MOTHER'S LOSS AND MOTHER'S LOVE
Mumia Abu-Jamal
Column Written 5/12/2000
Don't mourn, Organize! - Joe Hill, labor leader
She is a wife, a mother, and a scholar.
The proud descendant of slaves and rebels, born into a nation that bellows to the entire world about its respect for human rights, while denying to millions of its so-called "citizens" the simple right to walk down a city street, to drive a car, or to stand on their doorsteps. Perhaps this brilliant historian thought that the dawning of a new century was a harbinger of better things to come.
January, 2000. Millions were gripped by anxiety and anticipation of a great and horrific event striking mankind. It passes, as have most Januarys, relatively quietly, even placidly, despite the fears. But, not for her. For this Mother of a son whose face reflects the ancient streams of Africa, the apocalypse became bitter reality.
January of 2000 marked the month that her son, Erin, was shot to death by 5 armed cops in Lower Merion, Pennsylvania, just outside of Philadelphia. His crime? He was a Black man, in a car; Driving While Black, and unarmed.
Ella Forbes, a distinguished scholar of African-American Studies, wrote a book about a little known piece of African-American history, at least in this age. When the event happened, it rocked the English-speaking world, and generated headlines in every major American city. She wrote of the 1851 Christiana, Pennsylvania Resistance, when William Parker, his wife, and a small group of escaped captives refused to allow themselves to be taken back into bondage after the passing of the ignoble Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.
They fought the legalized Southern kidnappers, and their U.S. Government allies in kidnapping, with guns, with machetes, and with everything they could lay their hands on for their freedom, and beat them. Most of the leaders of the Resistance had to leave the United States, and most made their way to a greater degree of freedom, in Canada. Mrs. Forbes' But We Have No Country: The 1851 Christiana Pennsylvania Resistance (Cherry Hill, N.J.: Africana Legacy, 1998) is a remarkable salvaging of the once-lost voice of a brave, Black rebel, William Parker, as well as many of his contemporaries. She also talks to the descendants of the rebel families, many in both Canada and the U.S. What she finds, however, is that some of the descendants of these rebels and freedom fighters have little or no knowledge of their brave, and resourceful ancestors.
What she found, in some families, was a history, lost and forgotten. Perhaps that is why she does not forget.
She is a member of a newly emerging group, Mothers Organized Against Police Terror. Please take a moment to re-read the name of this group of mothers, and other relatives of people murdered by agents of the state.... I repeat: MOTHERS ORGANIZED AGAINST POLICE TERROR! Because that's what it is, isn't it?
Talk to the mothers of Amadou Diallo, Gidone Busch, Tyesha Miller, Johnny Gamage, Donte Dawson, .... the names, of men, women, and children, slaughtered by cops in America could fill this page. Was this police "brutality?" Hardly. This was Police Terror! Period. Straight - no chaser. And Erin's mom is calling on others who have seen this vile, true face of America, to join her, and build a movement for a real change.
As this is being written, this small fledgling group has not yet held its first march (set for the anniversary of the Police Murders and Massacres of MOVE, on May 13th) but it's a fair bet that you haven't seen it anywhere in the American corporationist media. They have granted Most Favored Demonstration Status to the Moms marching about guns (pro and con), but what about the Moms who marched about the cops that used their guns to kill their kids? Silence. "What march? Oh, we were short-handed that weekend-everybody was in Washington, D.C." -blah, blah... If your child or loved one was murdered by a killer cop, please feel free to contact the Mothers Organized Against Police Terror, P.O. Box 77, Lincoln University, Lincoln, PA 19352. Or call: 610-932-5798.
Police Terror isn't just some distant, foreign reality that occurs in blighted Third World nations in Latin America, or Asia. It happens right here in the United States. Mrs. Forbes, an historian, knows this all too well. So do the other Mothers who have begun to organize!
Text © copyright 2000 by Mumia Abu-Jamal.
All rights reserved.
Reprinted by permission of the author.International Action Center
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