During a visit to HuffPost Live Tuesday to discuss his new initiative "Learn the Address," documentary filmmaker Ken Burns gave an update on the ten-year-old Central Park Five civil suit and told host Josh Zepps that New York City's new mayor will finally settle the case.
Burns' 2012 documentary "The Central Park Five" tells the story of five juveniles convicted in 1990 of raping a jogger in Central Park. In 2002, the convictions of the five defendants were vacated when another man confessed to the crime. The following year, the Central Park Five filed a civil suit against the City of New York for their wrongful convictions that, after a decade, has yet to be resolved.
"Bill de Blasio, the mayor-elect, has agreed to settle this case, and though this is justice delayed way too long, and that is justice denied, [they] will not only be exonerated ... but they will have justice, they will see some closure, they will be able to be made whole," Burns said.
Burns joined HuffPost Live last year before the film's release with one of the exonerated members of the Central Park Five. Burns said then of New York City's refusal to settle the 10-year-old case, "the city has put molasses into the system," and that 10 years later "this is still an open wound that we continue to pick the scab on."
Burns new initiative "Learn The Address" is an effort to encourage Americans to learn the Gettysburg Address by heart. The project coincides with a film Burns is releasing this spring called "The Address," which chronicles a school in Vermont that uses the recitation and memorization of the Gettysburg Address in its education of students with learning disabilities.
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