SANKOFA EXECUTION HAUNTS BUSH: WWP CANDIDATE MOOREHEAD CONFRONTS GOV. DEATH

By Greg Butterfield

Eighteen days after the execution of Shaka Sankofa/Gary Graham, five Black activists disrupted Texas Gov. George W. Bush's speech at the NAACP national convention in Baltimore July 10.

Workers World Party presidential candidate Monica Moorehead led the death-penalty foes that challenged Bush.

She was joined by Larry Holmes, a leader of WWP and Millions for Mumia/International Action Center; Imani Henry, a coordinator of the lesbian/gay/bi/trans solidarity group Rainbow Flags for Mumia; and Qausu Thwaites and Rachel Leiner, two Antioch College activists.

"Remember Gary Graham," they chanted. "Bush executed an innocent man!"

Some NAACP delegates stood and applauded them. Others shouted their agreement.

Bush stood on the platform, nervously pursing his lips and waiting for security guards to remove the protesters.

The activists held their ground for several minutes in front of the media cameras. They waved signs reading: "Gary Graham, lynched for the crime of being Black," and, "We remember Gary's last words: Abolish the racist death penalty."

Finally the group was hustled out by security guards. Holmes continued to chant as he was carried out headfirst.

None of the protesters were injured or arrested. Bush went ahead with his speech.

It was a wake up call to the audience--and the world.

Bush, the Republican presidential candidate, was courting Black voters at the civil-rights group's meeting.

The protest was a reminder that Bush is a butcher who runs one of the country's most brutal and racist death rows, the protesters said.

"Bush does not have the right to be running for any office in this country, much less president," socialist candidate Moorehead told Workers World. "He's guilty of mass murder.

"Al Gore's another supporter of legal lynching," she added, "and he'd better get ready, because we're coming after him too."

The International Action Center's Justice for Gary Graham Campaign organized the action on a day's notice, she said.

After the protest, the NAACP released a statement calling Sankofa/Graham's execution a "gross miscarriage of justice." The group called for a national moratorium on executions.

"The NAACP was forced to take a stand on this issue," Moorehead said. "Because of what we did, a lot of the delegates had to think long and hard about what Bush did and how he had the power to stop that execution.

"There was a lot of sympathy for what we were doing from the delegates," she told WW.

HOUNDING `GOV. DEATH'

African Americans are 12 percent of Texas's population. But Black people account for 41 percent of death-row inmates there.

Since 1995 Gov. Bush has presided over 138 executions. He claims that no innocent person has been executed.

But Sankofa/Graham's supporters say Bush's decision to lethally inject the prisoner June 22 proves him a liar.

"For a month before the execution, every major newspaper, magazine and television network reported to millions of people that the evidence pointing in favor of Gary Graham's innocence was the strongest in any death penalty case in recent memory," Holmes said.

"But two weeks after the most publicized, scandalous execution in recent history, the media and politicians have stopped talking about Gary Graham, as if all the far- ranging and deeply troubling consequences of his execution were buried with him."

Moorehead added: "Shaka's last words called on us to end the racist death penalty by any means necessary.

"We heed that message. Everywhere that George Bush raises his head, we'll be there to get in his face.

"We also believe that keeping Shaka's case in the public eye will help Mumia Abu-Jamal," the political activist on death row in Pennsylvania.

"Like Shaka, all the evidence in Mumia's case points to his innocence in the 1981 killing of a police officer," Moorehead said.

The protest succeeded in putting Sankofa/Graham's case back in the news. Within minutes major news Web sites carried the headline, "Bush speech marred by protesters." The next day newspapers worldwide carried the story.

C-SPAN cable network showed the disruption live. ABC, CNN and NBC television networks also reported it.

`SUMMER OF RESISTANCE' UNDERWAY

Holmes said the Baltimore action was part of the "summer of resistance" by the movement to end the death penalty, abolish the prison-industrial complex and win a new trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Mass protests for those demands are scheduled at the Republican and Democratic conventions later this summer.

"A key to the summer of resistance is to remember Gary Graham," said Holmes. "He has become the most prominent face of the women and men on death row."

The cases of Sankofa/Graham and Abu-Jamal were prominent during three days of protests at the National Governors Association meeting in State College, Pa.

On July 9, some 14 people chained themselves together and blocked a highway leading to the governors' meeting to protest the death penalty. They and another supporter were arrested.

In Washington, Martha Barnett, the incoming president of the American Bar Association, announced July 10 that winning a national moratorium on executions would be a top priority for the 400,000-member lawyers' group.

"I am putting together a call to action on the implementation of a moratorium on the death penalty," she told a news conference, adding that she would organize a national conference on the death penalty in Atlanta in October. (Reuters, June 10)

GARZA WINS EXECUTION DELAY

On July 7 President Bill Clinton officially delayed the scheduled Aug. 5 execution of Juan Raul Garza. Garza would have been the first federal death-row prisoner executed in 37 years.

An outcry by Latino and Black groups forced Clinton, a supporter of legal lynching, to delay the execution.

Leaders of the National Council of La Raza expressed outrage when they learned of the disproportionate number of Black and Latino people on federal death row.

Seventeen of the 21 federal death-row inmates--over 80 percent--are people of color.

Garza, a migrant farm worker from Texas, wants to raise the issue of racism in the application of the death penalty. He plans to ask Clinton for clemency based on the blatant discrimination in sentencing.

But Garza's lawyers discovered there were no guidelines for a federal death-row prisoner to appeal for clemency-- even though it's a Constitutionally guaranteed right.

Garza's reprieve is expected to last at least 90 days, until clemency guidelines can be put in place.

The Democratic presidential candidate, Al Gore, says he supports Clinton's decision to delay the execution. But Gore again said he did not support a moratorium on executions.

`WORKING-CLASS DEBATE'

"We need to expose that Bush, Al Gore and Pat Buchanan are pro-death penalty," Monica Moorehead explained, "and that Ralph Nader, who is supposed to be a progressive alternative, has been silent about Shaka Sankofa's execution and the death penalty in general.

"Our militant socialist election campaign is aimed at putting the issue of the death penalty and the struggle against racist repression back into the presidential debate," she told WW.

"Having disruptions and demonstrations is the best way to debate this issue," Moorehead said. "This takes it out of the realm of traditional capitalist politics and into the streets, the real arena of working-class struggle.

"That's why my running mate, Gloria La Riva, and I are devoting our efforts to organizing for the biggest possible turnout at the Republican and Democratic convention protests."

She said, "Workers World Party's election campaign is the only one whose candidates have taken an active leadership role in fighting the racist death penalty.

"We want to show that the only way to win real justice and equality is to organize and fight for it.

"You have to be bold and active in the struggle, not just stand on the sidelines," Moorehead concluded.