Dr. Yusef Salaam is a City Councilman at New York City Council, having taken office in 2024. He is widely recognized as one of the Exonerated Five, a group of Black and Latino young men who were wrongfully tried and convicted in the 1989 “Central Park jogger” case. After spending between seven to 13 years incarcerated for crimes they did not commit, their sentences were overturned in 2002.