Workers World salutes 20th anniversary of Rue Mumia Abu-Jamal

The following statement is in solidarity with newly elected Saint-Denis Mayor Bally Bagayoko. 

Celebration of 20th anniversary of the naming of Rue Mumia Abu-Jamal in Saint-Denis, France, April 29, 2026. Mayor Bagayoko stands below the Free Mumia sign.

Workers World Party salutes the City of Saint-Denis on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the naming of Rue Mumia Abu-Jamal on April 29, 2026. We applaud the proposal this year by newly elected Saint-Denis Mayor Bally Bagayoko to award Abu-Jamal the title of honorary citizen.

Having fought for Mumia’s release for decades, Workers World recognizes that Rue Mumia Abu-Jamal continues to be an international symbol of solidarity with struggles against injustice and discrimination. We further applaud the municipality of Saint-Denis for remaining strong and maintaining the street’s name despite repeated attacks by U.S. politicians and police over the last two decades.

A Black Panther Party activist and award-winning journalist, Mumia Abu-Jamal has become an international symbol of resistance against oppression and the fight for human rights. Abu-Jamal continues to challenge his controversial conviction in U.S. courts at the same time that courts are demonstrating a strong right-wing and racist tenor. This is evidenced by the 6 – 3 ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court on April 29 that effectively gutted the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) that addressed long denied aspirations of Black people, especially in the Deep South.

The SCOTUS ruling states that any electoral district map that bolsters the voting strength of Black, Latine or Indigenous communities giving greater political representation to oppressed people on school boards, city councils or congressional delegations is “unconstitutional.”

Rue Mumia Abu-Jamal embodies the strong political choice to keep alive the memory of the struggles against injustice and discrimination. The history of the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. must be uplifted, even as that legacy is under attack, so no one will forget that it was forged in battles — often bloody — in the streets. The decades-long struggle of the Civil Rights Movement led by oppressed Black masses in the U.S. forced then President Lyndon B. Johnson to sign the VRA into law.

In Philadelphia, we are witnessing the ongoing effort by the Trump administration to whitewash U.S. history. On April 8 the National Park Service uploaded renderings of 11 proposed revisionist new panels for the President’s House exhibit near the Liberty Bell. The proposed new panels seek to sanitize George Washington’s role as the enslaver of nine individuals at the first “White House” in Philadelphia by putting the first U.S. president in a more sympathetic light.

From Saint-Denis to Philadelphia, where Mumia was born, we are witnessing increased attacks on workers and oppressed people. Yet, we know from history that people will organize and fight back against these attacks. We applaud Mayor Bally Bagayoko for stressing the need to remain mobilized in the face of persistent inequalities, particularly regarding social and racial injustice.