Just Enough

Courtesy: The Llabb.com

Who am I?  It’s the question of a lifetime. The lucky ones get to live their way into the answer—steadily, unremarkably.  For some, though, the answer seeks them out and hunts them down—not discovered, but compelled. Life circumstances make it so.

Boxing legend Rubin “Hurricane” Carter knew that. He lived it.

A young fan once asked Carter how he wanted to be remembered. Carter paused for a moment, then said

“… just enough…

He was just enough to overcome everything that was laid on him on this earth.

He was just enough not to give up on himself.

He was just enough to believe in himself beyond anything else in this world.

He was just enough to have the courage to stand up for his convictions no matter what problems his actions may have caused.

He was just enough to perform a miracle, to wake up, to escape the universal prison of sleep, and to regain his humanity in a living cell.

He was just enough.

And so, my young friend, are you ‘Just enough?’ ”  

(From “Eye of the Hurricane: My Pathway from Darkness to Freedom” by Rubin Carter and Ken Klonsky with Foreword by Nelson Mandela, Chicago Review Press, 2011)

Rubin Carter died recently. In eulogy the spotlight shines once again on a man who made headlines—plenty of them—over five decades.

Carter burst on the scene in the 1960s. He was a talented middleweight and a showman, too: not as flashy as the eponymous Cassius Clay, but certainly good enough to grab public attention. Carter would enter the ring dressed in a black robe with gold trim, a panther stitched on the back. But it was the black hood that stood out. He’d wear it around his bald head; prance into the ring; and remove it with bravura.

With a fierce fighting style informed by life on the streets Carter was dubbed, “The Hurricane.” A promoter gave him that name because he felt Carter was a “raging, destructive force.” (Selwyn Raab, The New York Times 4/20/14).

How Carter got into the fight business made a lot of sense.  A speaking impediment as a youth made it difficult for him to talk. Carter answered taunts with his fists. Finished with school by the 8th grade—and fresh from bouts with the law and a stint in reform school—Carter entered the U.S. Army. There he translated his primary physical ability into competitive excellence: he won a belt as the Army’s European light-welterweight champion.

But Carter’s dysfunctional life continued after discharge: he was convicted of larceny and sent to state prison. Carter exited at age 24 without an education, needing to make a living. He turned, once again, to the only thing that he knew how to do well—fight. He went pro.

Carter had a notable, but brief, career (it lasted only five years). Twenty wins (of twenty-seven) were by knockout, including a highly publicized win in 1963 over internationally known Emile Griffith. Then, only three years after turning pro, Carter got his big chance—a shot at the middleweight championship. He lost to Joey Giardello—the more experienced and reigning champ—in a close (but unanimous) 15-round decision.

Courtesy: Boxing.com

Carter would have won many more fights, perhaps getting another chance at the crown—if his life hadn’t changed. Forever changed.

It was June 1966. Patterson, NJ. Carter spent the night bar-hopping with John Artis, a local athlete whom he had met just a few weeks before.  Artis and another companion asked Carter for rides home. Carter obliged.

They didn’t know that three people had been murdered at another bar, not far from where they had been drinking. Police scoured local neighborhoods looking for the suspects—two black men. Carter was pulled over once; released; pulled over again; and, then, detained. Carter and Artis were the only ones in the car the second time.

It would be the start of 22 years of hell.

Witnesses testified that neither Carter nor Artis was at the crime scene. But the police produced two guys who said otherwise, contending that they saw them leave the scene with guns in hand. Convictions followed—Carter 30 years, Artis 15 years—with Carter, especially, lucky to avoid the death penalty. Appeals were denied.

A travesty of justice it was. The police witnesses had criminal records. The men admitted they were lurking around the area with the intent to commit grand larceny. They either lied about what they saw or were pressured by police into making false accusations.

Either way the outcome put Carter back in the headlines. It was a different kind of fight this time. People around the country rallied on his behalf. Bob Dylan wrote a song about it.

Now all the criminals in their coats and their ties
Are free to drink martinis and watch the sun rise

While Rubin sits like Buddha in a ten-foot cell
An innocent man in a living hell.

That’s the story of the Hurricane.

But it won’t be over till they clear his name
And give him back the time he’s done.

Put in a prison cell, but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world.

                                                                  “Hurricane” by Bob Dylan, Columbia Studios, New York (1975)

Nearly a decade passed in jail. Carter read. He studied. He became a learned man. He wrote a book about his life and plight. It had a catchy title: The 16th Round–From Number 1 to #45472 (1974). This man without much formal education—who could hardly talk as a youth—had been transformed. Carter at 37 was well-read, erudite, and articulate.

Courtesy: Better World Books.com

On the outside things continued percolating. Investigative reporters, supporters, and public service attorneys persisted; and they found evidence of inappropriate police intervention. The convictions were overturned in 1976. Carter and Artis were free men.

What came next, though, was un coup très dur (a cruel blow): they were both re-charged in state court and found guilty a second time. Convicted anew the men returned to prison.

Appeals failed, but all of them were filed at the state level.  Circumstances changed with Federal government involvement. A Federal judge discerned irrevocable flaws in the prosecution’s case and overturned the convictions. The state appealed and the case went through a series of reviews, including by The U.S. Supreme Court.

Justice prevailed eventually. The charges were dismissed—irreversibly. Carter was released after 19 years in jail. Artis served about 15. It was 1988.

It was a public odyssey. Norman Jewison made a film about it, “The Hurricane,” released in 1999, with Denzell Washington playing Carter. The film received mixed reviews. Some claimed the script was overly ebullient about Carter, portraying him as a hero and not as the complex man he was.

But there wasn’t controversy about one thing: the relationship that emerged between Carter and Lesra Martin, a Brooklyn teenager with adoptive parents from Canada. Martin’s life was influenced significantly by reading Carter’s autobiography. Martin’s family got involved and that intervention helped influence the case’s adjudication.

Courtesy: cinemagia.com

After release, Carter moved to Canada. He focused on advocacy work and founded Innocence International, an organization dedicated to helping prisoners in the ways that he had been helped.

John Artis—by happenstance in the car that fateful night—joined the organization. The two men became even closer when Carter was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer. Artis moved to Canada and cared for Carter. Artis was at Carter’s side the day he died.

Over the years Carter wrote and spoke extensively about social justice. He liked to talk about “the prisons in life”—not just the brick and mortar kind—but ways of thinking (prejudice) and life circumstances (poverty) that imprison people. Many people—people of color especially—face “double jeopardy,” Carter said, imprisoned socio-culturally and, then, incarcerated through the penal system.

He received several honorary doctorates for his work. “Dr. Carter” was proud of that.

Courtesy: Sportsbreak.com

Rubin “Hurricane” Carter “Hurricane” had an impact on people—both good and bad. And it’s a split decision about where things settled finally. Just read the blogs written and the public comments made since his death: Carter is lauded and pummeled.

Personally, though, Carter felt he had done “just enough” in his life. How odd: a public figure using such a low-ball measure of success. It makes sense, though, if you put yourself in Carter’s shoes. He understood what most of us will never know: how much conviction, discipline, and energy it takes to rise above a life on the ropes.

“Just enough” scores a knockout.

ENDNOTE: For more about Carter’s life go to the April 21 edition of DEMOCRACY NOW! (LINK-TV) @ http://www.democracynow.org/2014/4/21/rubin_hurricane_carter_dies_at_76  The video portion begins at 29(m):25(s). You can watch the video segment only (courtesy of Free Speech TV) @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=491kWwMX8iA  The video at both sites includes interviews with John Artis and Ken Klonsky; and there’s a clip of Carter speaking at Queens University (Canada) in 1994.