When I was eleven or twelve years old, I bought a ticket for a movie playing at the GEM MOVIE THEATER, on 181st Street and St. Nickolas Avenue, in Washington Heights in Manhattan. I remember, I was by myself that day. The movie that I saw, I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang, changed my life forever. It dealt in a dated but powerful way with injustice that sometimes happens in our justice system. This took place in the South in the 1920's
THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE, a new film from award-winning filmmaker Ken Burns, tells a similar story. But this one happened in the late 80's and early 1990's in New York City. It's the story of the five black and Latino teenagers from Harlem who were wrongly convicted of raping a white woman in New York City’s Central Park in 1989. The film chronicles The Central Park Jogger case, for the first time from the perspective of these five teenagers whose lives were upended by this miscarriage of justice.
The moral of both these stories is that we live in a very imperfect world and you better be prepared to deal with all sorts of injustices that will come your way in life.
No comments:
Post a Comment