Central Park Entrance Renamed After Exonerated Five

A Central Park entrance was renamed the “Gate of the Exonerated” on Monday in honor of the “Exonerated Five”: the five men wrongfully convicted in the 1989 rape of a Central Park jogger.

Wrongfully convicted

Korey Wise, Antron McCray, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson and Yusef Salaam each served several years in prison before being exonerated in 2002.

Matias Reyes, a serial rapist and murderer, confessed to the crime and said he had acted alone.

DNA analysis later confirmed Reyes as the perpetrator and hair evidence used in the boys’ trials did not match.

After this revelation, New York District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau ordered a new investigation and, on his recommendation, a judge vacated the convictions.

The city settled a lawsuit in 2014 with the five men, who were youths at the time of the crime and coerced amid a public uproar over race into confessing to the attack.

The identity of the jogger, Trish Meili, was kept hidden for more than a decade until she wrote a memoir about her experience.

Gate of the Exonerated Ceremony

The gate entrance is located at 110th Street.

Three of the five men were in attendance at the ceremony who spoke about their struggle through injustices, the breaking of “generational curses” and continuing the fight for social justice.

“We are here because we persevered … because what was written for us was hidden from the enemies that looked at the color of our skin and not the content of our character,” Salaam said.

Monday’s unveiling was the first time Raymond Santana had returned to the park, bringing with him — also for the first time — his 18-year-old daughter. He said the men had been mere teens at the time.

“We’re babies, that had no dealing with the law, never knew what Miranda was, but we’re here now,” he said. “Over 300 articles written about us in the first three weeks of this case, dissecting the lives of 14- and 15-year-old kids. The labels: ‘urban terrorist,’ ‘wolfpack,'” he recalled.

Richardson recalled the public information campaign of hate against the wrongfully accused, saying there had been “ads that said four of us should be horse whipped, while the elder, Korey Wise should be hung from a tree.”

“That’s slave talk right there,” he said.

New York mayor Adams, who was a police officer at the time, also made remarks.

“History has an opportunity to rewrite the lines,” he said.

“The ‘Exonerated Five’ is the American Black boy, man, story,” Adams continued.

This naming “is sending a strong message … We should be having school trips [to the gate] to talk about this story.”