Apartheid. USA 1988

[p. 110]

September 5, 1987:

Three black teenagers, all victims of a racial assault on a Brooklyn Street were taken to City Hall for a meeting over coffee with Mayor Koch, ‘who listened with astonishment as they told him they bore no ill will toward their attackers,’ the Times reported. Michael Washington (19), arriving for the meeting with the mayor wearing his sprained right forearm in a sling, said that he was not interested in revenge - and did not even care if all of his attackers were arrested. ‘If we catch every last one of those guys - not that I want them arrested or anything - but if they can look at all three of us in our face and truly apologize, I mean truly apologize, then I can leave it all at that. I can shake their hand and walk off,’ said Michael Washington. He added, ‘These sentiments are coming from my heart. I hold no prejudice against anybody, I just now want us to live as one. That's how I feel in my heart.’ His companions agreed. ‘Retaliation is nog going to prove anything,’ David Smiley (19) said.

Mayor Koch later told reporters, ‘I was amazed at the generosity of spirit of the three of them.’ He added that he was unaccustomed to hearing such sentiments from assualt victims. ‘I would never have been so generous,’ the Mayor said. He presented each young man with an official navy blue and gold city necktie, featuring a design based on the city seal, and told them they might come in handy some day. Police were looking for the attackers and arrested one suspect, a 17-year-old plumber's helper. He was one of nine white youths brought in for questioning.^139.

139. The New York Times, from a report by David E Pitt