Jailed for life for being black cover

Jailed for life for being black

by Bill Swan

"Rubin Carter was in and out of reformatories and prisons from the age of twelve. At twenty-four, he became a winning professional boxer and was turning his life around. But Carter was also very vocal about racism in the local New Jersey police force. In 1966, local policemen arrested Carter and a friend for a triple murder. The two were convicted and sent to jail for life. Carter spent nearly twenty years in jail, proclaiming his innocence. A teen from Brooklyn, Lesra Martin, heard Carter's story and believed he was innocent. He and a small group of Canadian lawyers contacted Carter and began working with Carter's lawyers in New York to get him exonerated. In 1985, a judge released Carter, ruling that Carter's conviction had been based not on evidence, but on racism. Carter moved to Canada in 1985, where until his death in 2014 he worked helping others prove that they had been wrongfully convicted."--Page 4 of cover.

Chappie’s discussion starters

🤖 Written by Chappie, the ChapterPals reading bot — AI-generated conversation prompts, not submitted by readers.

  1. Which character stayed with you after you turned the last page, and why?
  2. Was there a moment where you disagreed with a character’s choice? What would you have done?
  3. What theme did this book keep circling back to — and did it earn its ending?
  4. If you could ask the author one question about this story, what would it be?
  5. Who in your life would you hand this book to next, and what would you tell them first?