![]() ![]() Both cited alibis and were released, but were arrested months later. Although his career appeared to be on a downswing before he was implicated in the murders, Carter was hoping for a second middleweight title shot.Ĭarter and Artis were questioned after being spotted in the area of the murders in Carter's white car, which vaguely matched witnesses' descriptions. He was also 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 police.Ĭarter boxed regularly on television at Madison Square Garden and overseas in London, Paris and Johannesburg. His shaved head and menacing glower gave him an imposing ring presence, but also contributed to a menacing aura outside the ring. ![]() He began his pro boxing career in 1961 after his release, winning 20 of his first 24 fights mostly by stoppage.Ĭarter was fairly short for a middleweight at 5-foot-8, but his aggression and high punch volume made him effective. He escaped and joined the Army in 1954, experiencing racial segregation and learning to box while in West Germany.Ĭarter then committed a series of muggings after returning home, spending four years in various state prisons. Lee Sarokin, who wrote that Carter's prosecution had been "predicated upon an appeal to racism rather than reason, and concealment rather than disclosure."īorn 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. With a network of friends and volunteers also advocating for him, Carter eventually won his release from U.S. Muhammad Ali also spoke out on Carter's behalf, while advertising art director George Lois and other celebrities also worked toward Carter's release. He met Carter and co-wrote "Hurricane," which he performed on his Rolling Thunder Revue tour in 1975. And because I was not guilty, I refused to act like a guilty person."ĭylan became aware of Carter's plight after reading the boxer's autobiography. Just because a jury of 12 misinformed people. "No matter that they sentenced me to three life terms in prison. Carter offers a reminder that one’s deeds on the court or on the field will be quickly forgotten contributions to society resonate across decades."I wouldn't give up," Carter said in an interview on PBS in 2011. (The victims of the 1966 murders were white.)Ĭarter founded a nonprofit organization, Innocence International, to work to free prisoners it considered wrongly convicted.Ĭarter led a fascinating life, one that, in many ways, can be used as a lesson to young athletes so consumed with attaining wealth and glory that they lose sight of forging an enduring legacy. He became a symbol of racial injustice and the penal system. He wrote two autobiographies, was the inspiration behind a Bob Dylan song and was the subject of a movie. What Hurricane Carter accomplished over the next 40 years outside the ring was more important than anything he accomplished as an athlete. This was the beginning of an era of skyrocketing salaries, global visibility and, not coincidentally, weakening consciousness and conviction. The article was published during the tipping point of an explosion of black athletes in college and professional basketball and football. “That would be an admission of guilt,” said Carter, who even refused to accept privileges like time in the prison yard. He refused to allow prison to define him. “You have to determine which way you allow these people to treat you,” Carter said. He refused to submit to the normal prison routine. ![]() While he was incarcerated, Carter refused to perform any type of prison work. Asked about the effectiveness of prisons, Carter said: “Throwing people in jail and painting the windows black is not a solution. ![]() In retrospect, Carter and Massaquoi were on the cutting edge of identifying a mass incarceration movement that, over the next four decades, ravaged the African-American population.Īfter learning of Carter’s death, I reread Massaquoi’s 1974 article and was struck by much of what Carter said, about individuality and about preserving one’s dignity when confronted by those trying to take it away. Massaquoi was bullish on Carter’s innocence, and even as he urged me to take a closer look at the case, as a story about justice denied, I simply saw it as the riveting story of a boxer who said he had been wrongly accused. In fact, the only reason I knew anything about Carter was that Ali had attended a pretrial hearing in support of Carter. ![]()
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