Yusef Salaam:
I often look at this story that the nation got a chance to really have a front seat to view.
Often, now I call it the love story — or a love story between God and his people. And, of course, the antithesis of that is like, OK, what about the other actors? When we’re fighting against injustice, we have to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that, in America, it may look black and white, but, in other parts of the world, sometimes it looks like people who are fighting against each other look the same way, right?
And so what I have understood is that we have the fight against spiritual wickedness in high and low places. The juxtaposition is so beautiful, because we get an opportunity to see miracles happening right in front of our faces, get an opportunity to see what the justice system is supposed to look like, and what happens to Black bodies who, in a country where we want to be treated as equal, we want to we want equity, in fact.
But we still live in a very divided states of America that needs to be joined together. Even in our communities, our home communities, our communities all around the country, we’re moving as fragmented people, even though we’re in community. We need to come back together again to do the work of rebranding and rebuilding ourselves as first-class citizens, as opposed to second-class citizens.
No one of us have ever decided that for our lives, of course. And now here we are on the cusp of really being able to see something different in my candidacy.
I have often said that the next person to assume the position of city council member will be the one who determines what the future of Harlem looks like. And I think the future of Harlem is bright. There’s a lot of great things happening here. And, man, I can’t really wait to serve our people.