WHAT TO THE SLAVE IS YO' FOURTH OF JULY? Summer 2001 Video Screenings
From: Leslie Jones
ona move!
please help spread the word....
JOIN the International Concerned Family & Friends Of Mumia Abu-Jamal, Ithaca, for weekly alternative & political video screenings beginning Wednesday, July 11, 2001. Discussions will follow each screening.
The screenings are FREE and will be shown every Wednesday night at... The Multicultural Resource Center 210 West State Steet Ithaca 7 - 9 PM
For the month of July, ICFFMAJ - Ithaca will be showing...
Sankofa - 7/11 a powerful tale of slavery, resistance, and redemption
Voice of the Voiceless - 7/18 the hip hop community steps up in support of Mumia Abu-Jamal
Who is MOVE? - 7/25 1978 & 1985 confrontations between Philly & MOVE
On July 3, 1982, activist, journalist, and revolutionary Mumia Abu-Jamal was sentenced to death for a crime he did not commit. His case exemplifies all that is wrong with the racist criminal justice system in general, and the disproportionate application of the death penalty to persons of color in particular. Mumia was criminalized as a young person of color, targeted for his political beliefs as a young adult, and framed by the Philadelphia police department in the same vein that members of MOVE, former Black Panthers, AIM members, and Puerto Rican Indepentistas were all victims of the counter-intelligence program (COINTELPRO) headed by the FBI. Frederick Douglass' words in 1852 still ring true today, nearly 150 years later, for people of color in this country because racism and white supremacy continue to permeate all aspects of American life.
"What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?"
Frederick Douglass
Rochester Hall, Rochester, New York
July 5, 1852What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?
I answer, a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.
To him, your celebration is a sham;
your boasted liberty, an unholy license;
your national greatness, swelling vanity;
your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless;
your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence;
your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery;
your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with
all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him,
mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy - a thin
veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.
There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.
coming soon....
indigenous sovereignty (august)
political prisoners (september)
the prison industrial complex (october)
for more information...
607-327-0735
youth4mumia@hotmail.com
take care & stay on the move.
.
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