OJ Simpson dead: The night Oprah Winfrey described Los Angeles police chase to her fiancé and me over the phone still resonates – Professor Joe Goldblatt

It was 1994, and Stedman and I had been brought together through a book contract where, with another academic, we were writing the first ever complete guide to sports event management and marketing. Stedman had flown to Washington to review the final page proofs and help us make decisions regarding the final components of the book.

I watched Stedman’s face as it became very serious and his expression turned from surprise to shock and horror as Oprah informed him that OJ Simpson – then a famous former American football player and actor – was trying to escape from the police in his white Ford Bronco and that several squad cars were chasing him down the Los Angeles freeway.

She continued to use her accomplished news presenter voice to describe every detail of the chase and Stedman, my colleague and I were totally absorbed, even though we still could not actually see much detail on the television screen that was filled with static and wavy lines.

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In the months to come, as OJ was brought to trial, I realised that what we three had experienced in the office many months earlier was just the tip of the very deep and wide racial iceberg. It was in fact the beginning of a paradigm shift in race relations in the United States.

When the final not guilty verdict was announced, I heard a gigantic roar from a classroom just opposite my office. I rose from my chair and walked into the back of the classroom, where I witnessed the black students cheering and weeping with joy whilst the white students sat there as if in great shock.

Although I would not classify the Simpson verdict in the same category as the assassination of President John F Kennedy and Dr Martin Luther King or the first time astronaut Neil Armstrong walked on the lunar surface, it was indeed a dramatic event that profoundly changed not only the United States but the world’s perception of Americans as well.

In the years after this event, I often wondered how my many black friends throughout the world considered this moment in relation to a later dramatic episode – the murder of George Floyd by a police officer – that led to the rapid expansion of the Black Lives Matter movement?

Following the recent death of Simpson at 76, I too wonder if, in the intervening 30 years, much has changed regarding race relations in the land of my birth? Since that tragic episode, which was sparked by the murder of two young people, followed by a protracted salacious televised trial that further divided the United States along a massive racial fault line, a black US President was elected and re-elected and, when he left office, he was highly respected by citizens throughout the world.

Three decades later, Stedman is still engaged to Oprah, having gone on to create a well-respected speaking consultancy as well as write many more books. This week, when I learned of Simpson's death, I immediately recalled that moment when we three watched a world-famous black athlete being chased by police.

I now wonder if, in a sense, that chase is still continuing to this day. Many citizens, including myself, are increasingly worried about the many deep divisions occurring within society and if we can ever imagine a time when we may atone for our past sins, ask for forgiveness, and finally at long last begin to heal? Now that would really be something worth turning on the television to see.

Joe Goldblatt is emeritus professor of planned events at Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh and chair of the Edinburgh Interfaith Association. His views are his own. To learn more about his views visit www.joegoldblatt.scot