Join Teachers For Mumia
at the Oakland School Board Meeting
Wednesday, the 19th of November,
at 5 p.m.
Come to:
the Great Room, across from the old OUSD HQ
on 2nd Ave., just up 10th from Laney College
(near Lake Merritt BART Station)
Teachers for Mumia will have small signs reading:
“Repost Urban Dreams Now!
No Police Control of Curriculum”
Small signs may be taken into the meeting. Protestors are request to stand and hold up the signs as speakers make their presentations on restoring Urban Dreams.
Individuals are invited to get on the speakers list if you wish. Speakers will have one minute to address the Board members.
Alice Walker Spoke Out, and So Should You!
Join with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker in protesting against this dangerous censorship of school curricula by police! Come to the School Board meeting and make your voice heard. (See Alice Walker’s letter of protest to the School Board reprinted in this message, below.)
The shutting Down of Urban Dreams was a case of
Police Censorship!
The Urban Dreams web site contained curriculum materials created and posted by teachers. The site was taken down by the School Board after a complaint by the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) was aired on Fox News. The complaint was about one curriculum offering which compared the attempts to silence Mumia Abu-Jamal with similar censorship and harassment which was directed against the late Dr Martin Luther King Jr., and against his late writings in particular.
Mumia Abu-Jamal is an innocent political prisoner who has been targeted by the FOP for decades, just as Dr. King was targeted by the FBI. After having framed up Mumia for a crime he didn’t commit in the first place, the cops are so determined to silence Mumia that they got a law passed in Pennsylvania explicitly designed to “shut him up.” This law attempts to punish any prisoner convicted of a violent crime who causes “mental anguish” to the victim(s) of the crime by speaking out publicly!
We Must Stop Police Attacks on Free Speech!
The police suppression of the Urban Dreams web site sets an ominous precedent, of cops having a say in what gets taught in schools! And the Oakland School Board caved in to police pressure without a word of explanation. This must be stopped now!
If we are strong enough and loud enough, we can overturn this blatant piece of police censorship.
Come to the Oakland School Board meeting,
Wednesday, the 19th of November,
at 5 p.m.
the Great Room, across from the old OUSD HQ
on 2nd Ave., just up 10th from Laney College
(near Lake Merritt Station on BART)
— This message is from: Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
PO Box 16222 • Oakland CA 94610 • 510 763-2347
18 November 2014