[[link removed]]

‘DO NOT BOW’: EX-BLACK PANTHER PRAISES PRO-PALESTINIAN STUDENT
PROTESTERS FROM PRISON  
[[link removed]]


 

Nina Lakhani
April 28, 2024
The Guardian
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ Mumia Abu-Jamal tells New York City students they’re on the right
side of history by deciding ‘not to be silent and to speak out’ _

The Gaza solidarity encampment at the City College of New York on
Friday, April 26, 2024 , (photo Hrag Vartanian/Hyperallergic)

 

 

In a powerful and rousing live address to students at the City
University of New York (Cuny) on Friday night, the incarcerated Black
political activist Mumia Abu-Jamal praised the pro-Palestinian
movement growing at US colleges
[[link removed]] as
being on the right side of history.

"It is a wonderful thing that you have decided not to be silent and
decided to speak out against the repression that you see with your own
eyes,” Abu-Jamal
[[link removed]],
a former Black Panther, said while calling from Pennsylvania’s
Mahanoy state prison. “You are part of something massive, and you
are part of something that is on the right side of history.

“You’re against a colonial regime that steals the land from the
people who are Indigenous to that area. I urge you to speak out
against the terrorism that is afflicted upon Gaza with all of your
might, all of your will and all of your strength. Do not bow to those
who want you to be silent.”

As hundreds of students and supporters at the Cuny encampment in
Harlem cheered, he continued, “This is the moment to be heard and
shake the earth so that the people of Gaza, the people of Rafah, the
people of the West Bank, the people of Palestine can feel your
solidarity with them.”

Abu-Jamal was a founding member of the Philadelphia chapter of the
Black Panther party and went on to become a radio journalist as well
as president of the Philadelphia chapter of the Black Association of
Journalists. In 1982, he was convicted and sentenced to death in 1982
for the murder of police officer Daniel Faulkner in Philadelphia in
1981.

Abu-Jamal spent almost three decades in solitary confinement on death
row before his death sentence was overturned by a federal court,
citing irregularities in the original sentencing process.

A prolific writer on Black struggle and critic of the US criminal
justice system, Abu-Jamal is serving life without parole, and his
supporters regard him as a political prisoner.

[Mumia Abu-Jamal, former Black Panther activist and journalist
convicted of killing Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner in
1981, leaves a Philadelphia court 12 July 1995.]

Mumia Abu-Jamal, former Black Panther activist and journalist
convicted of killing Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner in
1981, leaves court on 12 July 1995. Photograph: Chris Gardner/AP

Student protests calling for divestment in Israel have spread across
the US in the past 10 days – in solidarity with the Palestinian
liberation cause as well as the Columbia University students who were
arrested and suspended after administrators allowed the NYPD on to
campus.

Cuny is the largest public urban college in the US, with a large
working-class Black and brown student and teaching body, with 25
campuses across the city’s five boroughs.

The mood on Friday night in Harlem was buoyant despite the cold.
Students wrapped up in donated blankets amid Shabbat rituals, Muslim
community prayers, lectures and the screening of documentaries about
the history of student protests, the South African apartheid regime
and the Palestinian struggle.

Nationwide, students – and a growing number of faculty – are
demanding administrators disclose and divest from funds and
corporations doing 
[[link removed]]business
with Israel in it. Those include Amazon and Google, which are part of
a $1.2bn cloud-computing contract with Israel’s government, as well
as manufacturers of weapons and other military equipment.

Police have responded with brutality on some campuses, such as
at Emory University
[[link removed]] in
Atlanta, provoking international condemnation – and, in turn, more
student protests.

Joe Biden and many lawmakers have criticized the protesters as
“antisemitic” despite the fact that Jewish students who reject
Zionism are organizing many of the college protests.

In response to the 7 October Hamas attack that killed about 1,200
Israelis and resulted in the kidnappings of more than 200 others,
Israel has killed at least 34,000 Palestinians in Gaza, with thousands
more buried under the rubble and presumed dead.

Deaths from starvation and extreme heat are rising, according
[[link removed].] to
UN agencies, amid ongoing Israeli attacks and blockades stopping the
delivery of humanitarian aid that some US officials acknowledge could
[[link removed]] be
a violation of international law.

As the Israeli military appears to be preparing to launch an attack on
Rafah in southern Gaza, where a million Palestinians have been
displaced, Abu-Jamal urged students to expand protests.

“The people of Gaza are fighting to be free from generations of
occupation so it is not enough, brothers and sisters, it is not enough
to demand a ceasefire,” he said. “Make your demand cease
occupation, cease occupation, and let that be your battle cry because
that is the call of history of which all of you are part.

“You are part of something magnanimous, magnificent and soul
changing, and history changing. Do not let go of this moment, make it
bigger, make it more massive, make it more powerful, make it echo up
into the stars. I am thrilled by your work – I love you.”

The students erupted into chants of “brick by brick, wall by wall,
free Mumia Abu-Jamal”.

Abu-Jamal has a track record of supporting student movements and has
been invited as a commencement speaker by numerous colleges. He
participates in those commencements through recordings.

He has published dozens of essays and several books – including
2017’s Have Black Lives Ever Mattered? – about his time on death
row and the history of the Black Panthers.

Cuny voted to divest from South Africa in 1984 by cutting ties with
companies supporting the apartheid regime. Columbia was the first Ivy
League university to sever financial links with the apartheid regime.

_Nina Lakhani is senior reporter for Guardian US.
Twitter @ninalakhani [[link removed]]_

* Student Protest
[[link removed]]
* City University of New York
[[link removed]]
* Mumia Abu-Jamal
[[link removed]]
* Palestine solidarity
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]