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HOUSTON

Activists & Librotraficantes honor Mumia

Published May 7, 2012 7:18 PM
WW photo: Gloria Rubac

Houston activists, Librotraficantes, poets and writers gathered to celebrate and have a Banned Book Reading on April 24 in honor of Mumia Abu-Jamal’s 58th birthday. They read works from Mumia as well as Jimmy Santiago Baca and Alice Walker. They sang “Happy Birthday“ twice, including the Stevie Wonder version, and chanted “Free Mumia now!” They signed a huge birthday card for Mumia as they ate cake and ice cream and nachos with jalapenos.

Mumia’s book “Live From Death Row” was banned in Arizona along with almost 100 books written primarily by Chicano/a authors. Underground libraries were set up by the Librotraficantes in Houston and San Antonio,Texas; Albuquerque, N.M.; and Tucson, Ariz., which hold the books banned by the racist school board in Tucson. Brother Sensei, a former Houston Black Panther, peace activist Bart Boyce, and former SNCC Civil Rights activist and now Workers World Party activist Joanne Gavin read several selections from Mumia’s work.

Filmmaker and Librotraficante Gabriel Carmona read a poem written while banned-in-Arizona author Jimmy Santiago Baca was in prison. Sister Anelle Williams, who plays Mumia’s voice via Prison Radio every Sunday night on her Pacifica radio show “Sister Space,” read a poem Alice Walker wrote to honor Mumia after he was released from death row in January.

Local poet Deniz Lopez — aka “dee!colonize” — read two of her original poems and wrote a piece entitled “Feliz Birthday Mumia Abu-Jamal” on her blog the next day: “The energy was love and between the pictures, nachos, and cake, I saw the resilience that emanates from Mumia gleaming from the eyes of everyone present. We will never stop fighting for him. Because we love our brother.”