On America

On America: The Carceral System and Racial Justice with Ian Manuel and Yusef Salaam

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Wednesday, 7:30 pm EDT May 26, 2021

Online via Zoom

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Ian Manuel and Yusef Salaam come together for a special event in the On America series to discuss matters of crime, punishment, and racial justice. Both men released memoirs this month, revealing aspects of their time in prison and the injustices that led to their convictions.

In My Time Will Come, Manuel, who was sentenced to life in prison at just fourteen, reveals his perspective on the heartbreaking and difficult path to reducing his sentence through Bryan Stevenson’s Equal Justice Initiative. Salaam’s inspirational memoir Better, Not Bitter recounts his seven years of wrongful incarceration as one of the Central Park Five and the lessons and principles he has learned to survive the worst of life’s experiences.

Sarah Burns, director of the documentary film The Central Park Five, will moderate the event.

This event is presented in partnership with Youth Justice Network.

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In Conversation

  • Ian Manuel author photo (2) (1) - Zach Cihlar

    Ian Manuel

    Ian Manuel

    Ian Manuel lives in New York City. He is a poet, and motivational speaker at schools and social organizations nationwide.

  • Promo Yusef 2 - Zach Cihlar

    Yusef Salaam

    Yusef Salaam

    Yusef Salaam is the inspirational speaker and prison abolitionist, who, at age fifteen was one of the five teenage boys wrongly convicted and sentenced to prison in the Central Park jogger case. In 1997, he left prison as an adult to a world he didn’t fully recognize or understand. In 2002, the sentences for the Central Park Five were overturned, and all Five were exonerated for the crime they didn’t commit. Yusef now travels the world as an inspirational speaker, speaking about the effects of incarceration and the devastating impact of disenfranchisement. He is an advocate and educator on issues of mass incarceration, police brutality and misconduct, press ethics and bias, race and law, and the disparities in the criminal justice system, especially for men of color.

  • Sarah Burns hi res - Zach Cihlar

    Sarah Burns

    Sarah Burns

    Sarah Burns is the author of The Central Park Five: A Chronicle of a City Wilding (Knopf, 2011) and, along with David McMahon and Ken Burns, the producer, writer and director of the documentary The Central Park Five, about the five Black and Latino teenagers who were wrongly convicted in the infamous Central Park Jogger rape of 1989. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2012, was named the Best Non-Fiction film of 2012 by the New York Film Critics Circle and won a 2013 Peabody Award.

Featured Books

  1. . 
    9781524748524-fullsize-rgb (1) (1) - Zach Cihlar

    My Time Will Come

    By Ian Manuel

    Published by Pantheon

    PURCHASE

    The inspiring story of activist and poet Ian Manuel, who at the age of fourteen was sentenced to life in prison. He survived eighteen years in solitary confinement—through his own determination and dedication to art—until he was freed as part of an incredible crusade by the Equal Justice Initiative.

    “Ian is magic. His story is difficult and heartbreaking, but he takes us places we need to go to understand why we must do better. He survives by relying on a poetic spirit, an unrelenting desire to succeed, to recover, and to love. Ian’s story says something hopeful about our future.” —Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy

    The United States is the only country in the world that sentences thirteen- and fourteen-year-old offenders, mostly youth of color, to life in prison without parole. In 1991, Ian Manuel, then fourteen, was sentenced to life without parole for a non-homicide crime. In a botched mugging attempt with some older boys, he shot a young white mother of two in the face. But as Bryan Stevenson, attorney and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, has insisted, none of us should be judged by only the worst thing we have ever done.

    Capturing the fullness of his humanity, here is Manuel’s powerful testimony of growing up homeless in a neighborhood riddled with poverty, gang violence, and drug abuse—and of his efforts to rise above his circumstances, only to find himself, partly through his own actions, imprisoned for two-thirds of his life, eighteen years of which were spent in solitary confinement. Here is the story of how he endured the savagery of the United States prison system, and how his victim, an extraordinary woman, forgave him and bravely advocated for his freedom, which was achieved by an Equal Justice Initiative push to address the barbarism of our judicial system and bring about “just mercy.”

    Full of unexpected twists and turns as it describes a struggle for redemption, My Time Will Come is a paean to the capacity of the human will to transcend adversity through determination and art—in Ian Manuel’s case, through his dedication to writing poetry.

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    Salaam_Better,NotBitter_ 9781538705001_HC - Zach Cihlar

    Better, Not Bitter

    By Yusef Salaam

    Published by Grand Central Publishing

    PURCHASE

    This inspirational memoir serves as a call to action from prison reform activist Yusef Salaam, of the Exonerated Five, that will inspire us all to turn our stories into tools for change in the pursuit of racial justice.

    They didn’t know who they had.

    So begins Yusef Salaam telling his story. No one’s life is the sum of the worst things that happened to them, and during Yusef Salaam’s seven years of wrongful incarceration as one of the Central Park Five, he grew from child to man, and gained a spiritual perspective on life. Yusef learned that we’re all “born on purpose, with a purpose.” Despite having confronted the racist heart of America while being “run over by the spiked wheels of injustice,” Yusef channeled his energy and pain into something positive, not just for himself but for other marginalized people and communities.

    Better, Not Bitter is the first time that one of the now Exonerated Five is telling his individual story, in his own words. Yusef writes his narrative: growing up Black in central Harlem in the ’80s, being raised by a strong, fierce mother and grandmother, his years of incarceration, his reentry, and exoneration. Yusef connects these stories to lessons and principles he learned that gave him the power to survive through the worst of life’s experiences. He inspires readers to accept their own path, to understand their own sense of purpose. With his intimate personal insights, Yusef unpacks the systems built and designed for profit and the oppression of Black and Brown people. He inspires readers to channel their fury into action, and through the spiritual, to turn that anger and trauma into a constructive force that lives alongside accountability and mobilizes change.

    This memoir is an inspiring story that grew out of one of the gravest miscarriages of justice, one that not only speaks to a moment in time or the rage-filled present, but reflects a 400-year history of a nation’s inability to be held accountable for its sins. Yusef Salaam’s message is vital for our times, a motivating resource for enacting change. Better, Not Bitter has the power to soothe, inspire and transform. It is a galvanizing call to action.

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About Youth Justice Network

Our mission is to break cycles of incarceration and build an equitable justice system by providing young people with individualized advocacy, mentorship, and opportunities to grow, thrive, and lead.

Founded as Friends of Island Academy in 1990, Youth Justice Network was created by a group of educators, social service staff, and community-based advocates at the alternative high school on Rikers Island — then named Island Academy.

Our model is structured on trusting relationships that drive positive outcomes forward. Whether we meet our participants in a jail, in court, or in the community, each participant has a Youth Advocate who facilitates their growth and development. Everyone we serve has someone they can count on.

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About this series

On America

Our On America series brings writers, journalists, activists, and change-makers together to reflect on the critical issues of our times. Who are we and who are we becoming? How do the stories we tell shape who we are as a nation? Will we rise to the challenges we face?

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