Category Archives: Free Speech and Mumia

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

On Monday, July 14th, 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 →

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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Shaq : Stop Censoring Mumia!

May 12, 2013

A documentary movie about Mumia Abu-Jamal (Mumia: Long Distance Revolutionary) had been scheduled to open at the Cineplex-12 Theater in Newark, N.J., this spring. The documentary has been playing to full houses on extended runs in more than 20 cities in the U.S. and Canada, including Oakland, New York, Philly, New Orleans, Seattle, D.C, and Calgary, and the Newark theater had planned a gala opening–until Shaquille O’Neal, co-owner of the theater, stepped in and cancelled it at the last minute.

Shaquille O’Neal has long been a wannabe cop. He says he was “raised” by the Newark Police; he’s a big supporter of the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) and a “reserve police officer” in a number of cities; on a “ride along” in Baton Rouge police internal affairs accused him (then cleared him) of flushing a suspect’s head in a toilet. His canceling of the movie furthers a 30-year campaign by the FOP to see that Mumia dies in prison.

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