Central Park Five Exonerates Presented With The Roger Baldwin Courage Award

Just one week after the premiere of Ava DuVernay’s “When They See Us,” the Central Park Five were presented with the Roger Baldwin Courage Award at the 25th Annual American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California Luncheon by Michael B. Jordan.

Emotions ran high on Friday, as Jordan gave a moving introduction to honorees Yusef Salaam, Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, and Korey Wise, praising them for their courage and perseverance.

”It’s dangerous in America when you’re living in a black body,” Jordan said. “The whole time that these men were incarcerated, they never changed their story. They insisted on their innocence even as they did their time.”

According to the Associated Press, Jordan hugged Salaam, who tearfully spoke on behalf of the five.

”I’m not ashamed to cry in front of you,” Salaam said. “Our story is a story of an egregious miscarriage of justice,” he added.

In addition to the Roger Baldwin Courage Award, Salaam also accepted DuVernay’s Social Responsibility in Media Award at the luncheon. DuVernay’s Netflix series gave the world a different look at the painful stories of the Central Park Five.

”After decades of being known as the Central Park Five, we thank Ava for acknowledging our humanity and telling our story with honesty and factual representation,” Salaam said. “We had to struggle to break the label that the media gave us. We stumbled forward, falling on our face at times.”