Tawana Vicenia Brawley[1] (born December 15, 1971)[1][2] is an African American woman from New York who gained notoriety in November 1987 at age 15 when she falsely accused four white men of kidnapping and raping her over a four-day period.
On November 28, 1987, Brawley was found in a trash bag after having been missing for four days from her home in Wappingers Falls, New York. She had racial slurs written on her body and was covered in feces. The feces came from a collie owned by a resident of the building where Brawley was found. Brawley accused four white men of having raped her. The charges received national attention in part because of the appalling condition in which she had been left, her young age, and the professional status of the persons she accused of the crime (including police officers and a prosecuting attorney). Brawley's advisers—Al Sharpton, Alton H. Maddox, and C. Vernon Mason—helped in bringing the case to national prominence.[3]
After hearing evidence, a grand jury concluded in October 1988 that Brawley had not been the victim of a forcible sexual assault, and that she may have created the appearance of such an attack herself.[2][4] Steven Pagones, the Greek American New York prosecutor whom Brawley had accused as being one of her assailants, later successfully sued Brawley and her three advisers for defamation.[4][5][6]
Brawley received support from the African American community.[7] Some academics have suggested that Brawley was victimized by biased reporting that was influenced by racial stereotypes.[8][9] The mainstream media's coverage drew heated criticism from the African American press, and from many black leaders who believed the teenager and her story.[10] The grand jury's conclusions decreased support for Brawley and her advisers; Brawley's family have maintained that the allegations were true.
- ^ a b McFadden, Robert D. (August 1, 1990). Outrage: the story behind the Tawana Brawley hoax. Bantam. ISBN 9780553057560. Retrieved June 3, 2018.
- ^ a b Tawana Brawley Grand Jury Report, October 1988
- ^ Diamond, Edwin (1991). The Media Show: The Changing Face of the News, 1985–1990. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
The great paradox of Brawley 2 was that this dumb show went on for months, encouraged by the authorities and the media. The 'white power structure' – as Sharpton calls it – all but propped up the advisers' shaky scenarios. The governor and the attorney general, their eyes on electoral politics as well as the case, gave the appearance of trying to avoid offense to any constituency, black or white.
- ^ a b Rosenblatt, Albert M. (2015). "County Legal History" (PDF). The Historical Society of the New York Courts: 39.
- ^ Cohen, Richard (9 January 2024). "Opinion | A VINDICATED MAN". Washington Post.
- ^ "Doubling down on a fraud | Christopher Silvester". The Critic Magazine. 2022-04-26. Retrieved 2023-09-02.
- ^ Yardley, Jim (December 3, 1997). "After a Decade, Brawley Reappears and Repeats Charges". The New York Times. Archived from the original on March 29, 2014.
- ^ Markovitz, Jonathan (2004). Legacies of Lynching: Racial Violence and Memory. U of Minnesota Press. ISBN 978-0-8166-3995-3.[page needed]
- ^ Jewell, K. Sue (2012). From Mammy to Miss America and Beyond: Cultural Images and the Shaping of US Social Policy. Routledge. p. 200. ISBN 978-1-134-95189-5.
- ^ Newkirk, Pamela (2002). Within the Veil: Black Journalists, White Media. NYU Press. pp. 152–154. ISBN 978-0-8147-5800-7.
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