ROCHESTER, N.Y.
Mumia solidarity meeting
brings many communities together
By
Gene Clancy
Rochester, N.Y.
An
overflow crowd gathered here April 13 for a "Night of Solidarity with Mumia
Abu-Jamal." The featured speaker was Leslie Feinberg, a noted author and lesbian
transgender
activist.
The
meeting, which was sponsored by the International Action Center, reflected the
broadening support for political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal. The audience was made
up of people from the African American, lesbian, gay, bi and trans communities,
and people of all ages--including many students and young people.
Feinberg,
a co-founder of the Rainbow Flags for Mumia, stressed the importance of
solidarity in battling the right-wing forces of bigotry, racism and police
brutality.
She
cited the progressive defense of abortion clinics in Buffalo in 1998, and the
famous 1969 Stonewall Rebellion in New York that launched the
lesbian-gay-bi-trans mass struggle, as examples of militant and successful
fight-back
movements.
Feinberg
called for the same kind of commitment and militancy in the movement to get a
new trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal. And she urged everyone in attendance to not only
attend the historic May 7 rally for Abu-Jamal at Madison Square Garden Theater
but to help organize others to take
part.
For
many of those in the audience, the April 13 meeting was a prelude to their
participation in the April 16-17 demonstrations in Washington to protest the
World Bank and the International Monetary
Fund.
Lydia
Bayoneta, an organizer for the International Action Center, asked those in
attendance to also join the April 15 march in support of Mumia Abu-Jamal and
against the Prison- Industrial Complex at the Justice
Department.
"The
prisons in this country are a mirror of what the IMF and World Bank do to
oppressed countries," she
said.
Comments
made during the discussion period at the end of the meeting reflected the
participants' strong desire to make the May 7 Day of Solidarity for Mumia
Abu-Jamal at Madison Square Garden a milestone in the struggle for social
justice.
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