The Hurricane

 Recently, I watched the movie “The Hurricane” starring Denzel Washington. This biopic is about the story of an African American prizefighter, Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, who is wrongly accused of a triple homicide. This movie details his early life, his time in jail, and the motivational way in which he is finally freed from bondage. This story illustrates the injustices done by white to African Americans during the 20^th century. Carter was a likable figure in the black community and his arrest and conviction started a movement to free him. Bob Dylan even wrote a song about the wrongs done to the boxer. Through history, thousands of blacks have been unfairly thrown into jail when they did not do the crime. Rubin Carter became a fan of incredible faith, and attempted to live in prison as a happy man, but the bars became to much for him and he had to escape. During prison, he wrote a book describing his situation and what had happened to him. Watching the movie, I realized what the prison system can do to a person especially if they are innocent. In Carter’s case, he coped with it quite well for being locked up decades. He lost an immense period of his life that he will never be able to get back, but as he now works for the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Accused he is helping people to not fall to the same treatment that he received. He was innocent and served his term peacefully, many would not be able to muster the courage and sanity to be locked up for such an extended period of time. This story is inspirational, but also brings up the issue with many of the cases during the 20^th century against African Americans.

            During slavery, the judge of a crime was often the slave master and inflicted unfair and unusual punishments against the accused. After slavery, the time under Jim Crow did not get any better for blacks accused of crimes. The Constitution states that a court must have “an impartial jury,” but in many cases the jury was all white and almost always sided against the African American. This issue continued on into the 20^th century with evidence such as Rubin Carter. During the past year, America has been intrigued by the Trayvon Martin case. Although the trial seemed fair, the Caucasian male did win the case, which gave rise to a significant outcry from the African American population. Whatever the facts may have been in the Martin trial it is fair to say that race is still a real issue in the courtroom today, and there is no end in sight to end this racial injustice.