Benefit held for Black activist/lawyer

On a subfreezing Sunday in New York on Feb. 19, Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant Community Center hosted a standing-room-only benefit for activist-attorney Chokwe Lumumba, who was suspended from practicing law by the Mississippi Supreme Court for his defense of clients facing racist injustice.

Lumumba, National Chairman of the New Afrikan Peoples’ Organization and co-founder of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, has defended political prisoners such as Assata Shakur, while giving support to youth and legal service clinics in Mississippi.

In March 2005, the Mississippi Supreme Court suspended Lumumba from practicing law for six months until he retakes and passes the ethics portion of that state’s bar association exam. He was also fined $1,000 due to white Judge Marcus Gordon’s dislike of Lumumba’s defense. “I wanted to address violations of my client’s rights, and Gordon made a statement that I found very difficult to work with. He kept cutting me off. I said perhaps if he paid attention to what I was saying, he’d get on better with lawyers in the future,” explains Lumumba.

He also spoke of the plight of Katrina evacuees—the hurricane survivors who have no voice and need reparations.

Supporters cheered when Lumumba said, “Our mission has to be to seize the time! We’re going to turn this around!” Other speakers at the benefit were from the National Conference of Black Lawyers, Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika, the Malcolm X Commemoration Committee, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and the Jericho Movement.

—Anne Pruden