BALTIMORE
Community marches to free Eddie Conway & Mumia
Abu-Jamal
By
Sharon Black
Baltimore
On April 3 over 150 community activists rallied and marched
through the Pennsylvania Avenue shopping district here,
chanting, "Free Eddie Conway, free Mumia Abu-Jamal."
Many groups sponsored this activity commemorating the
assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.--including Unity
for Action, All-People's Congress, Friends of Eddie Conway, the
Organization of All-Afrikan Unity, the National Democratic
People's Uhuru Movement, and the Prison Committee of the
NAACP.
Marchers rallied at the Billie Holiday statue. This monument
to the great jazz singer underscores the historic nature of the
Pennsylvania Avenue area, which once served Baltimore in the
same way that Harlem has New York and the world--as the center
of African American cultural life.
Defying police orders, the group took the protest to the
streets. They marched through the business area and passed out
thousands of flyers on the case of Eddie Conway and on the
upcoming April 24 Millions for Mumia march.
Bill Goodin, president of Unity for Action and chairperson
of the day's event, proclaimed, "We are going to liberate the
streets today!" The march ended at the Union Baptist Church
with a rally and teach-in.
Walter Black, All-People's Congress organizer, recognized
the case of Leonard Peltier, who was framed in the shooting of
an FBI agent and who remains unjustly behind bars today. Black
linked the struggle of Native people to that of African
Americans: "The war between the U.S. government and the
Seminole Nation has never been settled. That war was fought
over the issue of slavery."
Andre Powell, representing Workers World Party, said Mumia
Abu-Jamal and Marshall Eddie Conway are "both liberation
fighters and they targeted the entire capitalist system. Their
frame-ups were a part of the Cointel program."
Njinga Conway, veteran Black Panther member and spokesperson
for the Free Marshall Eddie Conway Support Committee, brought a
message of thanks from Conway. Her talk centered on the history
of his case and the need to continue efforts to free him.
Both Conway and Abu-Jamal were leaders in the Black Panther
Party. Conway has spent almost three decades in prison for a
crime he says he never committed.
Like Abu-Jamal, he was framed in the death of a police
officer. On April 26, 1970, Conway was arrested while working
at the U.S. Post Office. The night before, two police officers
sitting in a patrol car had been shot; one was killed and the
other wounded. Within an hour, two suspects were arrested, both
with affiliations to the Black Panther Party. Another officer
who responded to the scene reported seeing a third man "at a
distance."
Eddie Conway was arrested as the third man based on
information supposedly supplied by a never-identified
informant.
Media attention was already focused on the Baltimore Black
Panther Party. Front-page news headlines had announced multiple
indictments and the mass arrest of Baltimore Panthers for the
purported torture/murder of an informant.
Marshall Eddie Conway was never linked by any physical
evidence to the police shootings. There were no fingerprints
and no physical evidence to link him to the crime scene or the
weapons. The prosecution relied primarily on the testimony of
an informant placed in Conway's cell under suspicious
circumstances and against Conway's written protests to the
guards.
Conway was denied an attorney of his own choosing. He wasn't
allowed to represent himself. Only a court-appointed lawyer who
spent 45 minutes with his client before the trial was allowed
to question witnesses.
"This is clearly a frame-up!" proclaimed Njinga Conway. She
described Conway's accomplishments as inmate coordinator for
the prison library and his inspiration to many young men in
prison.
"Thirty years are enough. Eddie is innocent. Let's bring him
home. Demand the governor grant clemency for Marshall Eddie
Conway," she told the crowd.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
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