Source: Courtesy Netflix / Netflix
Kevin Richardson, a member of the Exonerated 5, has been wanting to attend Syracuse University since he was a young boy. Those dreams took a major hit in 1989 when he along with four other teenage boys were arrested and accused of raping and assaulting a white woman in Central Park, in New York City.
Those five young men were dubbed “The Central Park 5,” Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, Korey Wise, Yusef Salaam, and Raymond Santana served varying amounts of extended sentences before all of the charges were dropped, and reversed in 2002. The five received a $41 million settlement in 2014 for their troubles.
Richardson’s dream of attending Syracuse might not be coming true, but he will now be associated with the school in upstate New York via a scholarship in his name. The endowment will benefit minority students, specifically black and latino students. According to The Daily Orange, the endowment will benefit black and Latino students, an opportunity that Richardson said he’s “thrilled just to be connected to the university 30 years later.” According to Rachel Vassel of the Office of Multicultural Advancement, the scholarship has raised $25,000 and hopes it’ll “continue to grow it over the years.”
“When I was incarcerated, I always thought about what could have happened, so it will be bittersweet because I know that, wow, this could have been me when I was younger on campus,” Richardson said. “But just to be there will surpass the negative things that happened to me in my childhood.” As a talented trumpet player, Richardson had ambitions of furthering his studies at the New York state school. This past June, a petition called for the university to celebrate Richardson with an honorary degree.
Syracuse University Is Naming A Scholarship After Exonerated 5’s Kevin Richardson was originally published on cassiuslife.com
