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In 1966, Rubin "Hurricane" Carter was one of the top-ranked fighters in the sport of boxing. But after three people were murdered in a barroom in Paterson, New Jersey, Rubin and a friend named John Artis were arrested for the killings, and in 1967 they were convicted by an all-white jury for a crime they did not commit. While in prison, Carter researched his case, gathered compelling proof of his innocence, and published his story in The Sixteenth Round. The book helped Carter to gain the support of many people, including celebrities like Bob Dylan and Muhammad Ali. After being freed in 1976, Carter was sent back to prison when in a second trial he was reconvicted and sentenced to three consecutive life terms.
Having lost all hope of winning his freedom, Carter cut off all contact with the outside world and entered a painful but crucial period of solitary reflection. Then one day in 1980, Carter received a letter from Lesra Martin, a teenager who had grown up in a Brooklyn ghetto. In his letter — the first letter he had ever written to anyone — Lesra told Rubin what reading The Sixteenth Round had meant to him. Touched by his encounter with Lesra, Rubin then begins a relationship with Lesra and his adopted Canadian family, who would eventually help Rubin prove his innocence and bring him back into the fold of humanity.
This dramatized telling of one of the most notorious cases of injustice in U.S. history follows the 22-year legal odyssey that Rubin Carter endured before winning his freedom. The story also aims to offer a context for the history of racial tension that permeated the case and American society during the 1960s and ’70s.
Guided Reading Level: R
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