12 days vs. 44 years: The 103-mile march to free Mumia

Philadelphia

A rally in Philadelphia on Nov. 28 kicked off the 103-mile March for Mumia to Pennsylvania’s State Correctional Institution (SCI) Mahanoy to demand proper health care and elder care for incarcerated people and the release of political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal.

The march started at the Market Square Monument in Philadelphia’s historic Germantown neighborhood. Built in 1883, the monument marks the 200th anniversary of the 1683 founding of Germantown. It commemorates the contributions of 2,000 Germantown residents to defeating the Confederacy in the Civil War. The 137-year-old statue of a Union soldier rests on a pedestal made of granite taken from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where the pivotal battle in 1863 marked a turning point in the Civil War that was supposed to end slavery.

Ratified on Dec. 6, 1865, after the war, the 13th Amendment contains a loophole. It states: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” The resulting U.S. prison system now incarcerates Black people at more than five times the rate of white people and profits off their unpaid or underpaid labor. (Criminal Justice Fact Sheet | NAACP)

The monument was deemed an appropriate starting point of this fight for the human rights of incarcerated people.

‘Walk for freedom is a long walk’

Over 100 people gathered for the opening rally. They listened to speakers Sophia Williams with Campaign to Bring Mumia Home; Dr. Ricardo Alvarez, Mumia’s medical adviser; Saleem Holbrook with Abolitionist Law Center; and Cindy Lou with Mobilization4Mumia. Ant Smith, a young activist targeted by the federal government for his participation in a Philadelphia demonstration demanding justice for George Floyd in May 2020, energized the crowd with an exceptional talk.

Smith opened with a shout-out to the elders who have served as inspirations to young activists, noting his remembrance of actions in the pouring rain and the blistering snow for Mumia. “Our job is to step into their shoes,” Smith declared. (IG @hate5sixofficial)

And many younger activists walked on the first day along with elders who have been in the streets fighting to win Mumia’s release for decades and who were the majority of the walkers over the 12 days.

“We’re taking that long walk, because the walk for freedom is a long walk,” said Baba Zayid Muhammad in Sunny Singh’s video of the first day’s march at IG @hate5sixofficial.

Led through Germantown’s cobblestone streets by activists from the Philadelphia Palestine Coalition for the first three miles, the marchers walked 7.1 miles to Miles Park in LaFayette Hill on day one. Participants ended the first day with a meal at an indoor Miles Park facility. Cindy Lou and Cassy provided the meal and brought hot lunches to participants on five of the march’s first 12 days, driving longer distances from Philadelphia each day.

Who is Mumia Abu-Jamal?

Born in 1954, Mumia Abu-Jamal grew up in Philadelphia amid racial segregation and police violence. As a teenager, he joined the Black Panther Party and later became an award-winning journalist known for exposing systemic racism and police abuse. His reporting challenged Philadelphia’s power structure, earning him recognition — and hostility — from local authorities.

In 1981, Mumia was arrested and charged with the shooting death of a Philadelphia police officer. His 1982 conviction was tainted by racial bias, coerced testimony and judicial misconduct. Although a federal court overturned his death sentence in 2001, he remains imprisoned for life without parole. Despite decades of appeals and evidence of prosecutorial misconduct and constitutional violations, the state has blocked every attempt to grant him a fair trial.

Prominent voices — including Amnesty International, the United Nations Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, Bishop Desmond Tutu, Maya Angelou, Nelson Mandela, Toni Morrison, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), the International Transport Workers Union and the Congressional Black Caucus, among others — have long called for justice for Mumia and for his release.

March organizers and endorsers united under a shared belief in the dignity of all human beings. It’s time to end a system that treats people as disposable.

Political prisoner and activist journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal has now been imprisoned for over 44 years, enduring death row solitary confinement for 30 years and decades of medical neglect, leading to serious health challenges today. His case is no isolated injustice — it is a mirror reflecting the silencing of dissent, racial bias and systemic injustices and abuse that plague U.S. society.

As participants told each other while marching through rain, snow and frigid temperatures, walking through Pennsylvania for 12 days, Mumia has done 44 years behind bars.

The seven individuals who marched all 12 days included People’s Organization for Progress members Saleemah Hadi, Lawrence Hamm and Steve Bernhaut, who conceptualized, initiated and was a main organizer of the march; Dr. Richardo Alvarez, Mumia’s medical adviser; Baba Zayid Muhammad, a Black Panther Party cub and organizer with the New York Malcolm X Commemoration Committee; 82-years-young Bob Nash with Veterans for Peace; and Joe Piette, with Workers World Party and Mobilization4Mumia.

Over the 12 days, we would establish a close bond together and with others who marched for one or multiple days, including our logistics general Johana Rahman, VJ Dharmapuri, Jian White, Jacqueline Wade, Lisa Davis, Gerri Gregg, Melissa, Kelsey Neilsen, Tay Huruye, Kwaku Owusu, Brother Lumumba Uncaged, Dawn Smelser, Gwen Debrow, Vania Gulston, Jordan, Jacky Hortaut and many others. Food was provided by Cindy Lou, Tristan, Cassy and Rubina Tareen, and support vehicle drivers included Betsey Piette, Mike Wilson, Eric Smelser, Debra Rosario and Gil Obler.

Support drivers stationed cars every mile or so on the road ahead of us, making them available if marchers needed water or snacks or if a marcher needed a warm place to rest in. As we marched, they also transported our luggage to the next hotel or carried departing marchers to their destinations. The support drivers also transported marchers from hotels to the starting point of the march each morning and to that evening’s hotel at the ending point.

Each night, most marchers and support team members were able to get warm and sleep well in comfortable hotel rooms at coalition-subsidized rates of $30 to $60 on the march’s 103-mile route, first in Limerick, then Reading and finally in Pottsville. The hotel stays added to the costs, but it was worth it so that walkers could be re-energized each morning, when each day’s walk began. Donations can still be made at DONATE – Mobilization 4 Mumia Abu-Jamal to help cover the housing, transportation and food costs of the March for Mumia.

Solidarity with Palestine

– On Day 2, Nov. 29, the march was dedicated to the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. Dozens of people joined the beginning rally in LaFayette Hill, where speakers from the Philadelphia Palestine Coalition and the March for Mumia coalition gave rousing talks emphasizing that the struggles to free all political prisoners — from Philadelphia to Palestine — are in fact one struggle, one fight. Well-known area Indigenous activist Carmen Guerrero and some Palestinian children energized the street rally, drawing a lot of supportive horn-honking from passing vehicles.

The day’s 9.5 mile route took place in cold but sunny weather, ending at the Methacton High School in Eagleville. The Fairview Village Seventh Day Adventist School across the street let marchers warm up inside.

– On Day 3, Nov. 30, we established the protocol of holding a short rally before starting the march for the day, usually led by Baba Zayid Muhammad, who would often start off with, “On this day in history … ” and relate something that happened on this date in Black history or with another progressive motivational narrative.

Over a dozen of us walked 9.2 miles, wearing yellow rain parkas through rain from Eagleville to Limerick, only stopping for Cindy and Cassy’s midway lunch.

As we walked from Philadelphia to Mahanoy for better health care for all prisoners and to free Mumia, sometimes we chanted, sometimes we talked with each other and sometimes we sang. Sam Rise made up a song as she walked: “Went down to Mahanoy, took back what they stole from me, took back my dignity, took back my humanity … ” (IG wwp_philly)

From Detroit, Jericho activist Verbena Lea sent us a flier she created which we printed and handed out to passersby or interested drivers. Driver Derek Raker, seeing our signs, stopped his vehicle, took our fliers and told of his meeting Mumia in prison in 2011. “Mumia is the greatest soul ever,” he said. (IG kchangeseverything)

 – On Day 4, Dec 1, marchers walked 11.1 miles from Limerick to Douglassville. Baba Zayid explained why we were marching “to turn up the volume for Mumia Abu-Jamal, to make sure he gets the medical treatment he needs to save his sight,” as we walked in mid-30 degree weather through Limerick. (IG wwp_philly)

Later, Mumia called march participant Dr. Ricardo Alvarez as we hit the day’s 9 mile mark, thanking us for our walk, saying he felt our “energy.” (IG jpiette660)

Since new people kept joining, we started a tradition of circling together at the end of each day’s march to introduce ourselves as we passed around the “healing stick,” sent by a 90-year-old activist from California who was unable to participate. Everyday a new person carried the stick. Holding it, Dawn Smelser said, “I’m here, because our liberation is bound in each other.” (IG jpiette660) Baba Zayid added, “We all represent far more than who you are and what we have here.” (IG jpiette660)

That evening, we enjoyed a beautiful dinner at Caribbean Paradise Express in Pottstown, whose Jamaican owner expressed strong support for our march.

 – On Day 5, Dec. 2, marchers walked 8.0 miserable miles in rain and snow on Benjamin Franklin Highway (Route 422 West) from Douglassville to Reading. To prevent fast walkers from getting too far ahead of slower marchers, dividing us up, the slower walkers were brought to the front of the line of marchers, to slow down the pace.

Our incredible press team of Larry Hamm, Ricardo Alvarez, Zayid Muhammad and Steve Bernhaut did almost daily interviews with various podcasts, newspapers, radio and other media outlets, including WBAI-FM, WURD-FM and Democracy Now, who marcher Lawrence Hamm told: “We are marching to draw attention to Mumia’s medical problems, but more importantly, we are marching to demand he get the surgery and medical treatment he needs. We are marching for humane treatment of all prisoners, especially our elders.” (Democracy Now YouTube channel)

Rally in Reading

 – On Day 6, Dec. 3, marchers walked a total of 7.6 miles to Crossroads Family Restaurant in Reading. As we walked safely on Reading’s sidewalks, we talked and got to know each other a little more. Sometimes we chanted: “Brick by brick, wall by wall, we’re gonna free Mumia Abu-Jamal.” (IG jpiette660)

At noon, marchers stopped at the Berks County Courthouse to hold a rally explaining the purpose of the march. Medical neglect is rampant in correctional facilities, robbing our elders of dignity and life. The aging prison population faces urgent health needs that are systematically ignored. Our political prisoners deserve freedom, not decades of abuse and suffering.

Rally speaker Shawn Bridges told the Reading Eagle newspaper that incarceration itself is punishment and lamented what he sees as efforts to pile more punishment on top of that through abusive and inhumane treatment, including withholding medical treatment from inmates. The Berks County man spent 20 years on death row at Graterford Prison before being given a new trial and winning release in 2019. On health care and elder care while incarcerated, he said, “They deserve it, they’re human.” (Reading Eagle, Dec. 3)

Pastor Evelyn Morrison met us at the rally, making a phone call on the spot to the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office, where we left a message about our march’s demands. Over fifty years ago, Morrison was a member of the Reading chapter of the Black Panther Party.

Reading’s other local newspaper, the Republican Herald, reported that March for Mumia participants “vow not to stop until Mumia is freed, our elders are treated with dignity and until political imprisonment is a relic of the past.” (Republican Herald, Dec. 4)

That evening, after reaching the half-way point of the march, we were treated to a feast provided by Tay Huruye, who had walked on earlier days.

Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin and Mumia Abu-Jamal

Mumia, 71 years old, suffers from chronic health conditions — including heart disease and vision loss — worsened by what his family and supporters describe as medical neglect by the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections.

Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (formerly known as Black Power activist H. Rap Brown), following complaints of elder abuse and medical neglect by his family and supporters, died Nov. 23 after 23 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. Al-Amin’s and Mumia’s conditions reflect the broader crisis of this country’s aging prison population amid decades of medical neglect, as our siblings behind bars are routinely denied adequate care and proper food.

The March seeks to highlight these abuses and demands an end to the systemic neglect of elderly and sick incarcerated people across the U.S. and the immediate release of Mumia Abu-Jamal and other political prisoners.

– On Day 7, Dec. 4, walkers marched 8.3 miles from Reading to the Perry Restaurant in Shoemakersville. Members of Workers World Party from New York city joined there carrying bright green signs. When they left, they gave us their “Free Mumia! Justice for all aging prisoners!” and other signs. Many of our initial signs had been destroyed by the rain and snow on previous days, so the new signs were very much needed.

Dr. Alvarez missed the fourth day of the march, so he could have an in-person visit with Mumia at SCI Mahanoy.

 – On Day 8, Dec. 5, marchers walked on country roadsides and busy highway shoulders 8.8 miles from Shoemakersville to Orwigsburg. For safety reasons, we almost always walked on the left side of the road, facing traffic, often single file.

Every day, we sent one of the support vehicles to drive the next day’s planned route to look out for any upcoming safety problems for walkers. That evening, we were graciously presented a wonderful meal by local activist Rubina Tareen.

Muhammad Ali’s training camp

 – On Day 9, Dec 6, marchers walked on Route 61 in Orwigsburg, for two miles to the sign for Fighter’s Heaven, then up a steep, hilly road to Muhammad Ali’s Deer Lake Training Camp. The camp’s General Manager Mick Stefanek welcomed us with a thorough tour of the magnificent facilities, allowing us to experience the restored historic facilities as they existed during the renowned boxer’s time there.

Participants were impressed by Ali’s spartan living quarters, his “kytchen” with its witty rules, the large rocks emblazoned with the names of boxing greats from the past and especially the gym turned museum. After viewing the videos, photos and signs there, many group members took their shoes off and had their photographs taken from inside the sparring ring, with Ali’s photo in the background.

Baba Zayid Muhammad, a former boxer himself, read his poem “Splitting Skin,” part of which included:

“Sting like a bee, sting like a bee, stinging like a bee.

he floated into our hearts with bold blades of glory,

jabbing, splitting skin, his reflexive raw mind seeking the power of truth.”

(Watch the whole performance at Facebook, Mobilization4Mumia.)

Young or old, marchers were particularly interested in Muhammad Ali, not only for being a generational athlete but also for his stance against the Vietnam War, as an advocate during the Civil Rights Movement, a staunch believer in the Muslim faith and an ardent supporter for Black self-determination and power.

Meanwhile, 1,300 miles away in Houston, on Dec. 6 comrades held a rally outside the headquarters of Houston’s Fraternal Order of Police in solidarity with the March For Mumia in Pennsylvania. Using his cell phone, Zayid Muhammad called their demonstration from the massage room used by Muhammad Ali, in front of a photo of Ali using a 1968-era telephone.

Zayid Muhammad described the cold weather in Orwigsburg but explained that no one was complaining, since Mumia was facing a lack of desperately-needed medical care.

Several attending the Houston protest were with the Campaign to Free Xinachtli, an elderly Texas political prisoner in need of serious medical care, as is Mumia. (See About Xinachtli – freealvaro.net and act on it at Xinachtli Phone Blockade! – Google Sheets.)

Houston WWP comrade Gloria Rubac reported getting positive responses from people passing by and that their coalition is committed to fighting against elder abuse in prisons from Texas to Pennsylvania.

From Fighter’s Heaven, marchers walked to a home which served as an Underground Railroad site. We were not able to go inside, but marcher Lisa Davis and others spoke on the struggles linking enslaved Africans fighting for the abolition of human bondage to our movements fighting for prison abolition today.

 – On Day 10, Dec. 7, marchers walked 11 miles from Orwigsburg to Pottsville with the navigational help of Tarik, a local resident. We ended the walk at the Schuylkill County Courthouse, where we circled up and commented on our motivations for the march.

When we learned that six unjust executions of Molly Maguire labor organizers took place on June 21, 1877, just a block away, we marched there. Speakers noted that Mumia would have been executed on Aug. 17, 1995, if tens of thousands of people had not mobilized and protested across the U.S. and internationally, forcing then Pennsylvania Governor Ridge to back down.

 – On Day 11, Dec. 8, marchers walked mostly uphill from Pottsville to Frackville for 12.5 miles in bitter cold weather — the most physically challenging walk of the 12-days.

At the end of our trek, we were driven back to Pottsville where an Islamic Center welcomed us inside to warm up and eat Chinese takeout. A delegation from France (Jacky Hortaut, a French Collective LIBERONS MUMIA activist and Pierre Barbancey, a reporter from L’Humanité) let us view photos of themselves with Mumia, taken the previous day when they visited him inside SCI Mahanoy.

 – Day 12, Dec. 9 started where the previous day’s walk ended. Over fifty activists, some who had driven from New York City, Philadelphia and New Jersey, joined the seven core walkers for the last three-mile stretch. Alvarez told those present about a leader of the Pelican Bay Hunger Strike in 2013 who messaged Mumia saying, “East Coast, West Coast, no longer a beast. We’re talking about unity,” before logistics general Johana Rahman gave marching orders. (Facebook Mobilization4Mumia)

Before the marching began, Mumia called, praising the walkers for their “heartwarming and powerful” act of solidarity. (IG jpiette660)

After 103 miles from the start of the march 12 days earlier, at noon on Dec. 9 marchers finally reached their goal: the entrance to SCI Mahanoy, where the marchers and supporters gathered for a rally.

Speakers and activists held banners on the prison entrance meridian on the left. Over 100 demonstrators stood on the curb and in the snow on the right, as prison staff vehicles occasionally drove in. The rally featured marchers Larry Hamm, Dr. Alvarez and Jian White, as well as Dr. Joseph Harris, Pam Africa, Yahne Ndgo, Gabe Bryant, Cindy Lou, Jacky Hortaut and Rubina Tareen. They explained the main demands of the long march: ending medical neglect of incarcerated people, releasing elderly prisoners and freeing Mumia Abu-Jamal and other political prisoners.

Pam Africa opened the rally saying, “I love everyone that’s here. People are fighting not just for Mumia, but we’re fighting for ourselves, because we got unfinished business with all these people. And I want you all to take note. I didn’t use one motherfxxker!” (IG phillypalestinecoalition)

The 103-mile undertaking was organized by the March for Mumia coalition, which includes the Mobilization4Mumia, People’s Organization for Progress, International Concerned Friends and Family of Mumia Abu-Jamal, The Campaign to Bring Mumia Home, Abolitionist Law Center, Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition, Detroit Jericho Movement, Philly Muslim Freedom Fund, Workers World Party, le Collectif français LIBERONS MUMIA, amigos de Mumia, Prison Radio, The Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal and more.

International solidarity with Mumia

On Dec. 9, important solidarity events also took place around the world. Near the Amazon Forest in the French colony of Guiana, Apa Mumia Makeba and the Union of Guianese Workers — who march every year on Mumia’s birthday from the town of Remire to the capital, Cayenne — sent a message to the March for Mumia participants:

“Your collective courage is symbolic, your courage is exemplary, and this courage drives me to do more, particularly in Guiana. If Mumia is still in prison, he will benefit from another march in French Guiana — a march that we will dedicate to this very emblematic prisoner who shows us the way and who, despite all the difficulties, has reported on the most horrible thing we have witnessed live: the genocide of the people of Gaza. No journalist has ever been as consistent as Mumia Abu-Jamal, despite his incarceration. Free Mumia Abu-Jamal and all political prisoners!”

In Mexico City, activists, artists and collectives raised their voices on Dec. 9 in front of the former U.S. embassy to demand Freedom for Mumia! In a heartfelt tribute, the ashes of Carolina Saldaña, a journalist and activist whose tireless struggle kept solidarity with Mumia alive in Mexico for years, were present as participants filled the space with music, dance and remembrance, denouncing racism and prison systems that function as mechanisms of repression.

In London, on Dec. 9, the British Collective to Free Mumia organized readings from Abu-Jamal’s latest book, an anthology of prison essays called “Beneath the Mountain.”

In Germany, about 40 people demonstrated in front of the U.S. Embassy on Pariser Platz, Berlin, in solidarity with Mumia Abu-Jamal. People addressed Mumia’s struggle, mass incarceration in the U.S., the racist and classist death penalty and death by incarceration. Read the statements at: de.indymedia.org/node/559318.

There was a similar protest at the U.S. Embassy in Paris. Besides having a delegation from France in person at Mahanoy, the French Collective to Free Mumia sent their petition with over 3,000 signatures to Dr. Laurel R. Harry, Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, demanding the essential medical treatments that Mumia needs to prevent any risk of irreversible blindness.

From Martinique, Frantz Fanon’s birthplace, Keziah Nuissier sent a poem he wrote about the March for Mumia, part of which said:

“Each step taken on the road

was not just one step.

It was a hundred.

It was a thousand.

It was ten thousand.

Because it carried all those

held back by borders,

separated by oceans,

yet brought together by injustice.”

Back in the U.S. in Elaine, Arkansas, young descendants from the 1919 Race Massacre read a poem from longtime Mumia supporter Julia Wright’s new book “For the Baby Ancestors in Gaza and other poems for Palestine” called “The Fear of letting Fear go ” that ends with:

“every day

Mumia Abu-Jamal

buried alive

under concrete and steel

signs over and over again

lovenotphear.”

Mumia Abu-Jamal was convicted in 1982 because of police, prosecutorial and judicial misconduct. Forty three years later, the March for Mumia 12-day walk over more than 100 miles proves that the movement to free him continues as strong as ever.

Joe Piette, who marched the entire route from Philadelphia to SCI Mahanoy, has been an activist fighting for Mumia’s release since 1995.