washington played the lead role.

See also here. And here. And here.

On race, the US is not as improved as some would have us believe. Despite the legacy of civil rights, some doors remain firmly closed. And across the US, schools are resegregating: here.

On Monday, a judge in Baltimore, Maryland, declared three men innocent of a murder they were wrongfully convicted of 36 years ago and sentenced to life in prison. Alfred Chestnut, Ransom Watkins and Andrew Stewart were teenagers when they were arrested on Thanksgiving Day 1983 for the murder of a 14-year-old junior high school student. When they walked out of prison on Monday, they were men in their early fifties, having spent more than two-thirds of their lives incarcerated: here.

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