A new documentary revisits the story of a black teen killed by a white mob in 1989, with lessons for the present
Before the outrage over Tamir Rice’s shooting in Cleveland, before the protests for Michael Brown in Ferguson, before the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s killer launched the Black Lives Matter movement, before the nationwide marches for racial justice in summer 2020, there was the story of Yusuf Hawkins in New York.
Hawkins was 16 years old when, in August 1989, he traveled with three friends to the insular white neighborhood of Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, from his predominantly black neighborhood of East New York, to inspect a used car. Shortly after 9pm, a mob of white teenagers – some brandishing baseball bats, amped by a rumor that a local girl had invited black friends to town to taunt them – cornered the group. Someone fired a gun; two bullets struck Hawkins in the chest, killing him.
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