Harlem's Yusef Salaam celebrates City Council victory
NEW YORK - Exonerated Five member Yusef Salaam officially won Central Harlem's City Council seat Tuesday night.
Salaam ran unopposed in the general election, but he tells CBS New York's Jessi Mitchell this victory is especially sweet.
"It's one thing to run for office, and it's a completely different thing to win," Salaam said, smiling.
Salaam cannot leave home without being stopped by supporters. A former inmate was among those who shook his hand Wednesday, asking for a photo.
"We was in the trenches together," the supporter said. "He knows what I mean."
"He was on Riker's Island in C74 when I was there," Salaam explained, "and I wasn't supposed to be there."
Watch Salaam's victory speech
At age 16, Salaam was sent to general population and spent the next seven years in prison, convicted of a crime he never committed, a rape in Central Park.
He and his four friends were eventually exonerated after DNA evidence cleared them, but they first returned home to Harlem facing a harsh reality.
"I had to make the decision of whether I was going to pay my rent or feed my family," Salaam recalled. "And of course, I decided to feed my family. When I came home from work that day, there was an eviction notice on my door."
As Salaam recounted the memory, a pair of women walked by with enthusiastic congratulations.
"I'm one of us," he concluded.
Salaam used his history as a driving force to win a heated Democratic primary against two established State Assembly members, Inez Dickens and Al Taylor.
"They understood the story, and they also understood that what I represented was something different," Salaam said of voters. "I gave people the hope that they had been losing in our community."
His priorities in council now include affordable housing and safe streets, helping others overcome the same obstacles he once faced.
"Instead of being embittered by it, you become better by it, by utilizing all that you know," he said, "allowing those challenges in your life to be the guiding points."
Salaam will be sworn into office in January.
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