In a case that dominated the headlines more than 30 years ago, Kevin D. Richardson and four other Black and Latino teens were falsely convicted of a brutal attack on a woman jogging in Central Park.
The Central Park Five were eventually exonerated after serving time in prison. Their story was recently depicted in the film “When They See Us.” With the country galvanized by the death of George Floyd at the hands of police and a national conversation underway on systemic racism, Richardson will discuss his experiences, including those as an advocate for criminal justice reform, at a New Jersey State Bar Association (NJSBA) virtual symposium titled “Race and the Law: What We Can Do Together to Effect Change,” on Aug. 20.
The interactive symposium will continue with breakout panels on timely subjects such as police conduct, jury selection and unconscious bias.
Human rights attorney and criminal defense attorney Raymond M. Brown, who will interview Richardson during the program, said: “Someone like Kevin Richardson, who experienced the effects of systemic racism and the justice system, can explain in detail what it meant to him and what it means to us. It’s important to see the killing of George Floyd and hear individual stories of horror that are part of a 400-year-old continuum with which we must wrestle.”
Brown said the Central Park Five case was one of those defining cultural moments, like the Emmett Till case, that are examples of “the extent to which Black bodies are the subject of oppression by a larger system.”
He said the objective of the symposium “is to bring people together to both inspire people who have been in the struggle for a long time and to give perspective to people who were just awakened to systemic racism and how it affects others, and to help people put this all in context…. We hope to be continuing a movement, not a moment.”
The symposium is presented in cooperation with the NJSBA Diversity Committee, NJSBA CLE Advisory Committee, NJSBA Women in the Profession Section, Asian Pacific American Lawyers Association of New Jersey, Association of Black Women Lawyers of New Jersey, Essex County Bar Foundation, Garden State Bar Association, Hispanic Bar Association of New Jersey, Middlesex County Bar Association for the Advancement of Racial Equity & Social Justice, New Jersey Muslim Lawyers Association, New Jersey Women Lawyers Association, and South Asian Bar Association of New Jersey.
The symposium is sponsored by Newport Associates Development Company; Investors Bank; Argentino Fiore Law & Advocacy; Bressler, Amery & Ross; Brian J. Neary Law Offices; Carmagnola & Ritardi; Cullen and Dykman; Fortune Title Agency; Javerbaum Wurgaft Hicks Kahn Wilkstrom & Sinins; Lawrence Law; McCusker Anselmi Rosen & Carvelli; Popjoy & Kelly; O’Toole Scrivo; Rebenack Aronow Mascolo; Schenck, Price, Smith & King; Walsh Pizzi O’Reilly Falanda; and Wilentz, Goldman & Spitzer.
To register, go to njsba.com.