The Lafayette Grill was on what was considered a border of sorts, a line of streets and frame homes that was slowly being integrated by black and Hispanic residents. Lafayette bartender James Oliver was said to have excluded or discouraged black patrons, according to trial testimony. But that may be more of an accident of social customs than an outright act of racism. Paterson police say the Lafayette Grill occasionally had black customers. Bill Panagia, 64 of South Hackensack, the son of owner Betty Panagia and an occasional bartender there, said he doubted there was a whites-only code, but "every time I went in there, there were only whites.
To go back 34 years in Paterson or many other American cities is to return to a time when America's racial crucible boiled with idealistic promise and fiery violence. Congress had passed landmark legislation to expand civil rights and social programs to eradicate poverty. But riots had erupted in Watts, Detroit — even in Paterson. And in Harlem, Malcolm X had been gunned down by three black men, one of whom was from Paterson. Newark's devastating riots were still a year away, the assassination of the Rev.
Martin Luther King Jr. In Paterson that night, police immediately suspected that the shooting of whites at the Lafayette Grill might have been an act of revenge for Leroy Holloway's killing at the Waltz Inn.
Their suspicions were not just based on a hunch, though. After Holloway was pronounced dead, his stepson, Eddie Rawls, went to police headquarters. Speaking to an officer, he wanted to know what was being done on his stepfather's case.
The officer told Rawls not to worry. But Rawls was not satisfied, according to trial and grand jury testimony. As he left the police station, Rawls reportedly shouted that if police didn't handle the case properly, he would take matters into his own hands. The Nite Spot was Rubin Carter's favorite hangout. The place even had a special "champ's corner" for the popular boxer. For prosecutors, this mere coming together of Rawls, Carter, and Artis became the basis for what they later called their "racial revenge theory" to explain the killings at the Lafayette Grill.
For Carter and Artis, the theory would become one of the cornerstones of a decision by a federal judge in to free them from prison. On Thursday, June 16, Carter spent the day assembling boxing equipment and packing his rental car, a white Dodge Polara with blue and gold New York plates. He was scheduled to fight in August in Argentina against Juan "Rocky" Rivero, and this would be his last chance to let loose before training camp. Carter's boxing career had suddenly reached a plateau.
After four years of success, Carter lost a fight for the middleweight title. He would win only seven of his next 14 fights, losing six and tying one. By Monday, he planned to be at a former sheep farm in Chatham, where he would begin the harsh physical regimen of running, weight lifting, and boxing that he would need to put his career back on track.
Carter had dinner at his Paterson home with his wife at about 5 p. With his shaved head and bushy goatee, he was one of the most recognizable residents of Paterson. Artis was also looking to have a good time. One of his best friends was also heading to Adams to play football. But only five weeks after graduation, Artis' mother died of kidney disease. Artis, an only child, remembers being devastated.
Artis put off college and got a job driving a truck for a local food deliverer. He played semi-pro football with the Paterson Panthers and kept in shape.
But most nights, he headed for a club where he could show off his dancing skills. By , he felt he was ready to try college. Plus, Artis was worried about being drafted into the Army and being sent to Vietnam. He had recently lost his student deferment and had been reclassified as 1-A for the draft. If he went to college, he wouldn't be drafted. On the night of June 16, Artis put on a light blue mohair sweater with his initials monogrammed on the breast, light-blue pants, and gold suede loafers.
What happened with Carter and Artis over the next six hours is open to all manner of speculation — even today.
Carter and Artis, a decade apart in age, knew each other — both acknowledge that. But both say they did not know each other well. Prosecutors, however, say the two had spent considerable time together before June Paterson's current mayor, Marty Barnes, who knew Carter and Artis in the s, said the two "didn't really hang together. He was a little too young. By , Carter was well known in Paterson — and not just as a boxer. Like many black athletes, he had begun to speak out on race relations.
In , Carter went to Washington, D. In , however, Carter opted not to march with King in Selma, Alabama, because he feared he couldn't adhere to King's strategy of non-violence. Perhaps most controversial, however, was a profile of Carter in the Saturday Evening Post just before his middleweight title fight. Among other things, Carter reportedly suggested to a friend that they "get guns and go up there and get us some of those police.
Carter was at the Nite Spot tavern, according to trial testimony, when Eddie Rawls arrived with the news of his stepfather's murder. What happened next is open to speculation. Prosecutors insist that Carter started talking about guns that had been stolen from him a year earlier — and that he suddenly wanted to find them.
Carter denies this. Carter notes, however, that after the news of the murder of Rawls' stepfather, many blacks talked of a possible riot or some sort of trouble — "a shaking," as Carter described it in his grand jury testimony. Sometime between 2 and a. Artis said he needed a ride home and remembers Carter telling him he had to "earn" his ride — meaning that Artis would have to drive Carter home, too.
What emerged next is a tale with two distinct plots — or, as U. District Court Judge H. Lee Sarokin said in his landmark decision overturning Carter's and Artis' convictions, "two dramatically different versions of events" with evidence that is "often conflicting and sometimes murky. What is known is that within minutes after Paterson police arrived on the gruesome scene at the Lafayette Grill, they were told by witnesses that the killers had escaped in a white sedan with blue and gold license plates.
A radio call went out to Paterson police cruisers to be on the lookout for a white car. But as with other bits of evidence, this radio call was framed by a simple problem: What time did the call go out? Police say that just after the a. Instead of turning the corner and chasing the cars, the cruiser took a roundabout route by the Passaic River in what police later explained was an attempt to cut off the white car near the Paterson-Elmwood Park border. He has been a roving state correspondent and a columnist and reporter in the Ventura County edition.
He also was managing editor of the Ventura Star-Free Press. He graduated in from Trinity College in Hartford, Conn. Chawkins left The Times in Moody Blues drummer and co-founder Graeme Edge dies at Sylvere Lotringer, intellectual who infused U. All Sections. About Us. B2B Publishing. Business Visionaries. Hot Property. Times Events. Times Store. But before he passed away from prostate cancer, he spent a quarter of his life behind bars as yet another athlete convicted of murder.
His story represents a tragedy on many levels. At the same time, three people lost their lives in violent fashion in June Born in New Jersey, Rubin Carter experienced a tough upbringing. After escaping from juvenile reformatory in , he joined the United States Army. That eventually led him to take up the sport of boxing. And shortly after he got discharged from the Army, he got convicted of two muggings and got sent to prison. After getting released, Carter dedicated his life to becoming a professional boxer.
After his release, he channeled his considerable anger, towards his situation and that of Paterson's African American community, into his boxing — he turned pro in and began a startling four-fight winning streak, including two knockouts. For his lightning-fast fists, Carter soon earned the nickname "Hurricane" and became one of the top contenders for the world middleweight crown.
In December , in a non-title bout, he beat the then-welterweight world champion, Emile Griffith, in a first round KO. Although he lost his one shot at the title, in a round split decision to reigning champion Joey Giardello in December , he was widely regarded as a good bet to win his next title bout. As one of the most famous citizens of Paterson, Carter made no friends with the police, especially during the summer of , when he was quoted in The Saturday Evening Post as expressing anger towards the occupations by police of Black neighborhoods.
His flamboyant lifestyle Carter frequented the city's nightclubs and bars and juvenile record rankled the police, as did the vehement statements he had allegedly made advocating violence in the pursuit of racial justice. Carter and John Artis had been arrested on the night of the crime because they fit an eyewitness description of the killers "two Negroes in a white car" , but they had been cleared by a grand jury when the one surviving victim failed to identify them as the gunmen.
Now, the state had produced two eyewitnesses, Alfred Bello and Arthur D. Bradley, who had made positive identifications. During the trial that followed, the prosecution produced little to no evidence linking Carter and Artis to the crime, a shaky motive racially-motivated retaliation for the murder of a Black tavern owner by a white man in Paterson hours before , and the only two eyewitnesses were petty criminals involved in a burglary who were later revealed to have received money and reduced sentences in exchange for their testimony.
Nevertheless, on June 29, , Carter and Artis were convicted of triple murder and sentenced to three life prison terms. While incarcerated at Trenton State and Rahway State prisons, Carter continued to maintain his innocence by defying the authority of the prison guards, refusing to wear an inmate's uniform, and becoming a recluse in his cell.
He read and studied extensively, and in published his autobiography, The 16th Round: From Number 1 Contender to Number , to widespread acclaim. The story of his plight attracted the attention and support of many luminaries, including Dylan, who visited Carter in prison, wrote the song "Hurricane" included on his album, Desire , and played it at every stop of his Rolling Thunder Revue tour. Prizefighter Muhammad Ali also joined the fight to free Carter, along with leading figures in liberal politics, civil rights and entertainment.
In late , Bello and Bradley both separately recanted their testimony, revealing that they had lied in order to receive sympathetic treatment from the police.
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