Under Lock and Key RAIL Radio Program for June 11, 1999

Movement demanding freedom for Mumia Abu Jamal 
advances; 
but the state counter attacks 




In April, May and June, the struggle to free 
death row prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal continued to 
intensify. Mumia, a former Black Panther, was 
framed for the righteous killing of a police 
officer engaged in an act of police brutality. 
He was sentenced to death in 1982 after a bogus 
trial. His appeals are now in the much quicker 
federal courts and an execution could happen in 
the fall. Prior to his arrest, Mumia was a radio 
journalist who exposed police brutality. From 
within the walls through books, articles and 
radio commentaries, Mumia continues to be an 
outspoken leader of the oppressed. This 
effective political work has earned increasing 
support from the people, while also earning 
increasing hatred from the imperialist 
establishment.

Pam Africa and Mumia's attorney Leonard 
Weinglass report that Mumia is ill, with a 
swollen and discolored left ankle. This may be a 
result of being forced to wear paper-thin 
slippers on the cold cement floors. The 
imposition of this new dress code was one cause 
of a failed death row hunger last year. It is 
also possible that the swollen ankle is a 
symptom of a more serious health problem such as 
heart disease or diabetes. 

Regardless, the poor health care offered in 
prison, combined with inadequate food and 
exercise options as well as violent beatings all 
combine all lead to premature health problems 
and death in prisoners. This is a form or murder 
not prosecuted in any court.

Over the years, Mumia Abu Jamal recorded a 
number of radio commentaries about prisons and 
the oppression of Blacks by Amerika. He was even 
briefly hired National Public Radio. But 
political pressure from the police lobby forced 
NPR to fire Mumia before airing the 
commentaries. Mumia is an effective advocate of 
the oppressed, and the government didn't want to 
see strong commenataries like this one aired:

[Bright Shining Hell. Track 1 Man is the Bastard 
3:10]

VOICE

On June 11, Mumia Abu Jamal spoke via tape 
recorded speech at the graduation ceremony at 
Evergreen College in Washington State. 
Washington State Governor Gary Locke was also 
scheduled to speak, but he pulled out so as to 
not share the stage with Mumia.  We hope to air 
this 13 minute address on a future edition of 
this program.

Evergreen President Jane Jervis issued a 
statement saying Abu-Jamal was invited to speak 
as part of a discussion on the validity of the 
death penalty and of the effects of racism and 
poverty on justice.

But "discussion" is not on Amerikkka's agenda. 
Locke wouldn't discuss the issue on the same 
stage with Mumia. House Majority whip Tom Delay 
(R-Texas) pledged to call for a moment of 
silence in the House in protest of the speech. 
In a statement, Delay called the invitation of 
Mumia "socially irresponsible.(1)

According to the Associated Press, some students 
and uniformed pigs walked out of the ceremony, 
and two dozen turned their backs during the 
speech. Other students wore yellow armbands in 
support of Mumia. That the school invited Mumia 
and that he spoke should have been the focus of 
the Associated Press news story, but instead it 
focused on the protest.(2)
Mumia was invited by a committee of students, 
administrators and faculty. The college resisted 
public pressure to dis-invite Mumia, but has 
began a "revision of how the college selects 
speakers in the future."(3)

The dead pig's widow told the Associated Press 
that the speech was "not fitting for a 
graduation ceremony. A classroom, maybe, but not 
a graduation ceremony."(4) 

In imperialist Amerika, there are 2 kinds of 
graduation speeches: fluff and imperialist 
mouthpieces advancing the Amerikkkan foreign 
policy agenda. Mumia's speech on the need for 
people to become revolutionaries is neither. 
Most people do not question why the imperialists 
deserve free speech to huge audiences and 
throughout the mainstream press while 
revolutionaries, at best hope for a chance to 
speak to a small classroom. The Revolutionary 
Anti-Imperialist League (RAIL) thinks that 
people should be offended when the war mongers 
give speeches to graduating classes encouraging 
them to become a part of the war machine. In 
fact, at many of these speeches large student 
protests take place, never to get reported in 
the media.

VOICE

On April 24 10,000 people attended a rally & 
march in Philadelphia to celebrate the 45th 
birthday of Mumia, and to demand his freedom. 
Thousands more rallied in San Francisco. Maoist 
Internationalist Movement and and Revolutionary 
Anti-Imperialist League comrades attended the 
rally in Philadelphia to distribute literature, 
interact with the masses, and raise funds for 
the Books for Prisoners program.
Single-issue organizing such as the fight 
focused exclusively on saving Mumia Abu-Jamal's 
life tends to lack a broad revolutionary 
perspective. This is why it is especially 
important for MIM and RAIL to attend events like 
this one. While it is important to demand 
freedom for imprisoned revolutionary leaders, 
MIM and RAIL go further and organize against the 
prison system as a whole. 

The Maoist Internationalist Movement makes the 
point that all prisoners are political prisoners 
because all imprisonment under imperialism is 
political. This can be seen, for example, in the 
fact that Black men are 8 times more likely to 
go to prison than whites. 

Of those incarcerated for their political 
beliefs or actions, Mumia is the only one on 
death row. Although it is equally true that 
others have sentences that will ensure they die 
in prison. However, what happened to Mumia is 
not exceptional: the judicial railroading of 
Black men into the gas chamber is the status quo 
of imperialism. The blatant miscarriage of 
justice in Mumia's case presents an opportunity 
to expose and organize against imperialism as a 
whole that cannot be missed. But we need to put 
this case in the larger context of the criminal 
injustice system.

At the same time, both at rallies like this one 
which many people will attend and then consider 
their duties as an activist done for the year, 
and on the streets, we need to be pushing people 
to make the struggle against this corrupt 
imperialist system a part of their lives. As 
Mumia told the graduating class at the mostly 
white Evergreen State College, speaking of the 
Black Panther Party founder: "Huey [Newton], at 
least in his earlier years, lived his life 
deliberately and set the mark as a 
revolutionary. What was the difference between 
Huey Newton and you? Absolutely nothing, except 
he made the choice." 

Let's let Jello Biafra of Dead Kennedys fame 
raise this issue with an international spin: 

[Jello Biafra Track 10 of Man is the Bastard 48 
sec]

It could happen to Jello Biafra. It could happen 
to the producers of this program.  But it's not 
doing the revolutionary movement to overstate 
teh current balance of forces or pretend that 
everyone shares the same risks as Mumia Abu 
Jamal.

Mumia, like Ken Saro-wina, was framed because he 
was an outspoken opponent of the system.  Many 
other are framed becuase cops are lazy and they 
politically need to get a conviction.  

What the prison system does is incarcerate its 
political opponents. This is because of the 
political work of activists like Mumia Abu Jamal 
or Ken Saro-Wina. [Wee-Waa]. It's also a form of 
political warfare against internal colonies. The 
individual Blacks and Latinos who so 
disproportionately crowd the prisons may not all 
be politically conscious like Mumia, but 
centuries of national oppression give them that 
potential. It is the revolutionary potential of 
the oppressed people that the system fears.  And 
it is that revolutionary potential that is 
trying in vane to extinquish via the prison 
industrial complex.

Unlike Jello Biafra, we don't pretend that "mass 
rage against corporate amerika is swelling 
closer and clsoer to the boiling point." We need 
to confront that fact that most white Amerikans 
are doing quite well and are doing better. This 
majority is quite happy with the current system 
of injustice.  They are, after all, for the most 
part protected from it by virtue of being white.  
We need to expose injustice whereever it exists, 
but let's not mislead people in the process.

Like Nigeria in the case of Ken Saro-Wina, the 
United States may be willing to endure 
international protest in order to maintain its 
own internal corrupt system.  Therefore, we must 
raise the level of the international 
condemendation of Amerika. Most importantly, we 
must build a strong revolutionary movement 
within the United States to demand freedom for 
Mumia as part of ending the entire criminal 
injustice system.

VOICE

At the end of May, the City of Philadelphia has 
removed the Black United Fund from its 
employees' annual charitable appeal. The Black 
United Fund is an important conduit for 
donations to Mumia's defense. The city 
charitable appeal is called the Combined 
Campaign, and in the past raised $1.7 million 
for charity. A tiny portion of this, only 
$100,000, went to the Black United Fund. But 
this tiny portion makes up 25% of the annual 
budget of the Black United Fund.

The Black United Fund gives out dozens of grants 
to Black groups, but the movement to free Mumia 
didn't get a dime, so what's the crime? The 
Black United Fund was behind in its legal 
paperwork and the city is using this to cut off 
the group even though the Black United Fund is 
actively rectifying their paperwork problems. 
The real crime was the Black United Fund's 
alliance with International Concerned Family and 
Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal. The Fund handles 
tax-deductible contributions for the Mumia group 
and does bookkeeping in exchange for a small 
fee. In the last month, the Black United Fund 
handled $200,000 in donations for Mumia's 
defense from around the world.

According to the city of Philadelphia Deputy 
Mayor Linda S. Berkowitz, this work was 
"inconsistent with the objectives of the city's 
Combined Campaign." Inconsistent with the 
objectives of Philly's Combined Campaign? 
Probably. Inconsistent with the political 
demands of the racist city of Philadelphia? 
Definitely and necessarily.(5)

Notes: 
1. New York Times June 10 1999. 
2. Boston Globe June 12 1999, p A4. 
3. Boston Globe June 11 1999, p. A14. 
4. Boston Globe June 12 1999, p A4. 
5. The Philadelphia Inquirer, May 28, 1999.