Long before the advent of DNA technology, the case of boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter -- who was ultimately absolved after being convicted in connection with a 1967 triple-murder in a New Jersey bar -- helped to drive home the reality of racism and other flaws within our judicial system. Carter, 65, who makes his home in Toronto, will discuss his experiences when he speaks Tuesday, September 11 at the Avon Cinema on Thayer Street in Providence (the Phoenix is a co-sponsor).

While Carter says his appearance will focus on the opportunity for dreams and redemption, he still brims with intensity in discussing his experience in going from an up-and-coming boxer to a wrongly convicted prisoner -- a situation memorialized in song by Bob Dylan and in Carter's autobiography, The 16th Round, From Number 1 Contender to Number 45472, originally published in 1974.

"People who are wrongly convicted have the same problems as those people who are kidnapped in Algeria or another country, who are snatched up and forcibly confined," Carter says in a telephone interview. "A person who has been wrongfully convicted and wrongful confined is of the same absence."

The problem of wrongful conviction has been illuminated in recent years by the highly publicized cases of people like Anthony Porter, who spent 17 years in an Illinois prison for two murders he didn't commit and came within two days of being executed in September 1998. In Rhode Island, the prosecution of Derick Hazard, who was convicted of murder -- although some people maintain he was in Ohio at the time -- has raised similar questions (see "Down by law," News, October 14, 1999).

Working in conjunction with an Atlanta-based center for human rights, Carter continues to try to correct cases such as his own wrongful incarceration. And, as he points out, in a country with close to two million people behind bars, even a tiny percentage of mistakes represents a pretty profound problem.

Carter is scheduled to speak at the Avon on September 11 at 7 and 9:30 p.m. Tickets are $25.

Issue Date: September 7 - 13, 2001