The 16th Round is a Tour DeForce

Rubin Carter had been in and out of juvenile detention facilities, jails and prisons for most of his life. However, in 1967, it seemed that his life was getting back on track. He was a serious contender for the middleweight boxing title, he was married to a beautiful woman and they had a precious daughter together. The Hurricane, as he was affectionately known by fans, seemed to have everything going for him. This all came to a halt, however, on May 26, 1967 in Patterson, New Jersey when a brutal triple homicide was committed at the Lafayette Bar and Grille and that homicide was wrongfully pinned on Rubin. In The 16th Round: From Number 1 Contender to Number 45472, Mr. Carter details the horrific, disgusting and shocking series of events that led from the Hurricane being a successful, black boxer to wrongfully living for the majority of his life in one of the country's most notorious prisons.

I picked up this book after seeing the movie version, starring Denzel Washington. In retrospect, I probably should have picked up the book before I saw the movie because Hollywood tends to dramatize things in order to make money for the producers, directors, actors, studios and staff. As a result, there are often inaccuracies that are chalked up to artistic discretion - inaccuracies that are incorporated in order to make the story better. The 16th Round is an autobiography written by Mr. Carter during his years of incarceration and which details his childhood, young adulthood and the events leading up to and including his trial for a triple homicide. I read it because I wanted to get a truer version of things than what Hollywood had given me.

The story is and always will be a powerful condemnation of racism among police officers and in America. It will always be a powerful treatise as to what it was like to grow up Black in the United States during the late forties and fifties, as well as what it was like to be a successful Black Man in the sixties. I walked away from this work feeling indignant and, quite frankly, pissed off that the system was trying to screw this hardworking man over. I also appreciated the fact that Mr. Carter's history and background were more clearly laid out. I had a better perspective of who the man that had been wrongfully convicted was. It was obvious that Mr. Carter had an agenda in writing this novel, but who wouldn't, considering the situation that he was in? He wrote a book to get his point across, much like other authors write their novels, non-fiction books or articles in order to get their own points across.

Generally, I enjoyed this book. It is definitely an important book for all to read.