https://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2020/08/the-story-of-rubin-hurricane-carter-wrongly-convicted-boxer-dylans-muse.html article continued

In the midst of all this, Bob Dylan met with Carter after reading his biography, and penned his newest modern day protest song, “The Hurricane.” In 1976, between being sung on tour, spun on the radio, and talked about in the media, the song helped raise even more awareness as well as funds to help Carter’s situation get a closer examination. It’s an incredible song that went all the way to #33 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Dylan stepped into the ring for Carter. But in doing so, he became a lightning rod for controversy himself.

Dylan was immediately accused of factual inaccuracies, including directly misquoting key figures in his song and exaggerating certain details of Carter’s career. Dylan’s label, Columbia, wrung their hands about this as well. Worried they’d be sued for libel, they pleaded with Dylan to change some of the lyrics and re-record the song; and, although he did, he was eventually sued by at least one witness.

Dylan won. Despite any inaccuracies it may have, the song was never intended to be one hundred percent factual.

One more note on Dylan’s song. I would be remiss here if I did not add a note about the fact that Dylan uses an offensive racial epithet in his lyrics. While offensive, and not something I personally would use in my own songwriting, it gets to the actual issue being discussed: Race in America; how we talk about race; how we engage with it; and how race affected the outcome of Carter’s wrongful imprisonment.

While I certainly don’t believe Dylan is racist, looking at this from a purely songwriting angle, it puts listeners in a difficult spot because the word he uses isn’t his to use. It’s a word that immediately triggers trauma in many individuals. And yet he does use it, and he makes us sit with it, shocked and uncomfortable. The goal, as with the rest of the song, is to shock the country to this injustice, both Carter’s and America’s.

One last complicating aspect of Carter’s story that gets little attention amidst the rest of the drama, but I feel is important to mention, is activist Carolyn Kelley’s 1976 accusation that Carter violently assaulted her to the point of blacking out in a hotel room. Though he was never charged for the assault, evidence and accounts do seem to truthfully corroborate Kelley’s retelling of the incident, and it did have a negative effect on Carter’s public appearance at the 1976 retrial when he was again sentenced to life in prison.

But in 1985, nearly twenty years after his original conviction, Carter’s life sentence was finally overturned and he was released from prison (Artis had been paroled just a couple years prior) due to the newly appointed Federal Judge H. Lee Sarokin granting a writ of habeas corpus. Sarokin found the trial to be rife with racial prejudice, “grave constitutional violations,” and found the state had withheld exculpatory evidence.

The U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the judge’s decision to overturn, and with the Supreme Court declining to hear the case, the prosecution had little choice but to drop it. Sarokin never heard the Dylan song, and in fact declined to listen to it when someone presented it to him.

“That’s the story of the Hurricane…”

This is a mysterious story, with strange twists and a lot of uncertainty. The reason we tell the story of Rubin “Hurricane” Carter is not to glorify an imperfect man put up on a pedestal by a cultural icon. We tell this story because of what it reveals in our own justice system, and the imbalances in sentencing and evidence-consideration when it comes to racial bias.

For Carter’s part, he used his newfound freedom in a way you might expect; he became a public speaker and advocate for the wrongly accused. He moved to Canada and became a naturalized citizen — perhaps understandably, no longer feeling comfortable in the U.S. He died of cancer in 2014, a free man.

Daniel Reifsnyder is a Nashville-based, Grammy-nominated songwriter, having started his musical journey at the age of 3. In addition to being an accomplished commercial actor, his voice can be heard on “The Magic School Bus” theme song and in Home Alone 2. Throughout his career, he has had the honor of working with the likes of Michael Jackson and Little Richard among many others. He is a regular contributor to several music related blogs, including his own, Songsmithing.net.