In 2008, we as LGBT peoples are outraged that we continue to face racist,
anti-LGBT violence in the streets, in our homes, at the hands of police and the
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE). In 2008, it is a crime that
there is still not a cure for AIDS, while we face devastating cuts in services,
health care and research.
It is an injustice that the economic rights afforded heterosexual couples
are still denied us and our families. And just like the majority of workers in
the U.S., we are incensed by the deepening economic crisis—with
increasing rates of unemployment, the lack of affordable housing and an
exponential increase in foreclosures and evictions, while the Bush
administration continues to spend billions on the occupation of Iraq and
Afghanistan.
Moreover, even our most human right to defend ourselves from anti-gay
violence is denied, sending more of us to jail, like the Jersey 4, young
African-American lesbians who were sentenced up to 11 years in prison. We see
the Jersey 4 as a politically motivated case, centered on the racist
gentrification of the birthplace of the 1969 Stonewall Rebellion, the West
Village of New York City.
Despite the racist, anti-LGBT oppression we face, it is because of our
movement’s rich history of resistance, from the Stonewall Inn to the
Compton Cafeteria in California, that we continue to fight for equality and
social justice today. It is with that same righteous rage against injustice
that we as LGBT peoples demand the immediate freedom of the Jersey 4 and
continue to fight for the freedom of Mumia Abu-Jamal.
On March 27, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals denied a new trial for Mumia
Abu-Jamal. Although there is overwhelming evidence proving Mumia’s
innocence, this ruling has left Mumia’s only legal options as life in
prison without parole or execution by the state of Pennsylvania.
But just like the case of South African freedom fighter Nelson Mandela, who
was sentenced to life in prison, we believe we can and will continue to build
an international movement to free Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Mumia Abu-Jamal was a founding member of the Philadelphia chapter of the
Black Panther Party as a teenager. Years later he began reporting
professionally on radio stations, such as NPR. Known as “the Voice of the
Voiceless,” Mumia won awards for his reporting on police brutality and
other social and racial epidemics that plagued communities of color in
Philadelphia and throughout the world. In 1981 he was arrested and sent to
death row for allegedly shooting Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner.
We know that Mumia remains in jail because he is a political leader.
Through his writings, behind the walls of death row, Mumia has shown
solidarity with oppressed peoples all over the world. In a 1999 statement
denouncing recent anti-gay murders, including the killing of Matthew Shepard in
Laramie, Wyo.; Billy Jack Gaither in Sylacauga, Ala.; and Henry Edward
Northington in Richmond, Va., Mumia Abu-Jamal wrote: “Is it a coincidence
that Richmond, the city where a Black man was burned to death and decapitated,
follows several months later with the decapitation and torture of a gay man? I
think not.”
Rainbow Flags for Mumia calls on all LGBT organizations and activists to
endorse and mobilize for April 19 and beyond. With legal options exhausted, it
is up to us, by any means necessary, to ensure that Mumia no longer languishes
in jail under the threat of execution.
