POLICE THREATS REPULSED
Antioch students, community stand up for Abu-Jamal
By Sarah
Sloan
Yellow Springs,
Ohio
Sloan is a youth leader and organizer
for the International Action Center.
What was gearing up to be a showdown between supporters of
Mumia Abu-Jamal and cop and Klan opponents at Antioch College
on April 29 became by far the largest rally in support of
Abu-Jamal the town of Yellow Springs, Ohio, has ever seen.
Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the 110 graduating
seniors of Antioch were their families, Antioch freshmen,
sophomores and juniors, graduates from previous years, Yellow
Springs town residents, and activists who traveled from Ohio,
Philadelphia, New York and other cities.
As soon as the Fraternal Order of Police had heard that the
graduating class at Antioch College chose Abu-Jamal as one of
their commencement speakers, the cops began a full-fledged
assault. The fear campaign included death threats against the
students and claims that they would bring 5,000 police to a
school of 650 students nestled in a town of 8,000.
Days before commencement, members of an Ohio
white-supremacist group dubbed the National Alliance went to
the town of Yellow Springs and put a racist, anti-Mumia leaflet
in the mailbox of each town resident.
But these terror tactics backfired. The attacks and threats
by the right wing drew more attention and support to political
prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal's case and to the students organizing
to save his life.
According to a report in the Antioch Record, some 95 percent
of the alumni supported the students and enrollment was up.
Some prospective students said they were attracted to Antioch
because of this struggle.
Former graduates flooded back to the school. One hundred
town residents donned "Antioch host" T-shirts and helped out
organizationally, and many more attended commencement.
On April 29, the several hundred cops who did show up were
overshadowed by more than 1,000 people who stood firm in their
support for Mumia and the graduating class, packing the lawn
for the outdoor commencement ceremony.
'Liberating Mumia's voice'
The morning began with a teach-in about Abu-Jamal's case
that drew some 200 people, including students and people from
the Yellow Springs community. Pam Africa of International
Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, Rosemari Mealy
from radio station WBAI, Clark Kissinger from Refuse &
Resist!, and Mark Taylor from Academics for Mumia spoke.
Pam Africa said that Antioch students had stood up "to one
of the most foul governments in the world" by inviting Mumia
Abu-Jamal, who was "setting a strong example for youth."
By the time the event was scheduled to begin, several
hundred police had massed inside a "protest" area marked off
with yellow police tape. One pro-Mumia supporter was arrested
simply for voicing his opinion to the cops.
Just before music opened the event, a dozen off-duty police
crossed the taped lines, marched past the chairs set up for the
event and surrounded the podium. They reportedly hurled
obscenities and insults at the Dean of Students when he asked
them to leave the area.
Hundreds of metal folding chairs set up in a huge circle
were not enough to hold the crowd, many of whom stood to hear
the commencement speeches. Young students filled the fire
escapes of a building behind the ceremony. Scores of colorful
flags reading "Free Mumia" fluttered from the wrought iron.
The graduating class invited two commencement speakers to
address their ceremony. The first co-keynote was delivered by
Leslie Feinberg, a lesbian transgender author and activist, and
a managing editor of Workers World newspaper. Feinberg is a
co-founder of Rainbow Flags for Mumia.
Feinberg congratulated the students for "not allowing the
political prisoner who is known as the 'voice of the voiceless'
to be silenced. Moments from now we will stand here together
and hear the voice of a man who is locked up tight in a steel
cell in the dungeon of death row in Pennsylvania. You liberated
his message. You struggled against being immobilized by fear to
bring his case, which has been buried in the monopolized media,
to millions of people who did not know his name."
Feinberg said that the state wants to silence this
revolutionary voice for change. "Well, we won't let them take
Mumia from us. That's the message that this graduating class
and all of us who stand with them send to those who would like
to speed up a legal lynching of Mumia," she concluded to a
standing ovation.
'Cast your lot with the oppressed'
A taped keynote message from Abu-Jamal followed. Only one
student--a vocal supporter of the FOP--walked out. The rest of
the students and supporters drew quiet and closer to listen to
his message through the loudspeaker system.
The students had asked Abu-Jamal to speak about an
individual's impact on the world. Naming Nelson Mandela,
Malcolm X, Ella Baker, W.E.B. DuBois, Paul Robeson, and Angela
Davis, Abu-Jamal asked what common feature they all shared.
"We admire these people," he said, "because, at critical
junctures of their lives, they cast their lot with the
oppressed, the poor, the worker, or those in the Third
World.
"Now they didn't do this because it was popular," he
stressed, "quite the contrary, it was quite dangerous for many
of these people. All lived under constant government
surveillance. Some lost their livelihoods. Others lost their
lives. They joined, aided and/or formed the movements that they
did because it was the right thing to do."
Abu-Jamal urged the students, "Show your admiration for them
by becoming them. For by so doing, you give birth to
movements."
The vast majority of the audience rose in a prolonged
standing ovation for the man who concluded his talk with the
words: "From death row, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal."
Most of the dozen students and staff workers who spoke
briefly after the keynotes creatively raised the need to
struggle against racism, police brutality and injustice.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
Support independent news http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php)
HOME
:: U.S. NEWS ::
WORLD NEWS ::
EDITORIALS ::
SUBSCRIBE ::
DONATE
Email
this article
Printable
page