Original subtitles

♪ (UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYS) ♪

The only thing worse in politics than being wrong,

is being boring.

I'm not sick of winning yet.

And we're crying out as a nation.

♪ (MUSIC INTENSIFIES) ♪

Thank you for having me.

♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪

(wind whooshing)

(distant gunshots)

(indistinct chatter, static over radio)

Eyewitness: Police? 777,

um, on Bay Ridge Avenue and 20th Avenue,

somebody just got shot. Somebody just got shot.

A bunch of white boys just shot a black guy.

(camera shutter clicking)

Emergency dispatcher: Where are the people that did it?

(camera shutter clicking)

Eyewitness: They just ran around the corner on, um, 68th Street.

Emergency dispatcher: They were on foot?

Eyewitness: Yeah, on foot. A bunch of white boys.

Emergency dispatcher: Thank you. Police will be there.

EMS will be notified.

(distant sirens blaring)

♪

Gerald Dickens: There are certain calls that you never forget.

This was one of the bigger ones

besides the World Trade Center.

When I got here, my tires were smokin'.

When I got to about this car here,

I saw a body lying right here.

His shirt was cut or ripped halfway down his chest,

and as I opened it, I saw the two bullet holes

right over the heart.

I later found out his name was Yusuf Hawkins.

He looked like a good kid.

You know, didn't look like a thug or anything.

I felt his pulse. It's possible he's still viable.

We packaged him, put him in the ambulance,

and then started responding down towards Maimonides Hospital.

There was a police officer from the 6-2 precinct

riding in the front of the ambulance with me.

And, uh, en route, he told me, "This is a racial incident."

He had a sense that there's gonna be problems now in the neighborhood.

(distant siren blaring)

Crowd (chanting): Yusuf! Yusuf! Yusuf! Yusuf! Yusuf! Yusuf!

(chanting continues)

♪

Darlene Brown: My grandparents' house was the center.

♪

Freddy, Yusuf, Amir.

They lived downstairs and I lived upstairs.

Felicia Brown: They would come up, we would go down.

We would sit on the porch. We would make sure, you know,

they didn't go too far when they were young.

Amir Hawkins: Every barbecue, every birthday.

That's where we all met up as a family.

485 Hegeman Avenue.

♪

I've known Yusuf since I was...

Jesus, six or seven.

♪

Amir, Yusuf, and Freddy was outside.

We all started playing,

and we've been hanging out, playing ball,

doing whatever, since then.

Christopher Graham: I moved right next door to Amir,

Yusuf, and, um, Freddy.

That's how we met, 'cause we was neighbors.

And so we seen each other every day,

and we hanged out every day.

If they wasn't at my house, I was at their house,

and Diane, you know, she treated me like her own.

Interviewer: The name Yusuf, where'd that come from?

Well, his father named him that.

My sons didn't know their father,

because Moses was not here.

He left when, uh, Amir was, like,

17 months.

And then I, I never heard from him.

Freddy Hawkins: He wasn't talked about much, you know?

I mean, I thought about him, but, you know...

He haven't ran across my mind that much.

I know people that have their fathers

in their lives, or at least seeing, you know,

them every, you know, their kids every now and then, but...

you know, I didn't see him. (chuckles)

Amir: It wasn't nothing that made us feel like,

you know, we're...

we're short of a family, you know?

Or we're missing out on anything.

You know, now, one might say, "Well, you were missing out on something,"

but we didn't know it.

♪

Mainly it was me, it was Christopher,

it was Luther, and it was, uh, Yusuf.

We rode bikes all the time,

and we used to ride bikes in Starrett City.

(bike wheels whirring)

♪

We rode from East New York to Bedford-Stuyvesant.

We rode Atlantic Avenue.

We'd ride from one side of town to the next.

Graham: Prospect Park...

We rode everywhere.

We even rode across the Brooklyn Bridge to Central Park.

♪

There was no white people in East New York.

You know. We had Dominicans, we had Puerto Ricans,

but we didn't have no white people unless they was on drugs,

or they was undercover police.

So, regardless of which way it went,

they wasn't gonna get messed with,

because if they was customers,

you don't want to beat 'em up,

'cause you want 'em to come back.

If they're police,

you definitely don't wanna mess with them.

Amir: And Yusuf would get upset

if he didn't know where I was, you know?

Stay away from trouble. Do the right thing.

Just what a big brother should be.

Darlene: Yusuf, he inspired Diane.

He inspired his brothers.

He had that little spark in him. I saw it early on.

Especially that picture that you see when he's standing by the gate

in front of the house.

I'm like, "My cousin's going places."

♪

Graham: I remember one time when, uh,

we was standing out on the block, and it was a,

a friend across the street named Ronnie,

and, you know, ain't no tellin' what Ronnie would have ate.

And it was like some peanuts or some old candy

that was on the concrete,

and Yusuf went over there.

He just started stomping it out, crushing it up.

So I said, "Yusuf, what you doin'?"

He was like, "I'm stomping this out, because somebody here

will eat off the-- off, you know, the street."

That's the kind of person Yusuf was.

He knew that if he would have left it down there,

everybody would have went about their way,

then Ronnie would have probably came back and ate that,

because like I said, there was no silver spoons in East New York back then.

Some people were just going through it worse than others.

♪

Reverend Conrad Tillard: Well, I was transferred to New York

in June of 1988.

At the time, I was the national,

uh, student, uh, and youth minister,

uh, for the nation of Islam.

And of course, the nation represented

the, uh, black nationalist movement, the more militant aspect,

of the traditional civil rights movement.

The mode of operation of the white man is to throw the rock.

Reverend Tillard: I had not been in New York a very long time

before the Yusuf Hawkins tragedy took place.

♪

In the 1980s in New York,

the racial divisions were over the top.

This sort of continuing cycle of police murders,

and racial crime.

Newscaster: Over the past eight years, the number of reported

racial attacks in New York City has increased dramatically.

Newscaster 2: Police say three black men were savagely beaten

by a gang of white attackers at Howard Beach.

One of the victims, a 23-year-old construction worker,

was chased to his death.

Reverend Tillard: People in this post-Obama era

want to look at the, the New York in the '80s and '90s

in the lens of today

just don't quite understand the climate here.

-Reporter: Is there a lot of crime here? -Woman: There is,

against the whites by the blacks,

and that's why they're not welcome here any longer.

If they'd behave themselves in this neighborhood,

maybe they could walk the streets and be free.

Reverend Tillard: And it is in that setting

that Al Sharpton emerged

as the preeminent spokesperson for the anger.

Reverend Al Sharpton: In the name of those that you covered up,

in the name of those that you spat on their grave,

by questioning whether Eleanor Bumpurs caused the cops to kill her,

whether Michael Stewart caused the police to beat him to death.

Every time a black man or woman came to the bar of justice,

you denied him justice.

And now you want to know why your opinions don't matter to us?

'Cause you've proven you're not big enough

to get past the color of our skins.

♪

Newscaster: Wilding. New York City police say that

it's new teenage slang for rampaging and wolf packs.

Newscaster 2: A woman jogging in New York Central Park last Wednesday night,

raped and nearly beaten to death.

Ed Koch: These, uh, alleged, uh, perpetrators,

we always have to say alleged, because that's the requirement.

When those grandmothers say, "But he's a good boy!

He never did anything!" Don't you believe it.

♪

(phone ringing)

-(phone ringing) -(phone clicks)

I think it was my older cousin Felicia

took the phone call.

And she was like, "Moses. Moses who?"

The three of them were so happy, they didn't know what to do with themselves.

Their father came back.

Luther Sylvester: I remember his dad popped up.

I was like, "Yusuf, who is that?"

He's like, "That's my dad."

I was kinda, like, for all the years that I've known him,

I ain't never seen his father.

Amir: I saw it, you know. My mom got pretty excited.

Interviewer: How'd you feel about him?

-At that time? -Interviewer: Yeah.

Oh, I was head over heels with him.

So, my thing was like, "Is he here to stay?

Or are they gonna try to make this work again?"

'Cause they got these three boys.

Diane Hawkins: Yusuf was like very thrilled to see his father.

The high school where he was supposed to go,

he went with his father on the tour

to see how the school was.

Interviewer: Since he's not here to really speak for himself,

what was your understanding as to why he didn't stay to raise his children?

'Cause he was stupid.

You know, 'cause, like, it...

You don't leave your kids.

I think Moses wanted to...

fix, and or correct,

any possible, well,

if I may use the...

any wrongs he might have done,

you know, as far as the distance of

not seeing us for, you know, so many years.

He returned in that January of 1989,

so what, from January to August. What, eight months?

Eight months before, before that happened to Yusuf.

♪

Sylvester: The day everything happened was August 23, 1989.

A Wednesday.

Graham: It was like a typical day. We was at 213 Park.

Yusuf was pretty good. He was hard to guard 'cause he was a lefty.

After that, you know,

we went to a Chinese restaurant on New Lots Avenue.

Yusuf's favorite was the four chicken wings and pork fried rice.

That was the go-to.

I said to Yusuf and Amir that I got

a couple of movies at the house that I rented.

Amir: We was actually watching a movie.

We was actually watching "Mississippi Burning."

And "Naked Gun."

About five, ten minutes later,

Troy came to the house.

Sylvester: Troy and Claude used to live in the same building

where Christopher live at.

Troy came upstairs...

Graham: And said, "Uh, what are y'all doing right now?"

And I said, you know, "We're just chillin' here watchin' a movie."

He wants to go take a look at, uh,

at a used car he seen in a newspaper ad.

It was a Pontiac.

He said, "I like it."

He was like, "Man, I wanna go check it out."

He had called the person and got the directions.

Graham: He was like, "Well, you know," sayin',

"I'm about to go down to Bensonhurst...

to look at this car. Y'all wanna come?"

("The Honeymooners" theme music playing)

Amir: We didn't know anything about Bensonhurst, other than...

Narrator: Jackie Gleason...

Amir: ...watching a sitcom.

Narrator: "The Honeymooners"...

One might say, "Well, what do you know about 'The Honeymooners'?"

I love "The Honeymooners." I used to watch 'em all the time.

I actually have a DVD set of all of "The Honeymooner" episodes.

(laughing)

How do you do, folks? This is Smiling Ed Norton

talking to you direct from the training quarters

of the Bensonhurst Bomber.

Holy crap. That's-- that's where I remember it from.

Didn't know anything about the area.

I said, "Okay, yeah. We'll, we'll go."

So then me and Chris said, "Well, hey, we gotta take this video

back to the video store."

They were supposed to wait for us, you know,

in the neighborhood, on the block, until we got back.

♪

Sylvester: We was sitting on the porch.

Me, Troy, Claude, and Yusuf.

Troy went in, came back out.

And he was like, "My pops won't take us. It's too late."

It was like, "Oh." It was like, "Oh, well."

Troy's like, "No. I just wanna go and come back on the train."

I'm like, "Why don't we wait for Chris and Amir?"

He's like, "By the time they get back, it's gonna be too late."

♪

When we came back to the block, they already had left.

We really didn't know where they went, what train they took.

So we were just there in limbo.

Just, "Okay, we'll just wait till they come back."

♪

Amir: I don't think I've ever seen

my grandmother that upset, that frustrated,

that angry, or however you want to phrase it.

'Cause I, I specifically remember

a set of words she said,

because she was, you know, from an older generation.

She experienced, you know, racism

way before I even knew what it was,

or way before I could even understand it.

♪

She said,

"If I would have known that boy was going out there,

I would have told him, 'No, you ain't going out there.'"

But of course, you know, we're thinking, well, we're free to roam,

and, hey, all we're-- all they're going to do is

look at a used car in the ad of a, of a newspaper.

It's a different side of town, but, you know,

nobody ever told us, "Hey, that's off limits. You can't go over there."

And that pretty much was the last time

I actually seen Yusuf.

You know, seen him alive.

(train clattering)

(wind whistling)

Joey Fama: It was about 3:00.

I came home from work.

♪

Uh, I ate. I took a shower.

I was working with my father.

He was my foreman on the, on the construction job.

And I went to go return, uh, a video at the video store.

On the way home, I seen two guys on the corner,

and they said that there was gonna be a beef

on 68th Street and 20th Avenue.

So, when I heard there was gonna be a beef,

I went to the candy store on the side of the block.

It was called Snacks & Candy.

♪

Russell Gibbons: It was just a regular night.

We were hanging out at the school yard.

That was our, you know, that was our place.

And we had a big radio, you know.

We were listening to music.

Word had spread that Gina had made a threat against Keith.

To, uh, bring some,

some dudes into the neighborhood to do some damage...

to Keith, or anybody that was around there.

We were told that it was black and Hispanic people

that were coming to the neighborhood.

It was basically a way to identify,

you know, people that were coming to the neighborhood.

And...

Personally, I wasn't, I wasn't thinking about race.

I was, I was just there

because my friends were there.

♪

After I was born,

my parents moved me into, uh, Bensonhurst, Brooklyn.

My father, he looked at it as an opportunity

for his children to get a better education.

At that time, I guess he could see that,

you know, the black neighborhoods

and the white neighborhoods were much different

in terms of how they were treated economically,

how they were treated, you know, socially.

♪

Growing up, people still were raised

with that segregation mentality.

You know, called me names.

You know. They called me "nigger," and, you know,

"Can't be here."

So here I am, you know,

trying to figure this out on my own.

I was a black kid in a white neighborhood,

and I wanted to be a white kid in a white neighborhood.

Fama: My father's an immigrant.

He came to this country with nothing.

We lived in a, in a, in a neighborhood where

there was a lot of, uh, you know, Italian Americans.

And as far as racism,

I, I, me, myself, I've really never seen it.

You know. And, uh...

that's basically it.

♪

Officer: What's your name, please?

Pasquale D. Raucci.

Officer: Where were you last night,

August 23rd? Did you get to 16th Street?

Um-hmm. I went to the candy store.

There was a couple of people standing outside.

Fama: When I seen my friends there, at the candy store,

um, I asked 'em what was going on,

and they says, uh, "It's Gina's birthday party,

"and she's inviting blacks to the birthday party,

"and she's supposed to be dating somebody,

you know, uh, one of the black guys."

So I says, "This beef has to do with you?"

And he says, "No," so I says, you know, "Let's get outta here."

-Officer: Were there other people around? -Yeah. By the school yard.

-By the school yard? -Mm-hmm.

Fama: So as we were getting in the car,

somebody says, "They're here. They're here. The black guys are here."

So we got out of the car.

(train rumbling)

♪

Officer: You came to Brooklyn, to Bensonhurst,

tonight on the N train, right?

-Sylvester: Yeah. -Officer: And you got off at 20th Avenue.

-Sylvester: Uh-huh. -Officer: What happened after that?

Officer: Ms. Feliciano, would you please raise your right hand?

Do you swear to tell the truth,

the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

Gina Feliciano: Yes, I do.

Officer: Thank you, Ms. Feliciano.

You can put down your right hand.

If you're looking out your window, which side of the window? 68th or 20th?

Feliciano: 68th.

Officer: Okay, so the four black guys.

You see them walking down 20th Avenue,

and what did you see them do?

Feliciano: So he was looking up, I guess,

for the address, or something. And they thought he was--

(Officer speaking)

Both: Right.

(Feliciano speaking)

-(Officer speaking) -Feliciano: Yeah.

So they go...

♪

Gibbons: I think someone had said that they're here.

And I was sitting there, I'm sitting there with a radio

and everybody, everybody went running.

For some reason I, I just, there was a group of us that stayed back,

'cause we just didn't take it-- we didn't take it seriously.

Pasquale Raucci: A group dispersed from the school yard.

They went by the corner and they said, uh,

"There's those niggers." Something like that.

Officer: Did they have any, uh, anything in their hands?

-A couple did. -Officer: What'd they have?

Bats.

There was a first group that ran around the corner.

And we was towards the back.

There was a lady on the corner with her--

she had two small kids.

She was on-- by the pay phone.

Officer: Ms. Deserio, where were you at approximately 9:25?

Irene Deserio: I was on the corner of 69th Street

and 20th Avenue, ready to make a phone call.

Officer: So you were standing in a phone booth.

-Deserio: Right. -Officer: Okay, and what happened?

Deserio: I seen a bunch of guys come around the corner.

There was about 30 or 40 of them.

And all I seen was two guys, you know, that was ahead of them.

Joey and Keith.

Officer: What happened after that?

Sylvester: As he stops,

a bunch of white guys came around from around the corner

and surrounded us.

Officer: What were they carrying, if anything?

Sylvester: Baseball bats.

Officer: Okay, what happened after they surrounded you?

Sylvester: They started shaking their bats, saying,

"Is this them? Is this them?"

So, they're yelling.

They're still bangin', bangin' the bats.

Like, "What y'all doin' here? What y'all niggers doin' here?"

"Oh, y'all tryin' to talk to our girl?"

I'm like, "What the hell are you talking about?"

I'm lookin' at Yusuf, like,

"All right.

We might have to fight our way outta here."

But we're gonna get our ass beat."

Next thing I know,

I hear gunshots from diagonally from behind me.

Everybody that surrounded us took off.

Yusuf comes out the doorway holding his heart.

And just backs up.

And falls.

♪

(sirens blaring)

Diane: I was home at my house with my oldest son, Freddy,

and his father.

My sister knocked on the door.

And first thing, she just said, um,

"Yusuf got hurt. Diane, get your Medicaid card."

In my mind, I said, "Oh.

Probably got hurt out there playing basketball or something like that."

As we're driving along, 'cause it's taking too long to get to the hospital,

in my mind it's like,

I know something is really not right.

Graham: Me, Amir, Walter,

we went down to, um, to the hospital,

to see what was going on.

We was the first ones there.

So when we got there,

you know, of course, straight to the point,

the doctor was sayin', "Well, where's the immediate family?

Where's the mom? Where's the dad?"

'Cause obviously I was 14 at the time.

They're not gonna tell me anything.

So once they showed up,

doctors took them into a room somewhere,

so we're all in the waiting area, and...

Doctor came in the room.

Me and my older sister was in there, and Moses.

And the doctor just came in the room, he said,

"Your son is dead." Just like that.

Amir: When the door opened,

I'm, I'm, I'm lookin',

and I watch my mom drop to the floor.

I can still picture her face, you know, and, um,

I knew it was over.

♪

Diane (whispers): I can just imagine.

Oh, my God.

And for a long time,

I wasn't there.

But in my mind, I can just see him laying in the street.

And it's so painful. (inhales)

Right now, I can still picture it.

This is craziness.

This should have never happened to him,

'cause he didn't bother anyone.

So I'm like, "God."

I know he's probably like,

"What the hell has somebody done this to me for?"

You know, in his mind.

The little bit of life he still had in him.

Amir: So then they finally, they gave, uh,

they gave us the clearance to go back to, you know,

to go back to see him after they did what they did, and...

you know, I was, I was on the way.

Me and Chris was on the way back to the room,

and halfway down the hall, I stopped.

Chris said, "Oh, what's wrong? You're goin'?"

I couldn't do it.

I stopped, and Chris, Chris took the lead for me.

And Chris, Chris went, so,

you know, I say we grew up as friends,

but Chris is basically, he's family.

Graham: I was just at the point, well, you know, I didn't really,

you know, wanna go, but I, I gotta see.

I gotta see with my own eyes. And I just went in there,

and, um, looked at his face.

You know, I might have stayed in there

maybe two, three minutes just looking at him,

before I left.

You know, we were just, we wanted answers.

You know, why did this happen, you know?

Um...

When the lead detective came in, I forgot his name,

he said to us that, "Keep this quiet."

Because he doesn't want a riot in the city.

And I said, "Okay."

But the next day,

Yusuf's picture was on the front page.

So, I mean, that's something that you couldn't keep quiet.

(indistinct chattering)

Sixteen-year-old! My grandson.

Shot down in... shot down in cold blood!

My grandson.

♪

Freddy: I can't believe this. I can't believe this. Like...

My brother is dead.

You know?

Walter Brown: You know, you don't know what you would do

until something happens to you.

Something that you wouldn't do at all,

turns around, and you do everything.

Nobody knows what it is until something happens to your child

what you would do.

(indistinct chatter)

I'm, I'm, I'm not gonna say much,

but I would like to take the opportunity

that's being provided to this family to tell that

this is not just our problem anymore.

This is black people's problem in general.

And it didn't start with my son being murdered in Bensonhurst.

It started somewhere in the area of 400 years ago.

My son has been tried,

found guilty, and executed, all in one day.

In less than an hour's time, for-for nothing.

Only because of the color of his skin.

And I just want to ask New York,

and America, as well, when is it gonna stop?

You know, where do we go?

♪

(phone ringing)

Reverend Sharpton: I was home. I was living in downtown Brooklyn.

And, uh, Anthony Charles who worked with me had answered the phone,

and he said, "There's a Moses Stewart on the phone."

I said, "Who is Moses Stewart?"

He said, uh, "He says he's the father of the kid

that got killed in Bensonhurst."

Reverend Sharpton got on the phone,

and at first I was in a little disbelief.

I kept saying, "Are you sure this is Reverend Sharpton?"

And I said, "Yeah."

He said, "You sure?" I said, "Yeah."

He says, "Well, there are reporters at my house.

"And they asked me if I could get anyone

that would speak up for my family, who would it be?"

And the media could be held responsible for me meeting Reverend Sharpton,

because they were the ones who gave me his phone number.

I said, "Well, Mr. Stewart, you really don't want me.

You know I just had this controversial case with Brawley."

Newscaster: Sharpton grabbed the national spotlight

when he became the spokesman for Tawana Brawley...

Newscaster 2: A black 15-year-old, raped and abducted, she said,

by six white men, one of them with a badge.

Those allegations are untrue.

The people who made those allegations lied.

John DeSantis: The Tawana Brawley case offered an opportunity

for a lot of people, in regard to Reverend Sharpton,

to say, "See! I told you so.

He's a fake. He's a fraud."

-Man: Go on, Tawana. -In a confessional...

Reverend Tillard: Black people believed Tawana Brawley.

Many black people still believe Tawana Brawley.

Reverend Sharpton: Moses Stewart, he told me,

"That's why I want you. You won't sell us out."

He said, "Would you come and see me, and let's talk about it."

He kept talking, and I kept talking, and he says,

"Well, I'll-- I'll see you this afternoon."

So I hung up the phone and I told Diane, I says,

"Well, Reverend Sharpton, if that was Reverend Sharpton,

said he's gonna be here this afternoon."

(indistinct chatter)

Let us pray.

Dear God, we come again

with a bereaved family.

Victims of a society

that has not adjusted to learn how to live with each other.

We come first asking you to forgive us,

for all of us have played a role

in this society that is imperfect and unjust.

And here we stand with a family that was not activists,

that were not politicians, that didn't hurt anybody.

A religious and praying grandmother,

a humble and hardworking mother.

A diligent and hardworking and intelligent father

whose son is gone now.

Two brothers left not knowing what to say or what to do.

We ask you to give us the strength this week

to not go for the emotions.

Not to go just for bitterness. That's the easy way out.

But to use Yusuf's death

as a way to stop this madness once and for all.

And we say, Lord, take care of Yusuf.

We didn't do what we should have to take care of him,

so you've got him now. Look out for Yusuf.

Tell him we're sorry that we didn't protect him better.

Tell him we're sorry we didn't build a better world for him.

Take care of our brother,

and we will try to make sure that his brothers that he left behind

will not ever face the same fate.

♪

One day, Diane and her mother told me the whole story.

About Moses having not been there a lot.

And at one level, I thought about how my father had left me.

♪

And I understood the feeling of abandonment

that, uh, Diane felt.

'Cause that was my mother's feeling,

and I understood Mrs. Hawkins who had to

provide them with a home.

But I also understand that sometimes

you gotta let a man redeem himself.

♪

He deserved a chance to fight for his son,

to make up for whatever he wasn't there for with his son.

♪

Graham: I didn't sleep in my house

for a while, you know.

I was, you know, next door, and,

you know, we're going through the motions, you know,

all-day emotional roller coasters.

Floods of reporters. Everybody has questions.

I didn't really understand what was going on.

You know, a bunch of activists and stuff like this.

(indistinct chatter)

I bring to the family

a pledge of love and support, and sympathy, of course,

from my leader and teacher, the Honorable Louis Farrakhan.

We feel that, uh, the wanton

and indiscriminate murder of this black brother of ours

is exemplary of the attitude that exists in America.

I don't really know how to deal with all of that.

All I know is, oh, some white boys killed my brother

'cause they felt like he shouldn't have been on a certain side of town,

so now I'm trying to process, well, why is that?

♪

Benjamin Ward: Are we ready?

We are making it a bias incident.

And, uh, as I said earlier, uh,

that the word "nigger" was used.

Not acceptable, whether it was just a simple bias case,

or a bias case, uh, complicated, uh, with, uh,

a matter of, um, a spurned lover.

Newscaster 1: The white youths thought he was dating

a white girl from their neighborhood.

Newscaster 2: ...mistaken belief one of them

was dating a local white girl.

(newscaster speaking Spanish)

They were trying to, in the media,

act as though Yusuf was killed with some love triangle.

Yusuf didn't know anybody to date down there.

None of 'em. They went down there for a car,

and not to date any white girls.

Reverend Sharpton: We all knew

Bensonhurst that lived in Brooklyn

knew this was race.

His friends said it was race.

But it was this debate in the press.

Was it love triangle or was it race?

So I said to them,

"We should go out there and march in that neighborhood.

And it'll be clear."

Reporter: Is there racial tension in this neighborhood?

No, it ain't ra-- Listen. Everybody blows it out of proportion.

-It's not racism. -It's not racial.

These things happen, you know,

but don't make a big deal out of it,

'cause now, if you make a big deal,

you know what's gonna happen. They're gonna come down,

and we're gonna start, they're gonna start,

and there's gonna be a big thing, right?

So, if we keep it low, and forget about it,

you know, maybe it'll just die down.

♪

♪

Moses Stewart: Reverend Sharpton felt that Diane and I

shouldn't make that march.

Not so soon after our son had been murdered.

And we had to prepare for a funeral.

But my two sons, Amir and Freddy,

went on that very march.

And the things that they told me went on out there,

I said, "Well, you'll never go out there without me again."

Freddy: When we arrived there,

we seen a lot of the neighborhood people out there.

They looked like they was, you know, ready to, you know, fight,

and it was real, um, intense.

♪

(clamoring)

Crowd (chanting): Yusuf! Yusuf! Yusuf!

(chanting continues)

Freddy: How my brother's death went down,

you know...

People was yelling out his name.

Crowd (chanting): Yusuf! Yusuf! Yusuf!

Yusuf! Yusuf! Yusuf! Yusuf! Yusuf! Yusuf!

(chanting continues)

Crowd (chanting): Go home! Go home! Go home!

(chants overlapping)

(shouting out):

Man: ...cause he knows you're a bull shittin' liar.

Crowd (chanting): Yusuf! Yusuf! Yusuf!

Graham: They did not want us there.

At all.

They did not want us there. And they made that known.

Get the fuck outta here!

(indistinct yelling)

Come on, motherfucker, come on!

You fuckin' asshole.

My best friend lost his life on these streets,

and we're gonna let-- we're gonna let them know that

we're not just gonna go away quietly.

Crowd (chanting): -Whose streets? -Our streets!

-Whose streets? -Our streets!

(chanting continues)

-Whose streets? -Our streets!

(chanting continues)

-Bullshit! -Murder!

They killed Yusuf Hawkins

because of the color of his skin.

Murder! Murder!

(indistinct yelling)

Crowd (chanting): Yusuf! Yusuf! Yusuf! Yusuf!

(yelling and chanting continues)

(yelling and commotion)

-Man: Keep moving. -(indistinct shouting)

Crowd (chanting): Thirty against one, and you still need bats and guns!

Look at you, you faggot!

(indistinct shouting) You're faggots!

Fuck you! Fuck you!

Sit your ass over there, and go to sleep, motherfucker.

(indistinct yelling)

Woman: Niggers, go home!

I had never, I guess maybe 'cause I was born in the north,

but I had never seen such unrefined,

open hate in my life.

♪

Yusuf Hawkins took away this veneer they had gotten away with

to the world as the cosmopolitan New York.

This is not a racist community. We just don't like black people, that's all.

Rednecks down south were like this.

Bensonhurst made people say, "What? New York is like that?"

♪

Amir: When somebody say, "Hey, I'm, I'm not racist."

Okay, you're not racist,

but I'm watching a nine-year-old little boy and girl

stick their middle finger up and me and say,

"Go home, you 'N.' You so-and-so-and-so."

So I don't think people are born like that.

That's something that's taught.

You get showed that kind of stuff.

♪

Det. Joseph Regina: In August of '89,

I was sitting in the office,

and we got a call from the 6-2 precinct detective squad

that they had a murder. They had a homicide.

We had a young black man shot and killed,

uh, supposedly by a group of young white youths.

And we had to get to the bottom of this. What-- what happened?

People that, uh, were involved,

we knew that they hung out in a candy store around the corner.

We, uh, retrieved a collage from that candy store.

You know, you're hanging out, take a picture,

they put it up there.

And we were able to identify almost every person on that collage.

And we then scanned the neighborhood,

caught a couple of the young guys,

and brought them in for an interview.

♪

My lieutenants told me in the 6-2,

"Go over to 6-1. Uh, they brought Keith in. Go interview him."

And once we got-- broke the ice,

"I'm so-and-so, this is so-and-so, blah, blah, blah,"

uh, I started the interview, and that's when he got a little crusty.

I said, "Listen, I was born in a neighborhood where you don't talk to the cops.

You know, you don't talk to nobody."

I said, "Listen, Keith."

You know, "You're a tough kid out on the street." You know.

"But when you go to Rikers, you're not gonna be that tough.

"And you're gonna be somebody's wife.

"And while you're out getting banged by some guy in prison,

"I'm gonna be taking your girlfriend out for a date.

"That's the reality, my friend.

That's the reality."

And he looked at me, and he just,

"Okay, I gotcha."

That's when I found out about the relationship with the girl,

uh, Gina Feliciano.

♪

(Feliciano speaking)

♪

(Officer speaking)

(Feliciano speaking)

(Officer speaking)

Yeah, I do.

(Officer speaking)

A lot of people do.

Officer: Do you know if there have been problems in the past

-over there with, with black people? -No, not really.

Officer: Do you know if any of your friends, uh,

have problems or any of them

don't like black people being there?

No, it was just that, they started to hang out

on a, on a small basis, and then they were there every night,

and then when we walk by, they would give us dirty looks

and say things to us. And it's just, you know,

we didn't, we didn't want that to happen,

but, you know, we didn't wanna kill 'em.

Reverend Jesse Jackson: People should be able to march anywhere.

And live anywhere, and go anywhere,

and not have their lives threatened because of their race.

It's so reminiscent of Emmett Till being killed

on a race-sex motivated,

uh, lynching in Mississippi in 1955.

And there's a politics of racial division in this city.

And we will hope that leaders, political leaders who care,

will stand tall, and declare that this madness,

this madness must end.

Clearly, one of the prime concerns

that all of us have, or should have,

is race relations in our city.

Ken Sunshine: The murder of Yusuf Hawkins

it got at the core of,

there's something wrong with society,

and frankly, it's time for an African-American mayor.

I've said throughout this campaign,

and indeed throughout the primary that

New York City is not the melting pot that I was taught it was

went I went to grammar school in Harlem a long time ago.

It's instead a gorgeous mosaic

of persons of varying ethnic backgrounds and religions,

and I say we need to reach out and try to understand

the backgrounds and heritages of other peoples.

Hopefully, to come to love one another. But if not that,

to understand one another, and with that understanding will come respect.

Reverend Tillard: It was in Dinkins' nature and character

to believe in racial reconciliation.

He touted New York as not being disparate and divided,

but rather being a gorgeous mosaic of cultures, uh, and peoples.

The only problem with that

was that that was sort of out of touch

with the attitudes that existed

in the African-American community.

It was a period when African-Americans

were experiencing a revival

of black awareness.

-Black consciousness. -♪ ...by the way Yusuf Hawkins died ♪

Particularly in Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant.

-Raheem! -Mook!

(music turns down)

Reverend Tillard: By '89, it was the era of Public Enemy

and "Do the Right Thing."

Da Mayor, we need your leadership.

Doctor, what are you talkin' about?

I'm organizing a boycott of Sal's Famous.

Shit. Keep walking, Doctor.

I don't want to hear none of your damn black foolishness.

Damn.

Reverend Herbert Daughtry: At that point, Dave Dinkins,

he had not succeeded

in inspiring the masses.

So, uh, we discussed

whether or not Dave Dinkins should visit Yusuf Hawkins' family.

I would hope that in this election,

which only has, what, two, three weeks to go,

that no one, uh, will seek to get political benefit from a tragedy.

Reporter: The Manhattan borough president

doesn't usually visit the home of murder victims in Brooklyn.

But David Dinkins wants to be mayor.

Felicia Brown: You know, I didn't know anything about these people.

And here you had them in your living room.

Dinkins' response, if I'm not mistaken,

was an election was coming up.

And we need to get out and vote.

And, you know, get me into office,

and I can do what I need to do to, you know,

for my people, and this, that, and the other.

Reporter: After a half-hour meeting with the dead youth's family,

and Reverend Al Sharpton,

David Dinkins told how he believes Yusuf Hawkins' killing

relates to the race for mayor.

I don't blame the mayor,

or, or any individual for, uh, this circumstance,

except to say, all of us, all of us, each one of us,

uh, bears some responsibility

for trying to make a better city.

David Dinkins: I knew that the attacks against Yusuf Hawkins

would be a factor in my contest,

but I, I, I'd like to believe that we treated it

as we would have had I not been seeking public office.

I'm not happy that we have the divisions that we have.

And-- and I, I want to heal them.

I wanna, wanna bind up the wounds.

This is one of the reasons I run for office.

Reverend Sharpton: Moses didn't want to get into the politics at all.

He said, "Let Dave Dinkins--

"I don't give a damn about Dave Dinkins.

I'm talkin' about my son. I'm talkin' about justice."

My son will never turn this corner again.

Only because of this. The pigment of his skin.

Do you understand that? This is what America must learn.

That we are no longer gonna take this.

Reverend Al Sharpton and my father,

I think their goal was to set out

for justice.

Somebody's gonna pay for this.

Somebody needs to pay for it.

Reporter: Five white teenagers have been arrested so far

in this latest racial attack.

Reporter 2: They were hustled out of the local police station

wearing bullet-proof vests

after an anonymous caller vowed to,

quote, "Get those guys."

Interviewer: So, they're trying to find the men

who attacked your son.

Were you paying attention to the news at this time?

Yes, I was looking at it.

With eyes full of tears, and mind just going,

"Well, what happened? Why did this happen? Why'd they kill my son?"

I just wanted the person that pulled the trigger, really.

But then when I heard

everything that was going on and how...

you know, there's the gathering of people and stuff,

I kind of wanted all of 'em to go to jail.

Douglas Nadjari: Yusuf Hawkins and his friends,

they walked into what I would call a perfect storm.

A group of white kids

that had really whipped themselves up into a frenzy

because Gina Feliciano had said that her black boyfriend

is coming into the neighborhood, and there's gonna be a riot.

(camera shutter clicking)

They didn't want black kids coming into their neighborhood.

For some reason,

Russell was okay.

Um, you know, he's,

"We know you, so you're okay for a black guy."

Yeah, well, they always got one nigger that they like.

-(chuckles) -Woman: That's true.

There's always one nigger that's, that they like.

Any racist mob,

they always got one nigger that they'll pat on the head, and he's okay.

So I imagine that's who he was.

Listen, growing up,

in a white neighborhood not having any black friends,

can't help but deal with an identity crisis.

I could block it out as much as I wanted to,

and it's going to end up catching up with me.

Um, and it did.

(tape player clicks)

♪

...he said-- told us that there was gonna be a fight here tonight.

Gina was bringing down, uh,

20 of her black and Puerto Rican friends to fight with us.

Detective: Where'd you go?

(Gibbons speaking)

Detective: And what'd you do there?

(Gibbons speaking)

Interviewer: You brought the bats?

Yeah, I had the bats.

I didn't bring, you know, the bats weren't there for the specific reason,

for, for that specific reason.

They were available because, because of, uh,

the fact that we were gonna play a game that night.

It's not like we gave them out and said,

"Here's a bat for you and here's a bat for you."

(Gibbons speaking)

♪

Nadjari: The bats were something that,

that held these young men in place.

I mean, they couldn't run away.

They were surrounded by white kids with bats.

There was no place to go.

Newscaster: Keith Mondello, Pasquale Raucci, and Charlie Stressler,

all charged with assault, riot, aggravated harassment,

violation of civil rights, and possession of a weapon.

In this case, baseball bats.

But it was a gun, not a bat, that killed Yusuf Hawkins Wednesday night.

The shooter of that gun is still at large.

♪

Detective: One of the individuals being sought for questioning

in connection with the homicide of Yusuf Hawkins

is Joseph Fama

of 1773 71st Street, Brooklyn.

He is described as a male, white, 19 years of age.

5-foot, 9-inches tall, medium build, and short black hair.

♪

Interviewer: I gotta just ask you flat out,

who killed Yusuf Hawkins?

I don't know who shot Yusuf Hawkins.

But it, it wasn't my friends.

And it, it wasn't me.

(background chatter)

Fama: I was just a young kid, curious what's going on.

Listen, mere presence is not guilt.

You know, if that's the case, then 30 other people are guilty.

You know, I'm a kid.

18 years old.

I was scared.

And I went home, changed,

and, uh, I went upstate.

It's crazy. I hitch-hiked all the way up there.

I was trying to get away furthest possible as, you know,

from the city.

I know it looks bad,

but if you didn't do it, you know,

it's, you're, you're trying to get away from the problem, you know?

♪

Reverend Sharpton: Martin Luther King used to say,

"You gotta make the comfortable uncomfortable,

and you've gotta make the uncomfortable comfortable."

You can't let people

in the season of killing a black young man in their neighborhood

just go through business as usual.

And have the false premise,

"Well, that's over with now. We're having our festival."

Oh, no. You have your festival.

But guess who's comin' to the festival?

♪

Crowd (chanting): Whose streets? Our streets! Whose streets? Our streets!

Whose streets? Our streets!

Whose streets? Our streets! Whose streets? Our streets!

Reverend Sharpton: The first march,

with the venom and the ugliness,

and the threats, that was, that was steroids.

(crowd yelling)

Stop selling crack!

(shouting and commotion)

-(crowd chattering) -(police siren beeps)

We let 'em come through once.

How many times have they gotta disturb our neighborhood?

(indistinct yelling)

Dr. Lenora Fulani: Some of the behavior out there was just...

I mean, it's like, unbelievable how people acted out.

So, I don't know if it's the depth of the racism.

I know it's ignorance.

You stupid niggers!

-...shit. -That's right. That's right! That's right.

-Come here alone! -That's right, baby.

Yeah, yeah, yeah!

Dr. Fulani: I think the problem, though,

was that the people who aren't involved in being racist pigs...

...couldn't get it together enough

to make a different kind of statement.

(indistinct shouting)

Koch: This is not a, uh, community, uh,

that, uh, should be described as a racist community.

♪

I, uh, urge that people

not engage in marches, uh, into communities.

The reason is, the community thinks it then

is the, uh, perpetrator of the violence,

and I don't think, uh, that any community can be branded that way.

Don't come in here and disturb us!

All (chanting): Fama! Fama! Fama!

Let's quit playing with ourself.

Let's not come with denial that, "Oh, it wasn't me. I didn't see it."

And that boy got killed. And the reason we came,

is we knew that people in that neighborhood knew who did it,

and we were right. They gave 'em up after a few weeks.

They hid him for a good while.

But we made so much stink, they had to bring him out.

♪

Det. Regina: It's a mobbed-up neighborhood, Bensonhurst.

Everybody knows that.

Law-abiding businesses and illegal businesses

were being hurt by these marches.

And you know, uh,

mob ruling is, if you're gonna hurt us financially,

we're gonna help solve the case.

A meeting was held at Tally's Pool Hall

in Bensonhurst.

And it was headed up by Sammy "The Bull" Gravano.

When it was said to Gravano,

that Fama, who was missing,

was the person who had shot Yusuf Hawkins,

Gravano said, "Then you have to give him up."

(crowd jeering)

Newscaster: The teenager who allegedly fired four shots at Hawkins

pleaded not guilty to murder

after surrendering to police the day before.

As one of the teenager's attorneys spoke with reporters,

activist Al Sharpton and the victim's father began yelling.

You tear the whole city up

-to let some racist punks go. -No, no, no. You are.

-(yelling) -You are. I'm not tearing anybody up.

-(both yelling) -He be tearing the whole city up for these racist punks.

Your clients killed my son.

-Should have a conscience. -(Stewart speaking)

Because of the...

the heat that was coming out of this city,

it was, it was, like, you know, you're watching

the whole city be divided by something.

(yelling): Yusuf! Yusuf! Yusuf!

This was a murder

that was shaking the foundations of the city.

-Man: Who'd they kill? -Crowd: Yusuf!

-Man: Who'd they kill? -Crowd: Yusuf!

Sunshine: The outrage that a bunch of teenage kids

go to get a car, and one gets murdered?

In, in a, in a very divisive racial climate.

(crowd chanting)

(indistinct shouting)

-(woman yelling) -(crowd yelling)

-(woman yelling) -(crowd yelling)

(clamoring, yelling)

(screaming, clamoring)

♪

Graham: Yusuf's death was so public.

So, you know, you could just be doing

your normal routine in life, and...

you see his picture on a newspaper or in a magazine.

♪

Amir: You're not looking at it as that's your life

until that becomes your life.

You know, and you don't expect to be in the dead heart middle of it.

You know, it's, it's in your face now.

It's sitting right on your own doorstep.

That's when we started gettin' everybody.

Everybody hit my grandmother's house.

I couldn't tell what was going on upstairs or downstairs.

That's how, you know, I mean, it was like that

every day for a long time.

We had so many people coming by the house.

Politicians, rappers, actors.

I mean, you name it. You had them just coming to the house.

Whether you want it or not,

you're considered a role model in our community.

Any advice, considering that racial tensions are strained

right now in New York City?

Well, I think that the most important thing we have to do is vote.

The primary and election coming up in November,

and get Koch out of here because I think that his hand--

you could say his finger was on the trigger, too.

I mean, he's used racial polarization to get elected.

And I think it's, you know, it's backfired,

and now the city's polarized like it's never been.

(sirens beeping, blaring)

♪

Amir: The funeral was, was enormous.

Darlene: That street was packed.

We drove in a limo and we drove up to the church,

I couldn't believe how many people were there to support Yusuf,

and the family.

It was unbelievable.

It just...

I mean, I've never said anything,

but everybody that showed up for Yusuf's funeral,

on that day,

it just, it meant everything in the world to me.

You know, everything was so...

emotional, and it was--

Everything was just too big to pay attention to.

(crowd chattering)

Reverend Tillard: This funeral was a place where

you know, Koch had to be.

Crowd: Boo!

Get out of here! Ya bum!

Reverend Tillard: Dinkins had to be.

(crowd clamoring)

Well, Farrakhan's gonna be-- He's gonna be speaking.

Well, it's too bad.

Uh, we may not like him,

but this is one of those seminal moments

when you have to be there.

(crowd singing "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around")

Crowd: ♪ Turn me around ♪

♪ Turn me around ♪

♪ Keep on walking ♪

♪ Keep on talking ♪

♪ Marching up to freedom land ♪

(clapping)

It is a great honor and privilege for me

to have been asked by my brother,

the father of Yusuf,

to come and share this moment with you.

Funeral services are not really for the dead.

-(crowd murmuring) -Man: That's right.

Funeral services are instructions for the living.

(crowd murmuring)

God sometimes

uses the innocent...

Woman: That's right.

...to give a message to the guilty.

-(crowd murmuring) -Man: Teach!

He takes the life of one...

that is pure.

To save those...

who are impure.

This is not to hurt your feelings.

This is not to throw stones.

But this is to say to those in power...

-Woman: Yes, come on! -...while power is in your hands...

-Woman: Use it! -...do justice.

(crowd clapping)

(crowd cheering)

So, whether we are Muslim or Christian...

-Woman: Yes! -...it's irrelevant.

They didn't ask Yusuf

whether you're Muslim or whether you're Christian.

(crowd clapping, cheering)

They didn't ask Yusuf

whether you a Democrat or are you a Republican?

All they saw was a black face.

Man: Hallelujah!

Woman: Yes!

-Man: Yes. -Woman: Yes.

Man: Come on!

(cheering, applause)

(crowd cheering)

♪

Crowd (chanting): Yusuf! Yusuf! Yusuf! Yusuf!

(chanting continues)

DeSantis: Yusuf Hawkins became a symbol of something.

He was perceived by many to be a martyr.

Moses was very comfortable

being the person that was in front

with Reverend Sharpton locking arms.

Uh, Diane,

Yusuf's mother,

never appeared comfortable.

♪

Stewart: Now, if his mother have anything to say,

you can talk to her.

I can't speak. I don't have anything--

-(reporters clamoring) -Stewart: Excuse me, excuse me.

I-- Okay, I--

quietly thank and appreciate

all the support that's coming to me

from the death of my son, which was a good kid.

And it hurts me so bad, and I just--

I have nothing else to say. Thank you.

I was a lost case.

I was like on another planet somewhere.

I didn't know what to think. I, all I--

My mind was just focusing on the loss of my son.

That was it.

I believe I cried for like six months straight.

I mean, every day, every day, every day.

And it made me, like, afraid of everything. Paranoid.

I couldn't go to the store by myself.

I definitely couldn't ride on the train by myself.

I was afraid of everything around me.

♪

Sylvester: I didn't go back to school for a few days.

When I went back to school,

everybody knew.

♪

I don't think I didn't make it through...

my first class...

before the principal,

the guidance counselor,

called me in the office and they was talking to me.

Asking me how I feel,

if there's anything they could do for me.

I didn't...

accept their help.

I just told them everything was fine,

and I just kept doing what I was doing.

Man: If black folks come out in massive numbers

on September the 12th and send a proper message,

then I think that, uh, Yusuf Hawkins will not have died in vain.

Cokie Roberts: This year, New Yorkers might not be particularly

interested in positions or plans

after years of growing hostility between the races.

They might opt, instead, for a symbol of reconciliation,

of bringing together this divided city,

and perhaps providing some peace and quiet.

Crowd (chanting): David! David! David! David!

-(chanting continues) -(applause, cheers)

Dinkins: I see New York

as a gorgeous mosaic of race and religious faith.

This administration will never lead by dividing,

by setting some of us against the rest of us.

I intend to be the mayor of all the people of New York.

(applause)

Crowd (chanting): No peace for racists!

No peace for racists! No peace for racists!

Newscaster: Listen to the sound, read the headlines,

and the message is loud and clear.

New York is a city seemingly on the verge of a racial apocalypse.

Predictions of riots, should juries find a pair of defendants

in the alleged racial killing of Yusuf Hawkins

in Bensonhurst not guilty.

Crowd (chanting): Yusuf! Yusuf!

We talked, and I tried to prepare them for the worst.

I said, "I don't care what the DA says.

"We could walk out of here with nothing.

This is a system that doesn't always work."

And I think that they were prayerful,

but prepared for acquittals.

And, uh, then we headed to the court.

♪

Newscaster: On trial at the same time as Joseph Fama,

but with a separate jury, is Keith Mondello, also 19.

He is accused of organizing the gang that attacked the young blacks.

There was two people on trial, all right?

Uh, the shooter,

and basically the person they were characterizing

as the ringleader, all right?

And, you know, it's-- be-- it would be hard to dispute

either, either characterization, all right?

And I don't think I ever really tried to dispute that characterization.

Keith Mondello: Just me being there, uh, doesn't

say that I'm guilty, okay?

And everyone has portrayed me

as some racist killer, which I'm not.

If they evaluate the evidence,

they'll realize it wasn't a racial case.

That, uh, it had nothing to do with race.

I don't think anyone would want a lawyer that

when the trial starts, saying, "Yeah, it was racism."

He didn't go there to kill anyone,

and he didn't use the bat. He never lifted it off his shoulder.

You'd have to be stupid to not

determine that there was a,

a racist element to the whole thing to begin with.

Newscaster: In his opening statement against Mondello,

prosecutor James Kohler said the defendant was enraged

at a former girlfriend for inviting black

and Hispanic boys to her birthday party,

and that Mondello threatened to, quote, "Shoot the niggers."

His attorney countered not so much by defending his client,

but by attacking the credibility of Mondello's former girlfriend.

Feliciano: That brought back a lot of hurt, you know,

and I didn't want to say--

I was hesitating to say it into the courtroom.

But it did come out eventually, but it came out mostly in tears.

Gina Feliciano is the one

who caused the whole incident to occur.

-Gina's not on trial. -Gina ain't on trial!

She ain't on trial. Mondello is.

♪

Newscaster: Keith Mondello, who they believed was the ringleader,

fingered Fama as the gunman.

But as a co-defendant, that part of his confession

could not be used in Fama's trial.

♪

Officer: You testified that you saw Joe Fama

shoot, uh, the black person.

Yes.

Officer: When you testified to it, did you believe it?

No.

Officer: If you didn't believe it

in your own mind, why did you testify to it?

Well, when you said I believed it, I, I, I,

I thought I, I thought I was there.

But I found out myself...

I wasn't really there at the time.

Like, uh, maybe 'cause I got a problem, you know,

and maybe I don't have a problem any more,

but maybe then I had a problem.

Officer: When you say "then," you mean in August of 1989?

Yeah. Maybe 'cause I just got out of the hospital. I wasn't feeling well.

They couldn't be touched,

because they were affiliated somewhat with the mob.

That's what we were hearing.

So there was some intimidation.

Interviewer: Did you see Fama in the courtroom?

Yeah, I did.

Interviewer: And what did he look like to you?

He just-- He just didn't care.

Like, no sense of remorse at all.

Diane: When the trial was going on,

and they showed those pictures of my son,

you know, what happened and stuff like that,

I had to leave the courtroom.

I couldn't stand there and watch those pictures.

♪

Stewart: I'm telling you that if this case

comes out of that courtroom with anything less

than six men going to jail,

then somebody better tell the devil in Hell

that Moses Stewart is comin'.

(crowd chattering, clapping)

Diane: I didn't have that in me to,

to get out there in the forefront

and speak like Moses and Sharpton.

Interviewer: Mrs. Stewart, if I might,

have you had a conversation with, uh...

Diane: It took a whole-- a big toll on me

to do those things, but...

I did do it.

I'd just like to say I want justice,

and goddamn it, I demand it,

'cause I'm tired of being treated this way.

It's very unfair.

That's all I have to say.

Reverend Sharpton: We would like the mayor

and others that have called for racial harmony

to show now a commitment to racial justice,

and to join the family in Bensonhurst on Saturday.

Crowd (chanting): Yusuf! Yusuf! Yusuf! Yusuf!

I've never been to nothing like that in my life before.

Interviewer: What were your thoughts about Yusuf during the march?

We're out here for you.

But still it hurts so bad, but...

we, we had to do this.

Moses, Sharpton and I, we had to do this, yeah.

To try to get a point across, you know.

Crowd (chanting): Yusuf! Yusuf!

Yusuf! Yusuf! Yusuf! Yusuf!

Yusuf! Yusuf! Yusuf!

Reverend Sharpton: You do not get a gorgeous mosaic with speeches.

You get it by confronting reality.

Racism is alive.

Man: Free the boys from Bensonhurst.

Al Sharpton, we clearly,

his, his behavior and his actions,

were different than mine.

We must repress our, our rage,

channel our energies and come together

to make this tragedy transforming.

I'm trying to govern an entire city,

and keep the peace, as it were.

Reverend Sharpton: Our lives are at stake.

We're doing what Dr. King would have done.

He would not be hiding behind flags in City Hall.

He would do what he did in other cities.

He'd be in the street with the victims' mothers,

asking for somebody to understand our pain.

We may not express it the way you like,

but, damn it, it's the only way we know how to say it.

Reporter: Reverend Al, how many more marches?

How many more marches?

You'll find out in Brooklyn at the courthouse.

♪

(indistinct chatter)

Joseph Fama has been found guilty of murder in the second degree,

which is depraved murder. Depraved indifference to human life.

-Yes! -Yeah!

Crowd: Guilty!

Guilty!

News anchor: Joseph Fama cried,

but said nothing as Justice Thaddeus Owens

announced that the 19-year-old,

convicted of killing Yusuf Hawkins,

would spend 32 and two-thirds years to life.

Fama's father Rocco shouted and cursed,

most of it in Italian.

You see your parents there,

and it was, you know, it was a mess.

I guess it would be a mess for any family,

to see their son getting sentenced, uh,

for something they didn't do.

It was a strong case.

It was upheld on appeal, to the Appellate Division.

It was held up on appeal to the Court of Appeals.

Um, and, I, I, I sleep well at night

knowing that Joe Fama was convicted and is in jail.

♪

Amir: That day was a, was a great day then, you know.

But that's just the temporary relief.

He's going behind cell bars.

My brother went in the grave.

He don't have the option to breathe no more.

He don't have the option to talk anymore.

Your, your, your mother, she could come see her son.

♪

Diane: It's a great relief

that Fama came out guilty

in the killing of my son, Yusuf Hawkins.

But that's, that's beyond

of what I'm feeling deeply inside for the loss of my son.

Because I cannot go to him, and touch him, and...

can't be with him, and he can't be with his mother.

♪

Newscaster: There are more shouts.

Verdict is coming now. Let's stay with it. Get down on the podium.

The verdict is coming now.

Uh, David Bookstaver will be coming into this room.

Here he comes now. Let's listen to David Bookstaver.

(reporters clamoring)

No minutes. We're going now.

The first, uh, charge,

intentional murder in the second degree: not guilty.

Second charge, manslaughter in the first degree:

not guilty.

Murder in the second degree,

depraved indifference: not guilty.

Manslaughter in the second degree: not guilty.

Riot in the first degree: guilty.

Reporter: The Hawkins family, along with Al Sharpton,

uh, Moses Stewart,

Hawkins' mother and father just went through.

They clearly have what they consider to be

a travesty of justice.

Diane: Excuse me, brother. Blow your horn.

They found Mondello not guilty.

Crowd (chanting): Burn Bensonhurst! Burn Bensonhurst!

(shouting)

Man: Get out of here!

Get out of here! Get out of here!

♪

(chatter, commotion)

(chatter on police radio)

Graham: Keith Mondello got off not guilty,

and there was, um, a lot of media on the block,

you know, where we grew up.

Certain individuals didn't want to be interviewed,

but they were so angry.

(commotion, yelling)

It got violent. It did.

Newscaster: Our correspondent Ed Miller

was later treated for facial cuts,

a back injury, and a possible broken nose.

It was a very, you know, dark moment,

but, you know, I could understand the frustration.

Newscaster: Another television crew fled the scene

with the mast on top of the remote truck still up.

It struck a power line, causing damage to the truck,

and blacking out the block.

(clattering)

Man: Hey, hey!

(yelling, commotion)

Dinkins: While I will be the first to uphold a person's right

to demonstrate regarding perceived injustice,

I want it to be clear that anyone who abuses that right

by engaging in lawless activity

will be subject to the fullest legal sanctions.

(yelling, commotion)

-No justice... -Crowd (chanting): No peace!

-No justice... -Crowd (chanting): No peace!

-No justice! -Crowd (chanting): No peace!

Reverend Sharpton: I went out and said that we are not the violent ones.

We are not people that want equality

in depravity.

Uh, I don't know how, uh, one jury can find Fama guilty,

and the ringleader not be guilty.

It was a very, uh, bad night for the Hawkins family.

And it's a very bad night for the black community.

(yelling, clapping)

I said don't disparage, don't kill Yusuf's name

by reducing him to a cause of a riot.

Crowd (chanting): No justice, no peace!

Reverend Sharpton: Make his name resonate

that if people stand up with dignity and persistence,

they can get justice.

That's what Yusuf's name should represent in history.

(sirens beeping)

Newscaster: A day after Keith Mondello was found not guilty of murder,

demonstrators led by the Reverend Al Sharpton

marched through a three-block area of Bensonhurst

near the spot where 16-year-old Yusuf Hawkins was killed last August.

Crowd (chanting): Yusuf! Yusuf! Yusuf! Yusuf!

Reverend Sharpton: We kept marching,

because there were still others that were not indicted.

And the sentences were not done to the level that we wanted.

Crowd (chanting): Yusuf! Is dead! Yusuf! Is dead!

(chanting continues)

Gibbons: I looked up the civil rights leaders.

You know, Sharpton wasn't even on that list.

You Google it, he's not even there.

Men like that,

they do more damage.

And maybe they think they're doing good.

But when you instigate a neighborhood

to prove that the neighborhood is racist,

you're not being part of the solution.

You're creating more problems.

Yusuf did lose his life

because of the color of his skin.

But not because Bensonhurst is a racist, vigilante neighborhood,

trying to keep colored people out.

That is not true.

Crowd (chanting): No justice, no peace! No justice, no peace!

Det. Regina: The "no justice, no peace" stuff, and all that,

there was justice.

And after justice, there should have been peace.

Crowd (chanting): We will be back, and that is a fact!

We will be back, and that is a fact!

♪

Reverend Sharpton: We would always go in what they had as a frozen zone

behind the school,

and the police would line up.

And I saw this kind of blurred blue pass me.

And I felt somebody, like, punch me in the chest.

And everybody looked and said, "That guy punched Rev."

(commotion)

Woman: Reverend, you all right?

Woman 2: Get an ambulance!

Reverend Sharpton: And I looked down and I saw this knife

sticking out of my chest.

When I grabbed it, blood started gushing,

and Moses starts screaming, "He hit him! He stabbed him!"

He's going, "Oh, he shot him!"

Some of our guys grabbed at the guy, started hitting the guy,

and the police came and started hitting them

to get them off of the guy that stabbed me.

Dr. Fulani: All right, Reverend Sharpton

is on the way to the hospital.

We came out here to march, and we're gonna march.

They're not gonna stop us no matter what they do.

Crowd (chanting): No justice, no peace! No justice, no peace!

Reverend Sharpton: I remember I'm laying in the recovery room,

after surgery, and I kind of look up,

and, uh, I'm still trying to figure out what happened.

I didn't know how serious it was. I knew I was stabbed.

And, uh, Dave Dinkins pulled his mask down,

and almost immediately, uh,

Mayor Dinkins says, "We need you to call for peace."

And I teased him, uh, later,

and said that when I woke up out of this and saw you all,

I thought I had died and went to Hell.

♪

Stewart: Some say why keep marching

even in the face of these attacks.

Well, as long as the killers of Yusuf Hawkins are home,

I'm gonna march.

As long as we've got one set of laws

in the Brooklyn court for Bensonhurst,

and another set of laws in the Manhattan court for Central Park,

-I'm gonna march! -Crowd: Yeah!

As Martin had his men in his day,

Jesus had a Peter.

Muhammad had an Omar.

Well, Sharpton's got a Moses.

(crowd chattering)

Crowd (chanting): Yusuf! Yusuf! Yusuf!

Yusuf! Yusuf!

Amir: If we never started marching,

if we, if, you know, if we never started

coming together as a community,

maybe, just maybe, the outcome would have been different.

Maybe nobody wouldn't have went to jail, as far as we know.

You know, there's always strength in numbers. We all know that.

So I think when you start to get enough people to show support,

you're gonna get a different outcome.

You're gonna, you're gonna get a different outcome every time.

("Giving Up" by Durand Jones and the Indications playing)

♪ Thinking about you baby ♪

♪ I think it's time for me to go on my own way ♪

♪ Said I'm giving up ♪

♪ Thinking about you baby ♪

♪ I think it's time for me to go on my own way ♪

Every last one of them should have got some jail time.

Hey, if they was black, they would have all got life.

♪

Graham: After that happened, I was ready to

leave then. I was like, I can't do New York.

I'm glad I did, because, you know,

I just needed a breath of fresh air.

I would rather have my buddy here, you know?

Um, but at the same token, you know,

life goes on, and I know he wouldn't want me to just

sit here not being productive in my life.

I owe him to, to that.

Mm-hmm.

I don't think you ever get over it.

I don't think you ever get over it.

And, you know, you have to become either stronger,

or you let it take you.

♪

Freddy: Yusuf, he had dreams.

He wanted to go, you know, that's why he, um,

he applied to go to, um, Transit Tech.

He might have would,

would have wanted to be an engineer or something.

Train conductors. Things like that, you know?

Maybe he would have wanted to play basketball. (laughs softly)

You know, he had dreams.

♪

Diane: I wished I had more time to grieve for my son's death.

'Cause I really didn't grieve. Didn't have time to.

Happy birthday, Yusuf.

Happy birthday, son.

Because a lot of things was going on.

The marches, the courts,

the trials.

I was being a little pressured to,

like, "Stop crying." You know. "Be strong."

You know. And I tried.

I did what I, what I knew best.

But at times, I just broke down.

That was me. I was being myself.

Moses felt that I was being weak.

And of course he was angry.

I was, too. I was angry.

Hurt. Devastated. All of that.

It was hard for me,

because I was on my own, ever since he left.

I mean, you know,

he was coming back and trying to tell me what to do.

It's... mm-mm.

Not for me. I'm my own woman.

My own apartment, my name on the lease.

Nobody come and tell me what to do. I'm sorry. No.

So, he couldn't take that, so he had to go.

We went our separate ways.

♪

Amir: It says, uh,

"Amir, I'm not good at, at writing letters,

"so this will be short. I just want to say that,

"I am very proud of you, son.

"I know we, we never really had a chance to...

"to bond deeply.

"Amir, I have always wanted to be with you,

"and your brothers, Freddy and Yusuf,

"but things did not work out that way.

"Amir, if you ever need me for anything,

"please call me or write me, or just...

"come to me, son. I will be there for you.

"Remember, I love you, son,

"and if, and if you call, I will come.

Your father and brother, Moses Freddie Stewart."

♪

(train clattering)

Sylvester: For a long time,

I always...

thought I should have died instead of Yusuf.

One day, I kind of woke up...

and looked in the mirror.

And I could hear Yusuf's voice, like, "What are you doing?"

Oh, man.

I'm like, "What do you mean?"

He's like, "This is not you.

"You survived.

"Keep on living.

"Do the best you can for you.

And just keep me in your heart and keep me in your memory."

♪

Amir: He's gonna live on through all of us.

He's gonna live on through all of us,

and, you know, we're not gonna let him go away.

He's not gonna go away.

♪

♪

Photographer: Couple more, guys.

This is even better. I like this even more.

♪

Very nice. Let me get a few more.

♪

Looking at me.

Looking good, guys. Let's keep that going.

(camera shutter clicking)

Group (chanting): Yusuf! Yusuf! Yusuf! Yusuf!

(chanting continues)

Yusuf! Yusuf! Yusuf! Yusuf!

Yusuf! Yusuf! Yusuf! Yusuf!

(chanting continues)

(chanting continues)

(chanting continues)

(chanting fades)

♪