Ruben “Hurricane” Carter, who had been suffering from prostate cancer, passed away on April 20, 2014 at the age of 76. Carter, who was born on May 6, 1937 in New Jersey, was a former boxer who was accused of murder in 1966.
Carter spent 19 years in prison in New Jersey before a court reversed his conviction in 1985 and set him free. His story inspired a great Bob Dylan song and a movie starring Denzel Washington. While both the song and the movie took some liberties with Carter’s story, they both captured truths about the criminal justice system.
Bob Dylan’s “Hurricane”
Carter’s case became a rallying cry for the Civil Rights Movement. Bob Dylan and Jacques Levy wrote a song about the wrongful conviction. And then Dylan released “Hurricane” as a single in November 1975.
Dylan played what many fans consider his last great protest song during almost every performance of the 1975 Rolling Thunder tour. “Hurricane” went on to become a top 40 hit, despite its length and level of detail in telling a story.
Denzel Washington’s Hurricane
Ruben Carter’s life appeared in a major film too. In 1999, Denzel Washington portrayed Carter in the movie Hurricane, which was directed by Norman Jewison.
Washington gave a wonderful performance as Carter, winning a Golden Globe and earning a nomination for the Best Actor Academy Award. In this scene near the end of the film, Denzel Washington as Carter makes a final plea to the court.
The Real Story
The movie and the song took some dramatic license with the facts of Carter’s life. For example, many noted that Dylan’s song overstated Carter’s ranking in the boxing world (“He could-a been/ The champion of the world”).
Further, some critics argue that the song and movie made Carter too much of a saint and martyr. Even Carter revealed a more complex story in his own autobiography written in prison, The Sixteenth Round: From Number 1 Contender to Number 45472
Ultimately, the federal judge who reversed Carter’s conviction noted the unjust role of race in the case. And, like all folk songs, the message of Dylan’s song became important on its own. Although the singer tells a story about one man, the song told the truth about wider problems in the criminal justice system.
After getting out of prison, Carter devoted his life to helping people in prison who were wrongfully convicted. From 1993 until 2005, he worked as Executive Director of the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted, and he founded a nonprofit organization, Innocence International. RIP.
Photo of Carter in 1958 via public domain.
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