Editorial
April, 1999

Free Mumia Abu - Jamal!

The April 24 Millions for Mumia demonstration in Philadelphia will be one of the most significant political events in recent American history. It represents the culmination of a nationwide series of conferences, benefits, video screenings, mass leafletings, appeals to labor and religious organizations, and other creative efforts to defend the life of Mumia Abu-Jamal, America's death row political prisoner.

Framed and falsely accused in 1981 for the killing of a Philadelphia policeman, Mumia has become the focus of a worldwide movement which in 1995 helped temporarily to stay the state's bloody hand against him. With last year's denial of his appeal for a new trial, Mumia once again faces the possibility of execution. Now the movement must rise, in numbers, to the occasion.

It is above all the courage and integrity of Mumia himself that has inspired so many, allowed this movement to come together, and made it such a profound challenge to the racist rulers of this country. It is Mumia's refusal to allow himself to be silenced or dehumanized by the state's criminal injustice system that has made his life and his name a vital part of living history. It has also made it possible for so many to relate to his story on many different levels.

LINKS OF SOLIDARITY

There are many who can see Mumia's case in terms of the everyday reality of police brutality, and certainly the entire history of Philadelphia police attacks upon MOVE and others is an element at the very heart of this situation. It was Mumia's effort, as a journalist, to cut through the muck of lies and racism put out by the city and police that made him a target for attack.

Others can certainly relate to Mumia as a political prisoner, as the revolutionary Black journalist who was tried in part for his writings as a young member of the Black Panther Party. This is why he, uniquely, can inspire a movement in which intellectuals and creative writers can fight together with the persecuted youth of the neighborhoods.

The other major issue raised by Mumia's case is the racism and injustice of the death penalty itself. This has become a major issue on its own in states like Texas, with its "assembly line of death," and Illinois, where so many wrongfully condemned have been found innocent later that there is a growing movement for a moratorium on executions.

The late Merle Africa of MOVE wrote that "This issue of the death penalty ain't a Mumia issue, it's an issue that concerns us all 'cause it's Mumia today but it can be your son or daughter tomorrow. Particularly if you are poor and black, legal justice ain't based on evidence, it's based on prejudice, racism, intimidation. Is it any wonder why so many minority folks are sitting on death row?"

Mumia himself has extended these natural links of solidarity by his writings, as in his books and columns, and by such courageous, principled, and concrete gestures as are possible in his situation, like refusing to cross union picket lines to be interviewed on ABC television's 20/20 program. The vicious attack upon Mumia launched on that program in collusion with the Fraternal Order of Police begins to show why a mass movement for Mumia is necessary. Beyond even that, the monstrous growth of the prison-industrial complex reveals the extent to which the system is committed to a policy of criminalizing the disenfranchised and dissenting.

STATE DESIRES SILENCE

The kind of Nixon-Reaganite ideology being propagated today helps to lay bare something at the heart of a demonstration like Millions for Mumia that points far beyond this moment. In this country's history, freedom fighters have often, if not always, found themselves placed outside the law and treated as criminals. This was true of the great Black visionary Nat Turner who was executed following the slave revolt he led, and of the ensuing Abolitionist movement which often found itself outside the law. This was also true of the assassinations while in custody of the Native American leaders Crazy Horse and SittingBull, and the legal murder of the Haymarket Martyrs and others. In all these cases, the issue wasn't "guilt" but silence. As Mumia himself pointed out, the state desires his silence even more than his death.

This should make it crystal clear that the system itself can't be relied upon to free Mumia, but only the kind of mass pressure and outrage represented by the Millions for Mumia demonstration and the movement that it expresses. Again, like the case of Sacco and Vanzetti in the 1920s, Mumia's case is bringing a new generation of revolutionaries face to face with the latest stage of capitalist degeneracy in the form of the prison-industrial complex and the racist criminal injustice system. It has to be understood, then, how profoundly this movement is writing itself into history for this and future generations. FREE MUMIA!

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