"EDUCATORS FOR MUMIA ABU-JAMAL" THE NEW YORK TIMES FULL-PAGE AD CAMPAIGN !

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The Nation-wide campaign is underway to gather signatures of the full-page ad of educators in The New York Times, demanding that Mumia Abu-Jamal’s execution be stopped and that he receive a fair trial.

A diverse group of educators have come together to launch this ad campaign. They include: JONATHAN KOZOL * TONI MORRISON * RUDOLFO ANAYA * MARTY HITTELMAN * LESLIE MARMON SILKO * CORNEL WEST * SONIA SANCHEZ * HOWARD ZINN * MANNING MARABLE * FRANCES FOX PIVEN * ANGELA Y. DAVIS * * NOAM CHOMSKY

Their "Appeal" about the importance of signing this ad, together with the text of the full-page ad, can be found at http://www.freemumia.org/latest/EducatorsforMumia.html

The Web site also has the coupon which provides full instructions about signing up, and sending in your contribution. The minimum contribution for guaranteeing your name’s inclusion in the ad is $35.

The deadline for submitting signatures and making your contributions to this important ad campaign is January 15, 2000. But don’t wait until then! The campaign is moving rapidly. If you are an educator in elementary, middle school, and high school, community organizations, Vo-Tech, community colleges, universities (private or public), professional schools - the ad campaign will grow stronger with your support. Sign on now.

For more information, contact mark.taylor@ptsem.edu or (609) 497-7918.

THE NEW YORK TIMES "EDUCATORS FOR MUMIA" FULL PAGE AD

AD TEXT: (Slightly Amended)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 ($35 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, 5^th Floor, Newark, NJ 07102.

For more information, call (609) 497-7918 Email: mark.taylor@ptsem.edu