O.J. Simpson's complicated legacy strikes at the heart of race in America
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O.J. Simpson is dead. Maybe – maybe – his body and soul will rest in peace. His tattered legacy certainly won’t.
Simpson, who succumbed to prostate cancer on Wednesday night in Las Vegas at 76, goes down in history as the ultimate American tragedy in so many ways.
From football legend and Hollywood star … to accused double-murderer and the Hall of Shame.
What a complex journey.
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Simpson was acquitted by a Los Angeles jury for the brutal slayings in 1994 of ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ron Goldman. Yet the presumptions – buttressed by the liability judged in a subsequent civil trial – are going with him to the grave.
If you were among the 95 million people watching in real-time on national TV as a Ford Bronco transporting Simpson, driven by his friend and former teammate Al Cowlings, rolled down the LA freeway in a low-speed police chase in June 1994, it was a series of images you’ll never forget. And no, it was hardly a move consistent with innocence.
Remember Simpson as polarizing, whether he intended to be or not. It’s fair. The so-called “Trial of the Century” and its aftermath struck at the heart of racial inequities in America and a criminal justice system that historically has victimized people of color. That’s part of his legacy, too.
Three years after the acquittal of four white police officers captured on video brutally beating a Black man, Rodney King, which ignited the L.A. riots in 1992, an all-Black jury found Simpson not guilty.
When the verdict was announced, the basic reaction from many white Americans was visible disgust. Simpson’s blood was part of the evidence. He didn’t have an alibi. He had a history of domestic violence incidents during his marriage.
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