Yusef Hawkins

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Yusef Hawkins (also spelled as Yusuf Hawkins) was a 16-year-old African American who was killed by a white youth, on August 23, 1989, in Bensonhurst, a largely Italian American neighborhood in the new York City borough of Brooklyn. Hawkins went there with three of his friends to inquire about a used car which was for sale. The group was confronted by a group of white youths from the neighborhood, one of whom, armed with a handgun, shot and killed Hawkins. Spike Lee's film Jungle Fever is dedicated in memory of Hawkins, and his photograph appears at the beginning of the film.

The incident uncorked a torrent of racial tension in and around New York City in the ensuing days and weeks, culminating in a protest march through the neighborhood led by the Reverend Al Sharpton, which almost precipitated a full-scale riot. The episode underscored the strained relations between Italian Americans and African Americans that have existed in many Northeastern cities for decades.

This incident further perpetuated the negative stereotype of Italian Americans as invariably racist, a generalization that many in Bensonhurst, and the larger Italian American community, reject, citing the community condemnation of the murder and commitment to see the perpetrators jailed for their crime.

Joseph Fama, the man who fired the shots that killed Hawkins, received a sentence of 32 years to life in prison for murder and unlawful possession of a weapon following his trial and conviction; several other defendants received lesser sentences on charges that included riot in the first degree, a felony.

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