Confrontations with cops coast to coast
Mumia supporters take to the streets
By
Leslie Feinberg
In the days and even hours after Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge
signed a death warrant setting Dec. 2 as the execution date for
Mumia Abu-Jamal, supporters of the political prisoner
immediately took to the streets to bring their message to wider
layers of the population.
Although Abu-Jamal is well known all over the world, in this
country the media have imposed a conspiracy of silence on his
case.
The battle lines in this fight to save Abu-Jamal's life
became sharper and clearer, however, as his supporters in
cities from coast to coast found themselves face to face with
cops. The police had been ordered to keep activists from
spreading the word about police and judicial misconduct in
Abu-Jamal's conviction.
On Oct. 16--72 hours after Ridge gave the go-ahead for the
execution--1,000 activists gathered in Philadelphia at the
Pennsylvania State Office Building, within sight of the offices
of the Fraternal Order of Police. Protesters then flowed into
the street, stopping traffic.
When police told organizers "You can have the street," Pam
Africa, coordinator of International Concerned Family &
Friends of Mumia, responded, "You didn't give us the street. We
took it!"
Cops temporarily pushed the protesters onto the sidewalk.
Later, though, marchers seized half of Broad Street. Chanting
"They say death row, we say hell no," the protesters roared up
Broad Street into North Philadelphia's African American
community, where Abu-Jamal began his career as a Black Panther
activist in the 1960s.
Activists completely shut down traffic at the intersection
of Broad and Girard, and held a second rally there.
Despite the long history of police terror in
Philadelphia--particularly aimed at the African American and
Latino communities--neighborhood residents came out of their
homes and workplaces to join the march and listen to the
speakers. Some joined the demonstration or cheered from their
windows. Motorists honked their car horns in support.
"Mumia Abu-Jamal is the face of victimization by police all
over this country," Monica Moorehead of the International
Action Center told listeners. "The cops and courts, the prisons
and the military are a boot heel on the necks of the most
oppressed. This repression is meant to crush working-class
resistance against this unjust and unequal system.
"They fear us," she said, pointing to nearby police. "And so
do their bosses on high. They fear that our rage over the
attempt to legally lynch this African American revolutionary
will tap into the wrath of the masses of the oppressed and
exploited.
"We have to make this country ungovernable," Moorehead
concluded. "This is what our sisters and brothers did in South
Africa in their struggle against apartheid," she concluded.
Despite no media coverage about the signing of Abu-Jamal's
death warrant, two San Francisco protests brought
supporters into the streets and widened and deepened awareness
about his case. One thousand people turned out for an Oct. 14
emergency response rally.
Two days later, some 4,000 people rallied and marched--the
biggest protest in the country. The regional demonstration drew
supporters from northern California , Nevada and
Oregon. The demonstrations were led by the National
People's Campaign, United for Justice, the Mobilization to Free
Mumia Abu-Jamal and other Bay Area groups working for justice
for Abu-Jamal.
`Whose streets? Our streets!'
Around the country, protests demanding a stay of execution
first erupted on Oct. 14--the day after the ink dried on the
death warrant. In almost every case, a struggle was quickly
joined about whether or not supporters could march in the
streets.
Twenty young activists in Seattle shut down the
federal courthouse. Five demonstrators who chained themselves
to the courthouse doors were arrested. That day 150 people
rallied at Seattle Central Community College in a protest
called by the Campaign Against the Death Penalty. And Ramona
Africa--a member of the MOVE organization--spoke to an overflow
crowd at Western Washington University in Bellingham,
Wash .
Two days later, 400 people marched through downtown Seattle.
Protesters made a quick turn into Nordstrom's department store.
Nordstrom's is the target of protests by community groups for
its notoriously racist hiring practices and for using city
funds to remodel the store and build its parking garage.
Marchers chanted their way through the upscale store until they
were hustled out by security.
Back on the streets, the demonstrators moved to Westlake
Square, where an anti-gay rally was underway. Activists from
the International Action Center took over the bigots' stage,
unfurled a Free Mumia banner and chanted their solidarity with
the lesbian/gay/bi/trans community and with Abu-Jamal.
Supporters in Atlanta took their message to the
downtown MARTA subway station. At first MARTA cops tried to
break up the rally based on their insistence that the station
was private property. But the police did an about-face when
they saw the overwhelmingly interested and positive response
from so many commuters who gathered round to listen.
Speakers included representatives from Amnesty
International, Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty,
students from Georgia State University, Workers World Party,
Refuse and Resist and the Millions for Mumia Mobilization
Committee.
Demonstrators then marched through the downtown business
area. After returning to the MARTA station, police arrested one
young woman on the grounds that she was "impeding traffic."
Protesters marched to the nearby precinct station where she was
taken. As she was put into a police wagon to transfer her to
the city jail, the young activist joined the crowd in chanting,
"Free Mumia Abu-Jamal."
The protesters moved to the city jail and held a speak-out
there. During that rally, prisoners inside called out their
appreciation for the speakers' messages of resistance to police
brutality and judicial injustice.
Protesters defied police by taking over the downtown
shopping district in Baltimore City, Md. Activists took
to the streets, tied up traffic and then marched through
Lexington Mall. Bus commuters and shoppers eagerly took
leaflets about Abu-Jamal's case. The demonstration, called by
the All-People's Congress, included students from several
colleges and representatives from Unity for Action, Anti-Racist
Action, Nosotros Group and Jonah House.
"Whose streets? Our streets!" chanted 200 protesters in
Boston. After a rally in front of the State House,
demonstrators took over downtown streets, picking up supporters
along the way. Apparently fearing a clash with marchers--mostly
youth--the cops backed off.
`Brick by brick, wall by wall'
"Brick by brick, wall by wall, free Mumia Abu-Jamal" roared
more than 250 protesters on the streets of Minneapolis
during an Oct. 14 action. By Oct. 16, more than 300 turned out
there--some having traveled from La Crosse and Green
Bay, Wis ., and Northfield, Minn . When activists
flooded into the street to march, they were immediately flanked
by cops in 23 squad cars from several precincts, three mounted
police units, an attack dog squad and two booking vans. Police
reportedly rammed the crowd with squad cars and horses in an
attempt to force protesters back on the sidewalk. Two people
were arrested--but the march successfully stayed in the
streets.
Cops rioted at the end of the Oct. 15 march in Portland,
Ore. Cops clad in riot gear and armed with shotguns
surrounded Terry Schrunk Park and announced that the rally was
"an unlawful assembly." Mounted police forced the crowd to
disperse. Witnesses reported that a toddler was nearly trampled
by a mounted cop. Police pushed a woman into oncoming traffic.
The cops broke one activist's arm, then wrenched both his arms
behind his back and handcuffed him. Six people were
arrested.
Cops in Buffalo, N.Y. , inadvertently created an
opportunity to raise even wider awareness about Abu-Jamal's
case and police repression when they stopped an Oct. 14 car and
bicycle caravan in support of the death-row prisoner. Police
pulled over the lead car and ticketed its driver for moving and
sound violations. But activists took the opportunity of being
stopped in one of the busiest streets during rush hour to
leaflet passersby and hold up posters about Abu-Jamal for
motorists to see.
Caravan participants included Native leaders, African
American community activists, two Latino youths, students from
a local college, and members of Workers World Party and the
Buffalo Committee to Free Mumia.
Police then followed the caravan into a more deserted area,
but peeled off when they realized the caravan was en route to a
local television station.
The chant "No justice? No peace! No racist police," rang
throughout downtown Rochester, N.Y., on Oct. 15,
accompanied by a corps of African American drummers. Enraged by
the media boycott, demonstrators marched to a nearby television
station--blocking traffic all the way. They rattled the hastily
locked doors of TV 10 News. Activists were defiant towards the
commands of police who arrived on the scene. Sponsors of the
action included the International Action Center, the Mumia
Defense Committee, Amnesty International and the House of
Mercy.
In New York City , hundreds of supporters of
Abu-Jamal filled Times Square on Oct. 14 for a rally. Police
tried to keep marchers on the sidewalk, but the demonstrators
took a lane of Broadway during busy evening traffic.
Demonstrators in Detroit marched through the streets
of the financial district on Oct. 14, refusing to comply with
police orders to move onto the sidewalks. Supporters then
rallied outside the Federal Court House. A delegation from that
city left the next evening to travel all night to take part in
the Oct. 16 regional protest in Philadelphia.
Activists in Cleveland marched to the nearest news
station--NBC-affiliate Channel 3--to protest media censorship
about Abu-Jamal's case and the fight to win his freedom. Cops
demanded that the marchers get out of the street, but the
demonstrators held their ground.
On Oct. 18, a militant march of 400 in Chicago
snarled traffic on two of the busiest downtown intersections
during rush hour. Six people were arrested during a militant
march.
`We're gonna free
Mumia Abu-Jamal'
Many other rallies and marches took place in cities and
towns and on campuses throughout the U.S.
More than 300 demonstrators in Los Angeles stopped
traffic at the height of rush hour on Oct. 14. Two more
demonstrations drew hundreds in Westwood on Oct. 16.
Scores of people picketed the Reuess Federal Building in
Milwaukee on Oct. 14. Activists leafleted the shopping
and commuter crowds and organized a sidewalk speak-out. The
protest was called by Wisconsin for Mumia--a statewide network
of over 100 groups and individuals. Demonstrators included
Black and Latino activists, students, veterans of Milwaukee's
labor struggles during the 1940s and 1950s, members of the
lesbian/gay/bi/trans communities, Irish-American activists and
representatives of peace and justice groups.
In Richmond, Va. , activists at an Oct. 14 lunchtime
rally distributed flyers to downtown workers. The leaflets
linked the struggle against Abu-Jamal's execution with the
local fight against a portrait of Confederate General Robert E.
Lee displayed in the city's Canal Walk business
development.
The rally--predominantly youth--included students from
Virginia Commonwealth University and members of the All-African
Peoples Revolutionary Party and Workers World Party. Activists
also organized cars and vans to travel to the Oct. 16 regional
protest in Philadelphia.
Protests also took place in Ann Arbor, Mich.;
Madison, Wis .; Prescott, Ariz.; Pensacola, Fla.
and Washington.
And creative forms of protest expressed deep support for
Mumia Abu-Jamal, too.
The words "Free Mumia" and spattered paint appeared on a
55-foot portrait of Philadelphia's former mayor and
police chief, Frank Rizzo.
Widespread e-mail and postings about Abu-Jamal's case are
making their way through the vast Internet. One account from a
worker in Burlington, Vt., describes looking out the window of
the Federal Building/Post Office and noticing that the U.S.
flag was flying upside down and under the flag flew a "Free
Mumia" banner.
Compiled from reports by Sharon Black, Greg Butterfield,
Steven Ceci, Gene Clancy, Bill Massey, Dianne Mathiowetz,
Barbara Neth, David Sole, Nick Wood, and Phil Wilayto.
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
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