FOR WIDE DISTRIBUTION!
From: "Taylor, Professor Mark" <mark.taylor@ptsem.edu>
_____________________________
> THE NEW YORK TIMES "EDUCATORS FOR MUMIA" FULL PAGE AD
>
> AN APPEAL from -
> Jonathan Kozol Toni Morrison Noam Chomsky
> Cornel West Rudolfo Anaya Frances Fox Piven
> Angela Y. Davis Manning Marable Leslie Marmon Silko
> Rudolfo Anaya Marty Hittelman
>
> Please join us in demanding a new trial for condemned
> African-American journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal. An outspoken advocate on
> behalf of poor and working people, Abu-Jamal has spent the last 17 years
> on Pennsylvania's death row. Although his 1982 conviction was fraught
> with judicial and prosecutorial misconduct, his appeals in the State
> courts of Pennsylvania have been denied, and Governor Tom Ridge of
> Pennsylvania, who has signed a total of 176 death warrants (two already
> for Mumia) stands ready to sign a third one on Mumia when he can. Mumia's
> case is now in Federal District court. A crucial Spring-time ruling is
> expected, when Judge William H. Yohn, Jr., will decide whether Mumia
> receives an "evidentiary hearing" to consider the new evidence previously
> ruled inadmissable by "hanging judge" Albert Sabo.
>
> Abu-Jamal's case has tremendous relevance for educators. His
> writings have galvanized student learning in new ways, especially in low
> income communities and among people of color, whose economic and
> educational needs are being subordinated to the increased funding for more
> prisons to warehouse our youth, and for police forces featuring rising
> levels of police brutality.
>
> Mumia's voice has become essential to this generation's efforts to
> understand the social ills of their time and to resist them with
> creativity and intelligence. His vision and eloquence have been important
> for nurturing broad-based, multiracial coalitions that address important
> cultural, political and economic issues in our nation today.
>
> Teachers using Mumia's writings at many levels of education have
> routinely met with censorship by some administrators and policing
> authorities. The Fraternal Order of Police maintains a list of Mumia's
> supporters on its website. A number of educators are included on that
> list and are targeted for "boycott" by the police union. Since teachers
> have played a major role in making Mumia's case known, and in reopening a
> nation-wide debate on the death penalty, these efforts at censorship
> cannot be taken lightly.
>
> Abu-Jamal's execution would constitute the ultimate censorship of
> his eloquent and powerful exposure of criminal injustice in America. It
> would allow politicians and elements of law enforcement to think they can
> narrow the scope of education in our society, and limit our writers'
> freedom of expression.
>
> We urge you to sign the ad on the back of this page and make a
> contribution toward publishing it in The New York Times, as soon as
> possible. We plan an ad featuring names of rank and file teachers in all
> geographical areas of the country. Please take time to sign on now!
AD TEXT:
> WE EDUCATORS . . .
> Demand Justice and a New Trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal
>
> Mumia Abu-Jamal is an African- American writer and journalist who has
> spent the last 17 years of his life on Pennsylvania's death row. His
> demand for justice and a new trial is supported by heads of state from
> France to South Africa, by Nobel Laureates, the European Parliament, city
> governments from Detroit to San Francisco, scholars, religious leaders,
> artists, scientists, the Congressional Black Caucus and other members of
> U.S. Congress, and by countless thousands who cherish democratic and human
> rights the world over.
>
> Working people have expressed their support for Jamal through their
> leading regional, national and international trade union bodies. In an
> action nearly without precedent in U.S. labor history, the International
> Long shore and Warehouse Union closed down West coast ports for the day of
> April 24, 1999.
>
> Jamal's two books and over 400 published columns have been adopted as
> resource material for the teaching and inspiration of a growing number of
> students, youth, and educators who have come to see THEIR futures as
> intimately tied to the outcome of this case.
>
> The 1982 trial that convicted Jamal of killing Philadelphia police officer
> Daniel Faulkner has been challenged by leading legal analysts and scholars
> from Stuart Taylor writing in the prestigious American Lawyer to Per
> Walsoe of the Supreme Court of Denmark.
>
> Jamal's attorneys have presented compelling evidence that key witnesses
> were intimidated or coerced to provide false testimony, that a purported
> "confession" was likely fabricated by police, and that vital evidence
> pointing to his innocence was withheld from the defense. A key eyewitness
> has now recanted critical court testimony used against Jamal.
>
> Jamal was forced to appeal his conviction before the same judge that
> sentenced him to death in 1982. That judge, Albert Sabo, is notorious for
> presiding over capital cases resulting in 33 people being sentenced to
> death (all but two, people of color), more than twice the number of any
> sitting judge in the United States.
>
> We educators unite in saying No to Jamal's execution.
>
> g Jamal has long been a POLITICAL TARGET as a prominent journalist critic
> of police brutality and racism in Philadelphia since the days of Mayor
> Frank Rizzo. Rizzo's police department incurred an unprecedented suit by
> the United States Department of Justice for police brutality.
>
> g Jamal is made more vulnerable by TODAY'S FREQUENT USE OF THE DEATH
> PENALTY. The American Bar Association has opposed the death penalty as
> immensely discriminatory with respect to class and race. The innocent
> often find their way onto death row. In Illinois, for example, one inmate
> has been exonerated for every inmate executed over the last 12 years.
> Teacher and student actions - from Northwestern University in Illinois, to
> schools in Oakland, California, to Evergreen State College in Washington,
> and to Pennsylvania itself - have played key roles in freeing some of
> those among the 3,500 on death row U.S.A. or in rekindling debate on the
> death penalty after a decade of law and order vengeance.
>
> g The risk to Jamal's life is magnified in today's climate of GROWING
> POLICE REPRESSION. Brutality and "racial profiling" are epidemic in the
> United States, alive on our school campuses, neighborhoods and highways.
> The nation's largest police organization has shocked civil liberties
> advocates by publishing a list of the names of educators and other Jamal
> supporters (reminiscent of the McCarthy witch-hunt era) on its
> police-maintained website.
>
> g Jamal, often referred to as the "voice of the voiceless," has challenged
> the present political priorities of SPENDING MORE FOR PRISONS AND
> PUNISHMENT THAN FOR EDUCATION. The youth who increasingly rally to Mumia's
> cause in the name of justice and fair play know that we build jailhouse
> cell blocks more rapidly than schoolhouse classrooms, that we spend more
> on prisons than on state colleges and universities.
>
> AS EDUCATORS, IN PENNSYLVANIA, ACROSS THE UNITED STATES AND THE WORLD, WE
> STRONGLY OPPOSE THE EXECUTION OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL. While there are those
> who believe Mumia is innocent and should be freed now, and others who have
> no opinion about his innocence, we are all united in viewing Mumia's 1982
> trial as a travesty of justice, and affirm that he MUST have a new trial!
> _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
> _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
> YES, I'LL SUPPORT PUBLICATION OF THE "EDUCATORS FOR MUMIA" AD !
> Enclosed is my contribution:
> ___ $35 ___ $50 ___ $100 ___ $ 500 ____ $ Other _____
> ___ You can use my name on the published ad ($50 minimum contribution).
> Name _______________________________________________________
> Address
> _______________________________________________________________________
> Telephone ___________________________ Email
> ____________________________________
> Organizational affiliation(s), if any:
> _________________________________________________
> Make checks payable to "National Black United Fund" (Memo Line: "NYTimes
> Ad"), Send to National Black United Fund, 40 Clinton Street, 5th Floor,
> Newark, NJ 07102.
> For more information, call (609) 497-7918 Email: mark.taylor@ptsem.edu
>
>