Youths for Mumia say
'Pack the courtroom'
By Imani
Henry
Philadelphia
More than 150 young people gathered March 24 at Temple
University for a daylong "Mumia Is All of Us" youth
conference. The event was held to help organize the
continuing fight to free African American political prisoner
Mumia Abu-Jamal.
The Youth National Coordinators' Committee organized the
conference. This coalition brings together youth activists
from organizations within the U.S. Mumia movement.
The conference drew people from Baltimore; New York,
Albany and Ithaca, N.Y.; and from Philadelphia and
surrounding areas of Pennsylvania. Youth activists from
Germany sent messages of solidarity to the conference.
Leslie Jones, a national youth organizer for International
Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia, was a leading
organizer of the conference. She told Workers World, "With so
many young people leading the struggle to save Mumia's life
in this country it is critical that we as young people
strategize about ways to mobilize people for Mumia's
appearance in Pennsylvania federal court."
Abu-Jamal will appear in federal court when Federal
District Judge William Yohn sets a date to begin the process
to determine whether he will have an evidentiary hearing. Out
of this conference came a new steering committee of youth
activists to work on logistics to mobilize people to pack the
courtroom.
Young people at the conference also participated in
roundtable discussions linking Abu-Jamal's case to issues
like fighting police brutality and freeing political
prisoners. Workshops addressed the struggle of the people of
Vieques, Puerto Rico, to get the U.S. Navy off their island,
and organizing for Abu-Jamal's freedom within the
anti-globalization movement.
Ben Ramos of Pro-Libertad and Jason Corwin of the League
of Indigenous Sovereign Nations of the Western Hemisphere led
the panel on political prisoners. They called on activists to
support the struggle to free the six remaining Puerto Rican
political prisoners.
They also urged support for American Indian Movement
prisoner of war Leon ard Peltier, who was passed over for
clemency by former President Bill Clinton on Jan. 20. Peltier
will not be up for a new parole hearing until 2002.
On hand for the conference was young New York filmmaker
Tania Cuevas Martinez, whose film "Voice of the Voiceless"
features Mumia Abu-Jamal's stepdaughter and rap artist Goldii
Lokks as well as MOVE member Ramona Africa, former Black
Panther Kathleen Cleaver, Democracy NOW's Amy Goodman,
hip-hop legend Chuck D, and the political hip-hop groups Dead
Prez, BlackThought of the Roots, Bonz Malone and Channel
Live.
Other leading activists, such as Pam Africa and Ramona
Africa from the U.S. International Concerned Family and
Friends of Mumia and Julia Wright from the Paris chapter of
the organization also took part in workshop discussions.
The youths of MOVE
A highlight of the conference was the Mumia 101 panel, led
by the youths of the MOVE organization and local Philadelphia
activists. This panel gave an overview of Abu-Jamal's case.
It also provided a historical perspective on the racist
police repression against MOVE and the African American
communities of Philadelphia.
Michael Africa is a MOVE youth whose parents are political
prisoners--two of the MOVE 9. He spoke about how Abu-Jamal
used his ability as a journalist to tell the truth about the
police beatings and arrests of the nine MOVE members on Aug
8, 1978.
Blizzard Africa raised the 1985 police firebombing of the
MOVE house that killed 11 men, women and children. She said:
"Clinton can get on TV after Colum bine to tell young people
'to learn to settle their differences without violence'? All
the time the U.S. government was bombing children, women and
men in Kosovo or can drop a bomb on an entire community of
Black people."
Also in the works is organizing for the upcoming May 12
International Day of Solidarity with Mumia. The International
Action Center has initiated a call for a May 11-13 encampment
in Philadelphia in support of Abu-Jamal. Youth activists were
excited about these plans, which will bring activists from
all over the East Coast to converge on Philadelphia.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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