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Alameda Labor Council Passes Resolution Condemning Oakland Unified School District for censoring Mumia Abu-Jamal

On Monday, July 14^th, the Alameda Labor Council passed the following resolution in response to the banning of “Urban Dreams” by the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD).

The “Urban Dreams” website includes course material about Mumia Abu-Jamal which was used in the teach-in for Mumia in Oakland in 1999, comparing Mumia to Martin Luther King, Jr. Because of this, the Fraternal Order of Police attacked the website last April on Fox News, and OUSD administrators immediately and unilaterally took the website down.

This public intimidation campaign comes right after the FOP blocked Debo Adegbele from serving as the Assistant Attorney General for the Department of Justice. Adegbele was involved in defending Mumia while working at the NAACP Legal Defense and Education fund. The FOP whipped up Democratic and Republican support to block his nomination. The FOP believes that, as an outspoken critic of the corruption and racism of the American legal system and both parties of American capitalism, Mumia must be silenced. In additional to legal and media pressure, they have in the past also utilized threats and actual physical violence against Mumia and his supporters.

We demand that the Urban Dreams website be reinstated on OUSD’s website.

The Labor Action Committee to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal

Full Text of Resolution

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Reverse the Censorship! Repost All of “Urban Dreams” Including Mumia!

Wednesday, 28 May, 5:30 pm.

1050 2nd Ave–the Great Room, La Escuelita Education Center–a block up 2nd Ave from Laney College

Please attend this important protest!

We are also asking supporters of Mumia to write emails to the Oakland School Board. Please see below.

Under pressure from the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) and Fox News, the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) recently shut down the entire “Urban Dreams” website, including material on Mumia Abu-Jamal authored by Oakland teacher Craig Gordon. Mumia was framed by the Philadelphia police and falsely convicted of murdering a Philadelphia policeman in 1982, a murder he did not commit. Continue reading →

National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) Solidarity Statement

The National Treasurer of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), Mphumzi Maqungo, recently visited the Bay Area and gave presentations at ILWU Local 10, UC Berkeley and the Black Repertory Theater.

NUMSA, which represents 340,000 workers and is the largest union in South Africa, recently broke from the ANC (African National Congress), the party of Nelson Mandela, due to its abandonment of the Freedom Charter and support for IMF economic policies, which have resulted in the immiseration of the South African working class since the end of apartheid in 1994. This process culminated in the Marikana massacre of 2012, at which striking platinum miners were deliberately executed by police acting under orders from the highest levels of the ANC government.

Maqungo signed a solidarity statement for Mumia on behalf of his union, which is reproduced below.

Reinstate Anthony Monteiro!

The Labor Action Committee sent the following letter to Temple University President Neil D. Theobald protesting the firing of Dr. Anthony Monteiro, one of the nation’s leading scholars of W. E. B. Du Bois.

Monteiro was fired for his community activism, socialist views and vocal support for Mumia as one of the founders of Educators for Mumia Abu-Jamal. An article about the firing on the Black Agenda Report is available here.

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All Out! Defend Fired Unionists Who Supported Mumia!

National Day of Solidarity on Saturday, Nov. 9th

The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal urges you to come out to defend union school bus drivers who were fired by a union-busting transnational corporation for legally protesting unfair labor practices in Boston.

These firings took place on the very day (November 1st) of a scheduled showing of the documentary, “Mumia: Long Distance Revolutionary,” which the school bus drivers’ union had helped to organize and promote!

A National Day of Solidarity with the five fired (one suspended) drivers, and with all Boston school bus drivers, has been organized for this Saturday, the 9th of November 2013. Protests are being held at offices of Veolia, the corporation responsible for these union-busting attacks.

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