October 1999
Mumia and the movement at the crossroads
NEW YORK-Some 400 people took part in double rallies and marches through
Manhattan, vowing to let the world know that Mumia must not die. The
activity began on 125th Street in Harlem. After a march down Broadway and a
second rally at Columbus Circle, the march continued in a protest against
the media's treatment of Mumia's case.
The major media have either refused to report on Mumia's appeal and the
movement to free him at all, or else they have done hatchet jobs on the
facts. The march went to the offices of ABC TV national news and VANITY
FAIR magazine to protest their stories. Last year Mumia refused to appear
on ABC's program about him because the technicians were on strike; he said
he preferred to die than to cross a picket line, even electronically. The
story they did without him was thoroughly biased against him.
At the rally at Columbus Circle, we listened to tapes of Mumia's radio
programs on the criminal injustice system and to speakers from New Africa
and other groups. In contrast to Mumia's very concrete analyses of
capitalist American law and order, most of the speakers declaimed their
passion to free him--"by any means necessary"--without discussing what work
needs to be done to really do so, that is, to build a mass movement. It was
sad to see such a small number of people turn out in New York, but sadder
not to discuss the problem. The good news reported was that during the past
"Mumia Week," tens of thousands of people took part in events in 96 cities
in the U.S.
A member of Mumia's legal team reported on what is likely to happen next in
his appeals. When the U.S. "Supremecist" Court re-opens Oct. 4, it will
announce the cases it has decided not to hear (denied cert), and Mumia's
petition will most certainly be among them. If cert is denied, the governor
of Pennsylvania may decide to sign Mumia's death warrant right away. Mumia
will immediately have all his possessions removed from his cell, no more
visitors, and a light on in his cell 24 hours a day--to prevent suicide,
since only the state is permitted to kill him! At that point, his lawyers
will file a habeas corpus petition for further review, which will suspend
the death warrant for a while. But a 1996 law now greatly limits federal
review of state criminal appeals, throwing us back into the pre-Civil
Rights Movement days. He emphasized that a mass outpouring is needed at
every stage of the appeals.
-Anne Jaclard
CHICAGO-Several hundred marchers in Chicago, a few hundred more in New York
City, and a virtual absence of demonstrators in the San Francisco Bay Area,
on Saturday, Sept. 25, all raise the disturbing specter that the capitalist
state now has a clear path to execute Mumia Abu-Jamal. The week of Sept.
19-25 was supposed to be a national campaign to raise the profile of
Mumia's death row case, which has now entered its final and most crucial
appeals stage.
The "One Hundred Cities for Mumia" mobilization was supposed to break the
strangle-hold that the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) has on all attempts
to publicize the raw miscarriage of justice that put Mumia Abu-Jamal on
death row. The fight to get Mumia a new trial has been blocked at every
turn by Pennsylvania's courts, while the FOP has sought to silence support
for Mumia by threats, intimidation, boycotts, and political arm-twisting.
In this they have had the ruling class support of Sam Donaldson of ABC NEWS
and VANITY FAIR.
In 1995, when Governor Tom Ridge signed the death warrant on Mumia, the
only thing that stood between Mumia and the death house was the
international mass opposition--people, masses of people, in the streets.
With the 1992 Los Angeles rebellion still fresh in the minds of the ruling
class, the Black inner-city youth who showed up 2,000 strong in downtown
Chicago, in 1995, made the powers-that-be think twice about taking the life
of Mumia.
As recently as April of this year tens of thousands turned out in
Philadelphia and the Bay Area. The momentum was once again building to stay
the executioner's hand and "persuade" the courts to do the right thing:
either free Mumia or grant him a new trial. Now, five months later, where
did those thousands for Mumia go?
Human rights attorney Stan Willis put the challenge squarely before the
movement, in his speech at the Chicago Mumia rally in Federal Plaza: at the
threshold of the 21st century, the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal is a defining
moment for the Black and radical movement. Unless there is, right now, a
thoroughgoing reorganization of our thinking, our politics, and our
priorities (No Business As Usual!), it will not only be Mumia's death
staring us in the face, but the death of the radical movement.
-Lou Turner
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