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| FILE - In this June 8, 2001 file photo, former middleweight boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, left, is escorted by an unidentified security guard into the venue where Laila Ali and Jacqui Frazier-Lyde will box each other in Verona, NY. Carter, who spent almost 20 years in jail after twice being convicted of a triple murder he denied committing, died at his home in Toronto, Sunday, April 20, 2014, according to long-time friend and co-accused John Artis. He was 76. |
Rubin "Hurricane"
Carter never surrendered hope of regaining his freedom, not even after
he was convicted of a triple murder, then convicted again and abandoned
by many prominent supporters.
For 19 long
years, the prizefighter was locked in a prison cell far away from the
spotlight and the adulation of the boxing ring. But when he at last won
his biggest fight - for exoneration - he betrayed little bitterness.
Instead, Carter dedicated much of his remaining life to helping other
prisoners and exposing other injustices.
The
middleweight title contender, whose murder convictions became an
international symbol of racial injustice and inspired a Bob Dylan song
and a Hollywood film, died Sunday. He was 76.
The
New Jersey native, who had suffered from prostate cancer, died in his
sleep at his home in Toronto, John Artis, his former co-defendant and
longtime friend and caregiver, told The Canadian Press.
Carter
"didn't have any bitterness or anger - he kind of got above it all.
That was his great strength," said Thom Kidrin, who became friends with
Carter after visiting him several times in prison.
The
boxer, a former petty criminal, became an undersized 160-pound
contender and earned his nickname largely on his ferocity and punching
power.
Although never a world champion, Carter
went 27-12-1 with 19 knockouts, memorably stopping two-division champ
Emile Griffith in the first round in 1963. He also fought for a
middleweight title in 1964, losing a unanimous decision to Joey
Giardello.
But his boxing career came to an
abrupt end when he was imprisoned for three 1966 murders committed at a
tavern in Paterson, N.J. He was convicted in 1967 and again in 1976
before being freed in 1985, when his convictions were thrown out after
years of appeals. He then became a prominent public advocate for the
wrongfully convicted from his new home in Canada.
His
ordeal and its racial overtones were publicized in Dylan's 1975 song
"Hurricane," several books and a 1999 film starring Denzel Washington,
who received an Academy Award nomination for his portrayal.
In a statement issued Sunday, Washington praised Carter's "tireless fight to ensure justice for all."
Carter
and Artis had been driving around Carter's hometown on the night that
three white people were shot by two black men at the Lafayette Bar and
Grill. They were convicted by an all-white jury largely on the testimony
of two thieves who later recanted their stories.
Carter
was granted a new trial and briefly freed in 1976, but he was sent back
for nine more years after being convicted in a second trial.
"I
wouldn't give up," Carter said in an interview in 2011 on PBS. "No
matter that they sentenced me to three life terms in prison. I wouldn't
give up. Just because a jury of 12 misinformed people ... found me
guilty did not make me guilty. And because I was not guilty, I refused
to act like a guilty person."
Dylan, a boxing
aficionado, became aware of Carter's plight after reading the fighter's
autobiography. He met Carter and co-wrote "Hurricane," which he
performed on his Rolling Thunder Revue tour in 1975. The song concludes:
"That's the story of the Hurricane/But it won't be over till they clear
his name/And give him back the time he's done/Put him in a prison cell
but one time he could-a been/The champion of the world."
Muhammad
Ali and Coretta Scott King spoke out on Carter's behalf. Other
celebrities also worked toward his release, joined by a network of
friends and volunteers.
Carter eventually won
his freedom from U.S. District Judge H. Lee Sarokin, who wrote that the
boxer's prosecution had been "predicated upon an appeal to racism rather
than reason, and concealment rather than disclosure."
Born
on May 6, 1937, into a family of seven children, Carter struggled with a
hereditary speech impediment and was sent to a juvenile reform center
at 12 after an assault. He escaped and joined the Army in 1954 and
learned to box while in West Germany.
After
returning home, he committed a series of muggings and spent four years
in various state prisons. Upon his release, he began his pro boxing
career, winning 20 of his first 24 fights mostly by knockout.
At
5-foot-8, Carter was fairly short for a middleweight, but he was
aggressive and threw waves of punches. His shaved head and menacing
glower gave him an imposing ring presence but also contributed to a
forbidding aura outside the ring. He was quoted as joking about killing
police officers in a 1964 story in the Saturday Evening Post, which was
later cited by Carter as a cause of his troubles with law enforcement.
Carter
boxed regularly on television at Madison Square Garden and overseas in
London, Paris and Johannesburg. Although his career appeared to be on a
downswing before he was implicated in the murders, the 29-year-old
fighter was hoping for a second middleweight title shot.
Carter defied his prison guards from the first day of his incarceration and spent time in solitary confinement because of it.
"When
I walked into prison, I refused to wear their stripes," Carter said. "I
refused to eat their food. I refused to work their jobs, and I would
have refused to breathe the prison's air if I could have done so."
Carter
eventually wrote and spoke eloquently about his plight, publishing his
autobiography, "The Sixteenth Round," in 1974. Benefit concerts were
held for his legal defense featuring Dylan, Joni Mitchell and Roberta
Flack.
Although many of his celebrity friends
abandoned the cause after his second conviction and an allegation of
assault during his brief release, other advocates worked tirelessly on
his behalf, culminating in Sarokin's ruling and two subsequent failed
prosecutorial appeals to have the convictions reinstated. Each year on
the anniversary Sarokin's decision, Carter called the judge to thank
him.
After his release, Carter moved to
Toronto, where he served as the executive director of the Association in
Defence of the Wrongly Convicted from 1993 to 2005. He received two
honorary doctorates for his work.
Canadian
director Norman Jewison made Carter's story into a biographical film.
Washington worked closely with Carter to capture the boxer's
transformation and redemption.
"He's all
love," Washington said while onstage with Carter at the 2000 ceremony
where he won a Golden Globe. "He lost about 7,300 days of his life, and
he's love."
The makers of "The Hurricane,"
however, were widely criticized for factual inaccuracies and glossing
over other parts of Carter's story, including his criminal past and a
reputation for a violent temper. Giardello sued the film's producers for
its depiction of a racist fix in his victory over Carter, who had long
acknowledged that Giardello deserved the win.
Kidrin spoke with Carter on Wednesday.
"He
said, `You know, look, death's coming. I'm ready for it. But it's
really going to have to take me because I'm positive to the end.'"
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