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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Nov. 21, 1996
issue of Workers World newspaper
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Dec. 9 rally to free Mumia

By Kristianna Tho'Mas

A coalition of groups has called for a march on Wall Street Dec. 9, in the heart of the capitalist financial district of New York.

The groups include International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition, the National People's Campaign, and activists from labor, women's, and the lesbian/gay/ transgendered/bisexual community.

Mumia Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther and award-winning radio journalist of "Voice of the Voiceless," has been on Pennsylvania's death row for nearly 14 years. Abu-Jamal was charged with the 1981 shooting of a Philadelphia cop and convicted after a racist trial manipulated by the police.

In June 1995 Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge signed Abu- Jamal's death warrant, setting an execution date for Aug. 17. A world-wide movement quickly arose to save him and win justice. This movement included South African President Nelson Mandela and workers of the former Soviet Union.

Tens of thousands of people called to stay the bloody hand of the state in a mass protest on Aug. 12, 1995. Ridge tayed the execution.

The death sentence hanging over Mumia Abu-Jamal shines a spotlight on the racist death penalty, police brutality and repression running rampant across the country. The case has brought attention to the plight of all political prisoners in U.S. prisons-especially the 3,000 people on death row and all 5 million people caught up in the "criminal justice" system.

Abu-Jamal has become the focus for all fighting the racist system, and struggling for jobs, education, health care and human needs.

For more information on the Dec. 9 march on Wall Street, readers can call the Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition at (212) 330-8029.

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