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'Hurricane' Carter speaks
By Chris Heinitz
Published:
Monday, April 26, 2004
Media Credit: Ching Fung
Rubin "Hurricane" Cater shakes hands with Public Safety officers Lori Gosline (left) and Ryan Simonis. Carter spoke Thursday in Atwood Theatre.
Whether it's in the boxing ring, the U.S. justice system or the confines of his own mind, Dr. Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter has been fighting his whole life. Wednesday night, Carter brought his uplifting message to Atwood Memorial Center.
In 1967, Carter was the number one contender for the middleweight boxing crown. With a beautiful wife, daughter and home in the suburbs, his American dream had been realized. However, this dream quickly turned into a nightmare that in the end would deprive him the greatest of human right: freedom.
Amid a racial climate reaching its boiling point, Carter was driving in his Cadillac El Dorado when police pulled over his vehicle. He was arrested, unfairly tried and incarcerated. The young Carter was found guilty of a triple murder with no evidence and false testimony.
Spending days in an isolated hole six feet underground with no light, Carter had only stale bread and warm water to eat and drink. Carter narrowly escaped the death penalty. Hate and fury grew in him as he fought for his life in the bowels of maximum security prison.
"Hate had consumed the vessel," Carter said. "I saw the monster I had created. That monster was me. I began to actively understand that if I was going to survive I had to change."
Carter began to fight for his freedom, writing an autobiography that proclaimed his innocence and told his story.
People began to listen.
Bob Dylan visited Carter during his prison sentence. Dylan brought Carter's story to America's attention with his song "The Hurricane," turning the man into a legend overnight.
Since then several books and a movie starring Denzel Washington have helped to share his struggle with millions.
In 1988, after years of relentless struggles, Carter's triple-homicide indictment was finally overturned. He was a free man.
"The most important thing I've learned in my life is never to give up," Carter said. "To trust yourself that you can determine what is right and wrong and then go for it. Follow your dreams."
One of the major revelations Carter came upon was the idea of waking up from the trance many of us live our life in.
"I try to achieve excellence. I speak the truth. I practice principle. I act upon the truth. When you act upon truth you create order from chaos. Your order will create energy because it takes a great deal of energy to be disorderly," Carter said. "Your energy that you now have will create movement. Your movement will create achievement. Your achievement will create joy. Your joy creates love. Your love creates goodwill. Goodwill creates freedom, justice, truth and dignity."
Carter continues to share his message, speaking to advance equality. He also fights for an end to capital punishment and injustices within the justice system through Defense of the Wrongfully Convicted, Southern Center for Human Rights and the Alliance for Prison Justice.
"The death penalty is dead wrong," Carter said.
Carter urges people to see through racial prejudice.
"There is only one race, the human race, one people, one love," Carter said. "What exists is not racism but tribalism. Racism is nothing but another illusion on this level of life, which we use to hurt other people."
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