Profile - The Story of The "Hurricane" - a podcast by Andrew, Ed, and Zak

Welcome back to the Bill Bradley Collective, where today we present the second episode of this special double-drop week, centered around the life and impact of late American-Canadian middleweight contender, Rubin “Hurricane” Carter. The theme for this season is criminal justice and sports, and as Carter’s boxing career was cut short by a 20-year imprisonment following a wrongful conviction for murder in 1967, his story is well-fit for this season’s profile feature. The circumstances of Carter’s troubled early life set the table, as he bounces from juvenile detention to the U.S. Army to prison in his native New Jersey for assault. It is in the Army where Carter discovers boxing, and following his release from prison Carter turns professional and works his way up to a world-class level in the middleweight division. Not five years removed from prison, Carter finds himself and a late night triple homicide occurs in a Paterson, New Jersey bar and Carter finds himself and acquaintance John Artis as the principle suspects. The only “crimes” Carter commits that night are those of being black and perhaps in the wrong place at the wrong time, but that does not stop an all-white jury of convicting he and Artis of the three murders. A 1976 re-trial inexplicably finds Carter convicted for a second time, and it is not until 1985 following a petition of habeas corpus in federal court that Carter is finally freed. Carter’s life and case famously gain the attention of Bob Dylan, as his 1975 song “Hurricane” asserts the singer’s belief in Carter’s innocence. A well-received 1999 biopic featuring Denzel Washington as Carter, “The Hurricane,” depicts Carter’s trials, time in prison and eventual release. His is a complicated life. A life marked by violence, criminally as a youth and professionally by later occupation, gives way to a legacy as a foremost face of victimhood perpetrated by the ills of our criminal justice system. It’s a story, broadly, about the black American experience, but just as important is that somehow, over fifty years removed from Carter’s wrongful conviction, the circumstances of his life have never been more relevant to the discourse on criminal justice reform in this country.

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