After Colin Ferguson opened fire on a carload of Long Island Railroad passengers, killing six people, attorney William Kunstler prepared an insanity defense that featured "black rage" as the reason for Ferguson's diminished capacity. Ferguson had left behind a note, which displayed clear hatred of white people. When informed that Ferguson came from an upper-middle-class Jamaican family and did not suffer any discrimination himself, Kunstler identified the overall history of slavery as the culprit, rather than any specific indignity Ferguson may have experienced.

Even Colin Ferguson was not impressed with the strategy. In a series of letters to the Nassau County Court written several months after the crime took place, Ferguson complains that "The 'black rage' defense is nothing more than Kunstler and Kuby [a second attorney] satisfying their own dishonest political agenda. They don't want to try the case on the facts."

Ferguson was later judged mentally competent to represent himself in his own trial, at which he attempted to subpoena President Clinton and also contended that another passenger did the shooting after stealing the automatic weapon the dozing Ferguson happened to be carrying in a bag.

In an Associated Press interview, Ferguson denied he was a racist. "[Racism] destroys the very fiber of your being, any kind of hate based on race," he said. "We can always absorb disagreement without inflicting wounds on anyone."

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