January 15th, 1992. Geraldo Rivera on his namesake talk show brings us Doug E Fresh, Luther Campbell and Sister Souljah after tragedy stuck a recent event in New York City.
“…a 17 year old kid, heading to the stars. Do you feel bitterness in your heart Mr. Nelson, do you blame someone specifically, who’s responsible for this loss?”
After a re-cap of the tragic happenings, we speak to three of the families who lost someone. What caused these deaths; concert organizers, the crowd, rap music itself? We hear from these families how the promoters of the event may have been cutting corners, and other cumulative issues that could have led to this tragedy.
After hearing from the families Luther Campbell of 2 Live Crew talks about how the media takes things like this out of proportion. Sister Souljah finishes out the segment talking about how one of her newest songs is not necessarily racist, but a true reflection of America in 1995. Her lyrics speak truth.
Sister Souljah’s song “Slavery’s Back In Effect” was originally shown in this segment but has been removed.
In the years following multiple wrongful death and personal injury lawsuits were filed, and in 1997 Sean Combs, who was promoting the event, paid $50,000 to the family of Sonya Williams.
This day, Geraldo’s television history.