An acquitted “Central Park Five” member leads the New York City Primary election for Harlem.
Democratic candidate Yusef Salaam, 49, carries 50.7% of the precinct’s votes, more than his opponents, State Assembly members Inez Dickens (Mayor Eric Adams endorsed) and Al Taylor.
The state used the ranked-choice voting method during the Primary and Special elections for Mayor, Public Advocate, Comptroller, Borough President and City Council.
According to the Vote NYC website, a candidate must maintain over 50% of the first-choice votes, which means the candidate’s ranking can change.
If Salaam’s votes fall under 50%, then that election would continue in rounds, where the last-choice candidate would be eliminated, and the lost candidate’s voters’ second choice would be used toward those still in the race.
Tuesday night, Salaam accepted his win, giving an impactful speech.
“Having to be kidnapped from my home as a 15-year-old child to be launched in the belly of the beast…I was gifted because I was able to see it for what it really was — a system that was trying to make me believe that I was my ancestors’ wildest nightmare,” he told reporters. “But I am my ancestors’ wildest dream.”
Salaam, along with the other “Central Park Five” members Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise, were teenagers in 1989 when they were wrongfully convicted of raping and assaulting a white woman jogging in Central Park named Trisha Meili.
They spent years behind bars due to their false confessions, but their sentences were overturned when a serial rapist named Matias Reyes came forward and confessed.
Salaam told reporters while accepting his victory that his time behind bars inspired him to run for office.
“This campaign has been about those who have been counted out. This campaign has been about those who have been forgotten,” Salaam said. “This campaign has been about our Harlem community, who has been pushed into the margins of life and made them believe that they were supposed to be there.”
