Welcome to the Melnick audio archives.
I hope you enjoy listening to some of my favourite on air conversations through the years, with most of them from my lengthy stints at CJAD (1982-1993 and again in 2000-01) and CIQC (1993-2000).
First up is the last half of a conversation I had with the famed boxer, author and prison rights activist Rubin “Hurricane” Carter just prior to Carter’s induction into the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame in November 1995. (I’m still searching for the first half.)
It was the third but sadly last time I spoke with Rubin. We also took some calls for him, including one from the late Roy Hamilton, who was a frequent caller to “Sports Rap” with Ted Tevan and it always thrilled me when Roy took the time to check-in with us as well.
The Hurricane never did make it to Montreal but at least his story did, in fact, make it to the big screen. The starring role was up in the air at the time of this interview, but it was Denzel Washington who ended up playing Carter in the movie. The performance was so strong it earned Denzel an Oscar nomination for Best Actor in 1999. (The winner was Kevin Spacey for his role in American Beauty.)
Carter was a top contender for the middleweight crown in 1966 when he and another man named John Artis were arrested and convicted of a triple-murder at a bar in Patterson, New Jersey.
Both men maintained their innocence and claimed they were framed by local police and authorities.
Carter wrote a book while in prison titled The Sixteenth Round (1974) which prompted a high profile campaign to get him released. Among the well known celebrities who took up his cause were Muhammad Ali, actress Dyan Cannon and Bob Dylan whose eight minute song of the story of Carter and the trial (“The judge made Rubin’s witnesses drunkards from the slums/To the white folks who watched he was a revolutionary bum”) helped force a new trial.
But Carter and Artis were found guilty for a second time.
Eventually, with the help of a group of Canadians and a young Brooklyn student who lived with them named Lesra Martin, Carter and Artis found themselves back in court. (This incredible story is told in the book “Lazarus and The Hurricane.”) This time it was at the federal, not state level. Judge Lee Sarokin threw out the convictions noting that the prosecution had been “predicated on an appeal to racism rather than reason, and concealment rather than disclosure.”
Carter and Artis were freed in November 1985.
Carter moved to Toronto where he became a Canadian citizen and the executive director of the Association in Defense of the Wrongfully Convicted.
Rubin Carter died of prostate cancer in Toronto in 2014. He was 76. His caretaker for the last 18 months of his life was John Artis.
