The University of Alabama at Birmingham will host Dr. Yusef Salaam, formerly of the “Central Park Five,” now known as the “Exonerated Five,” during an intimate conversation on Tuesday, Oct. 8, from 6:00-8:00 pm in the Hill Student Center Ballroom. Dr. Salaam will sit down for a one-on-one talk and Q&A with Paulette Patterson Dilworth, PhD, vice president for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at UAB.  

Salaam, along with four other men - Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise — were all wrongfully convicted in the 1989 Central Park Jogger rape case in New York City, NY. Their convictions were vacated in 2002 after the men served between seven (7) and thirteen (13) years of their lives behind bars. Since the release of the Netflix mini-series, When They See Us, in May 2019, a new generation of people were able to view this case from the eyes of these wrongly convicted men now known as the “Exonerated Five.”

Since his release, Salaam has worked as an advocate 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.

This sold-out event is part of UAB’s Cultural Lens: Film & Speaker series.