Yusef Salaam author page

Yusef Salaam biography

Yusef Salaam is an American activist, speaker, poet and author. He was convicted in 1989, at age fifteen, in the “Central Park Jogger” case along with four others, a conviction that was vacated in 2002. He later became known as one of the Exonerated Five.

Salaam authored the memoir Better, Not Bitter: Living on Purpose in the Pursuit of Racial Justice, published in 2021.

He is co-author, with Ibi Zoboi, of the young adult novel-in-verse Punching the Air, released in 2020; the novel was a New York Times bestseller and has won multiple awards including the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Young Adult Literature and the Walter Dean Myers Award.

In 2016, Salaam received a Lifetime Achievement Award from President Barack Obama.