Remarks by Martin Luther King, III
President, Southern Christian Leadership Conference
International Committee to Save the Life of Mumia Abu-Jamal
January 12, 2000
Conscience compels me to unite with Nelson Mandela, Catholic Bishop Thomas
Gumbelton, elected representatives of the European Parliament, the Congressional
Black Caucus, Amnesty International, Harry Belafonte, Paul Newman, Ossie Davis,
Danny Glover, Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu, and millions of others around the globe
to fight for the life of our brother in ‘the struggle,’ Mumia
Abu-Jamal.
SCLC’s commitment to justice for Mumia Abu-Jamal,
dates back over a decade. We thank God for the energy of Ralph Schoenman, our
board member Dick Gregory, and others, who have made today’s international
witness a reality. First of all, at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
we are unequivocally opposed to capital punishment. The conductors of the evil
system of injustice made Abu-Jamal a political prisoner and now they have
planned his execution. As ‘conscious-raising members’ of the global
society, we cannot afford to sit back and let an innocent man die.
The
world must know that the judge purposely withheld ‘crucial evidence’
from Abu-Jamal’s case. Experts say this evidence alone could have brought
an acquittal. We can no longer afford to allow bias in the criminal justice
system to continue.
We must stand by Abu-Jamal’s side just as we
stood by the sides of Nelson Mandela, Angela Davis, Ben Chavis, and Joann
Little.
I do not believe it is incidental that I find myself
protesting for the life of this innocent man, one month after my family and I
received the verdict from a multicultural jury that said my father’s
assassination was part of a conspiracy. Martin Luther King, Jr. was brutally
murdered because he spoke out against social injustices.
Today, almost
thirty-three years after he was killed, we must unite together in the name of
justice to stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal, a young man who was respected
in the community for reporting stories about economic and social injustices.
My family was able to find out who killed my father because my brother, Dexter
never gave up. He persevered in his search for the truth and our family let our
faith sustain us until we found out who killed my father. We must come together
as a family in the spirit of my father who said, ‘the arc of the universe
is long but is bent towards justice,’ and never give up until we save the
life of our brother, Mumia Abu-Jamal. American should know that the world is
watching to see if she will do the right thing. Under the system of government
dictated by our Constitution, the judicial system is the final repository of
public power. It should be held inviolate from racism and other prejudices,
which plague our society. We demand that all those with the power to intervene
do so now in the name of justice! do so now in the name of all that America
holds, claims to hold, true and fair! do so now in the name of humanity! do so
now, in the name of all those who have already died to force America to live up
to its motto of liberty and justice for all!
From the Board President
by Janet Gibson
A Critical Time for Mumia
All members of the faith community who work for peace and justice should
feel the imperative to help save the life of Mumia Abu-Jamal. Although we may
start from the position that capital punishment is morally and ethically wrong,
we can also point to a series of injustices from the suppression of evidence to
the unmistakable factor of race and class bias in the application of the death
penalty. Is there anyone who has not heard of someone imprisoned falsely? A
contemporary movie, Hurricane, tells the story of “Hurricane” Carter,
an innocent man who was almost executed and who spent 20+ years behind bars.
Northwestern University law class students recently uncovered evidence that led
to the exoneration of several death row inmates and spurred a move to impose a
moratorium on any further executions in Illinois.
Sometime this
spring, a federal judge is expected to decide whether or not to grant Mumia an
evidentiary hearing. If the judge rules in the affirmative, evidence suppressed
in the original trial will be entered into the official transcript of the case.
This includes ballistics reports that show the bullet which killed the officer
does not match Mumia’s gun; evidence that Mumia’s “confession”
was a police fabrication based on intimidation of witnesses; and critical
procedural evidence pertaining to the systematic exclusion of African-Americans
from the jury.
If the judge decides against granting the hearing, all
future appeals will be based on the transcripts from Judge Sabo’s original
court trial. Sabo is known as “the hanging judge”, a prosecutor in
judicial robes who has sentenced more people to death row than any other judge
in the USA. Using his transcripts virtually assures Mumia’s ultimate
execution.
Unfortunately, our system of justice is not “blind”.
It is affected by local and national politics. Ed Rendell, recently selected
as the new national chair of the Democratic Party, was the DA when Mumia was
framed and also presided over the attacks on MOVE, including the murderous
aerial bombardment, which burned down a whole city block. Rendell was a
long-time apologist for Philadelphia’s notorious (many say “racist”)
police chief-mayor Frank Rizzo. This summer a publicist on Rendell’s staff
planted a phony story about Mumia “confessing” in Vanity Fair, a story
that even the Philadelphia press refused to buy.
On January 12, 2000,
Martin Luther King III, President of the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference, made a statement for the International Committee to Save the Life of
Mumia Abu-Jamal. His statement is printed in this issue of Planted.
Opposing what Martin Luther King III referred to as “the conductors of the
evil system of injustice,” each of us can be part of the action needed to
pressure the federal judiciary to grant Mumia a new trial. Letters to the
judge, arguing for an evidentiary hearing and a new trial should be sent to
Abu-Jamal’s attorney. The judge has requested that Atty. Leonard Weinglass
compile and submit the letters to him by April 2nd. So far over 10,000 have
been received, about half from the US, and half from abroad. Letters should be
addressed to:
Judge William H.
Yohn, Jr.
c/o Leonard
Weinglass, Esq.
West 20th Street
New York, NY 10011
Efforts are also being made to persuade the U.S. Justice Department Civil
Rights Division to open an investigation of Mumia’s case. You are
encouraged to contact EPI at (510) 548-4141 for suggestions regarding topics to
cover as you write to:
United States
Justice Department, Civil Rights Division
Deputy Assistant
Attorney General Stuart Ishimaru
PO Box 65808
Washington, DC 20035
Justice
That Justice is a blind goddess
Is a thing to which we black are wise.
Her bandage hides two festering sores
That once perhaps were eyes.
–Langston Hughes
Comments on the current situation in Haiti
by Max J. Blanchet
Since the resignation of Prime Minister Smart in June of 1997, Haitian
society has been experiencing a deep, multifaceted crisis that has manifested
itself in the political, economic, and social life of the country. In the
political arena, the crisis has been about the inability of the warring factions
of the Lavalas Political Movement, which effectively controls all venues of
political power, to arrive at a consensus over a replacement for the PM and a
resolution of the gridlock resulting from the aborted parliamentary/municipal
elections of April 1997. At a deeper level, Haiti is in the throes of a
difficult transition from dictatorship -- the norm during most of Haiti’s
history -- to the rule of law.
In the economic sphere, the high
expectations that jobs would be created on a substantial scale which would lead
to a better life for the majority following the return to democratic rule in
October 1994 have been dashed. This is happening against a backdrop of rapid
increases in the cost of living and severe constraints on all, especially
producers in the agricultural sector, imposed by the requirements of structural
adjustment forced upon Haitian society by international institutions.
In the social arena, the dislocation of large segments of the rural population
forced to migrate to the cities and abroad, the repatriation by the United
States and Canada of groups of felons of Haitian background and the easy
availability of weapons imported illegally or traded by members of the disbanded
army, have created the ideal breeding ground for a rapid increase in
criminality. This is further compounded by the efforts of Duvalierist elements
to de-stabilize the current administration and restore the old order. All of
this represents a taxing challenge for the newly-created police force which is
having to cope with a complex and difficult situation for which a quick fix is
not likely to be found in the short term.
This situation has created a
deep sense of malaise and frustration in the Haitian population. In recent
months, this has resulted in serious disturbances in downtown Port-au-Prince
which have further heightened the sense of insecurity in the country.
On the positive side, the political class has become aware of the gravity of the
crisis and has taken steps to remedy it. A new consensus government was formed
in January 1999 under the leadership of PM Jacques Edouard Alexis. A new
electoral council which incorporates elements representative of the major
political parties has been formed and is taking steps to organize
parliamentary/municipal elections in March 2000. The new government has
announced new programs aiming at job creation in the short term in order to
alleviate the suffering of the poor.
These developments have created
new hope that indeed the political process is back on track and that things will
get better.
“When Are Children Not Children?”
by Laura Magnani
It was almost exactly 100 years ago that the US created a juvenile justice
system that was distinct from the adult system. It was a giant leap forward for
humanitarian treatment of children, recognizing developmental differences
between youth and adults and making a commitment to educate and rehabilitate
youthful offenders. The primary mission of the new laws was rehabilitation.
Johnny B. was recently brought into a Sutter County courtroom, chained at the
wrists and surrounded by stern men in suits. The dimple-cheeked 14 year old
looked around the room for his mother, and finding her burst into tears. He was
accused of brutally stabbing a shopkeeper to death, and county prosecutors
said: “He is not a child. He is a calculated killer who must be put away
for the rest of his life.”
Although Johnny can already be tried
in adult court in California, at the discretion of a judge, a measure on the
March 2000 ballot by former Governor Pete Wilson, would make Johnny B’s
case the rule instead of the exception.
What the measure would do:
• Mix children with adults in prison.
• Eliminate informal probation even for minor offenses.
• Erode confidentiality of juvenile records.
• Permit prosecutors to file adult charges against youth 14 and older without any
type of judicial hearing.
• Expand the list of “three strike” offenses for youth and adults.
• Create new crimes and penalties for youth only casually associated with groups
labeled by police as street gangs.
• Require youth to register with the police after conviction for so-called “gang related”
offenses.
• Expand the death penalty.
Voters must ask themselves: are children different from adults? It was
Jane Addams who convinced people a hundred years ago that children did not have
the same cognitive skills as adults, or the same ability to anticipate, make
choices, or evaluate actions. Nor should they be responded to and treated with
the harshness that we may apply to peers. If children are the same as adults,
why don’t we allow them to drink, smoke, vote, sign legal contracts, or get
married? Why do we require them to attend school? Do we really think that a
fourteen year old who commits a serious crime should be sent to prison for the
rest of his or her life?
Furthermore, Prop 21’s broad gang
provisions are invitations to widespread discriminatory practices. For example
will fraternities engaging in dangerous behaviors be prosecuted as adults, or
will these provisions be reserved for inner city youth of color? Police and
prosecutors will have complete discretion in these matters. Judges will have
been removed from the equation. Legal standards would be loosened at every step
of the way. Prop 21 will make all youth suspect because of the clothes they
wear, the people they “hang out with”, the time they spend on the
telephone, and more. What used to be considered the antics of youth, or the
sowing of wild oats, will suddenly become behavior that could send some children
to prison for life. We should not be willing to give up on our youth, even when
they commit heinous acts. These children are all of our children. To get more
information or schedule a speaker for your group, please call Laura Magnani at
the American Friends Service Committee, (510) 238-8080 ext. 308.
Goodnight!! Vote NO on Knight!!
by Lee Williamson
[Rev. Lee Williamson, pastor of Wesley United Methodist Church in Hayward, is a member of the EPI Board of Directors and one of the co-officiants at the Celebration of Holy Union of Ellie Charlton and Jeanne Barnett in Sacramento last fall.]
Proposition 22, known officially as The Limitation of Marriage Act and
known by many people as The Knight Initiative, will change the California Family
Code by adding this statement: “Only marriage between a man and a woman is
valid or recognized in California.” It sounds simple and it is. Would it
change anything?
Currently only man-woman (two-gender) marriages are
allowed by California law. Federal law, “The Defense of Marriage Act”
enacted in 1996 allows states to refuse recognition of same-gender marriages
performed in other states. No state in the union currently recognizes
same-gender marriages. But, if some other state should decide to recognize
same-gender marriages the Knight Initiative would serve to give California “double
protection” from having to recognize such marriages.
A major
problem is that the Knight Initiative, if voted in, would provide a basis for
those inclined to work against any liberalization of rights for domestic
partners. Lambda Legal Defense and Education (a national organization seeking
full recognition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, and people with
HIV/AIDS) has documented such activity in other states. They report that, “Relying
on recently-enacted state laws that resemble the Knight Initiative, extremist
right wing legal organizations have sought to invalidate domestic partnership
ordinances adopted by local governments in Florida, Illinois, Virginia, and
Washington.” Similar laws erode efforts to provide fairness for domestic
partners, whatever the gender mix of the partners. Can you imagine that this
initiative would not also be used as a wedge issue to erode domestic partner
benefits? Proposition 22 is unfair, reason enough to vote NO.
Any who
wish to know more about the proposition’s sponsor, California State Senator
William J. “Pete” Knight (R- Palmdale) should check out an article in
the Sacramento Bee, October 6, 1999. Or you could check out the history of the
initiative’s major financial backers, Howard F. Ahmanson, Jr. and Edward G.
Altsinger III, co-founders of the California Independent Business Alliance and
Allied Business PACs. They were also major donors to Propositions 174 in 1993,
209 in 1996, and 226 and 227 in 1998.
A good study guide on this issue
is available from The California Council of Churches, 2700 L Street, Sacramento,
CA 95816, Phone: 916-442-5477, or email:
The C.C. of C.
Or you
could connect with the No On Knight Office 505 Howard Street, San Francisco, CA
94105, Phone 415-227-1020, or on the web at:
NoOnKnight.org. For some direct
involvement (leafleting at BART during the week of February 14-18) contact
Mike McClune. of East Bay Says No On
Knight, Phone 510-540-1191.
Jubilee 2000 Around the World
by Marilyn Jackson
A lot has been happening in the Jubilee 2000 movement around the world this
past fall through New year’s, though the Jubilee tradition goes back to
Biblical times. In the book of Leviticus (RSV), the Lord’s instructions
are given to Moses on Mount Sinai, that the fiftieth year is to be hallowed and
liberty proclaimed throughout all the land. Humans are not to sow or reap but
eat what the land “yields.” Everyone is to return to their own
property and if they sell to or buy from their neighbor, they are not to “wrong
one another.” If a brother becomes poor and is forced to sell his
property, the next of kin is to come and “redeem” what the brother has
had to sell. If no one comes to redeem it for him and the brother later gains
the money to buy it back, he should be allowed to and if he doesn’t gain
the money to buy it back, then at the Jubilee year, the owner must give it back
to him. More instructions are given for how to deal with property in ways that
respect the dignity of others and helps out those who have come across hard
times.
In trying to make sense out of these passages, I realize that
there must be more to know about the Biblical tradition of the Jubilee and that
a scholar of these scriptures would have more to say. Though the year 2000 may
not be a true 50th or Jubilee year for Jewish scholars, who do not count their
years from the birth of Christ, I hope there will be Jewish Christian dialogue
this year to more fully understand this wonderful tradition.
In the
Bay Area’s Street Spirit, there were two in-depth articles about the
Jubilee 2000 movement in the October, 1999 issue. The November issue had an
interview of the Rev. David Duncombe on his 45-day fast at the steps of the U.S.
Capitol. During the fast, he met with members of Congress and their staff, to
urge them to support debt cancellation by the year 2000, to pray with them and
offer counsel. “It’s very difficult for me to avoid the knowledge in
my life that there are millions of starving people and to go about my life as
though there were not. I find it very undesirable to eat when other people can’t.
And to take advantage of their poverty because I live in the ‘first world’....
I intend to symbolize starvation...because a lot of people in Congress -- by no
fault of their own -- have never seen a starving person.”
A
rolling fast was held across the USA, where participants of many communities
fasted for one day each, from September 21st to December 31st. In Oakland, the
fast was on December 28th, which is also the Day of Holy Innocents, a Christian
tradition which remembers the innocent children who have died. 300 people
walked in a candlelight vigil along Lake Merritt between two churches. Several
dozen people fasted, wearing cards with the names of the 41 most indebted
countries.
In Boulder, in September, a human chain surrounded the U.S.
mint. Kicking off the demonstrations at the World Trade Organization meeting
in Seattle in November, there was a 30,000 human chain demonstration. For a
week at the end of December, leading to January 1st, in Chicago, the Christian
Peacemaker Teams held a nonviolent vigil at the headquarters for the
International Monetary Fund.
At a Christmas service in Washington, DC,
the Rev. Desmond Tutu preached on debt relief: “If we knew ourselves to be
sisters and brothers would we allow members of our family in developing
countries to carry huge burdens of unpayable debt? Would we not all support the
Jubilee 2000 Campaign to cancel international debt, to give them a chance to
make a new beginning in the New Millennium?
The Rev. Njongonkulu
Ndungane also gave a wonderful speech in Johannesburg in November, excerpted
here:
We have to take responsibility for our world, for our economic system -- harnessing it to serve us, rather than allowing it to enslave US -- and for one another. We need a fundamental reappraisal of economics, so that need and capacity, rather than supply and demand, provide our guidelines. Life is a challenge to realise our sovereignty, and the responsibility that goes with it. To quote Nurnberger again: “We are not the only one who have a right to live on this singular planet. There are contemporaries in grinding poverty. There are future generations who must be given a chance to enjoy what we are enjoying now. There are nonhuman species which are pushed into oblivion by our mindlessness and greed. In the long run our own worth will be determined by the degree to which we are capable of recognising and defending the dignity of all the creatures of God, present and future.”
Religious people in the U.S. are also taking the Jubilee message home and
finding ways to forgive debts owed them in their own communities. In another
article on the Jubilee 2000 website, it states, “Across the country, some
30 orders of sisters have ripped up substantial debts as part of the Jubilee
movement, according to the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.” For “St.
Margaret’s in Dorchester, where the search for ways to cancel parishioners’
tuition debts is just beginning,” according to Sister Nancy Duffy, “Y2K
should mean a lot more than concerns about computers and the popping of
champagne corks.”
Looking ahead, on Sunday, April 9, 2000, in
Washington, D.C., there will be a JUBILEE 2000 NATIONAL MOBILIZATION. Citizen
action groups, students, people of faith, and all who care about justice for
impoverished countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia will gather on the Mall
in Washington and make their voices heard. There will be morning religious
services, followed by a Human Chain at 1 p.m. Nationally-known speakers and
entertainers are being invited to attend. You are encouraged to attend to be
part of a massive, public witness -- Demand that the World Bank, the IMF, and
the U.S. Congress ACT NOW for debt cancellation for the world’s poorest
countries! Stay for the Monday Lobby Day -- Meet with your representative and
senators and request their commitment to debt cancellation. This event will be
sponsored by the Jubilee 2000/USA campaign, a coalition of national
environmental, religious, and social justice groups calling for lifting the
crushing burden of debt, through fair and accountable process, by the end of the
year 2000. Letters written, demonstrations and fasts seem to have helped get the
attention in Congress as some progress was made this fall to cancel the debts,
though the sea of red tape has not fully parted and there is plenty more that
can be done. At the Jubilee 2000 website
you can read more about events around the world this past fall as well as
legislative updates. Call EPI at (510) 548-4141 for Bay Area contacts. For
more information, contact Jubilee 2000/USA at 222 East Capitol Street, N.E.,
Washington, D.C., 20003, tel (202)783-3566, or
E-mail them.
Two Pictures of Loss
by Carolyn Scarr
My mother died a month ago. I am just beginning to plumb the depths of the
hole this loss leaves in my life. This experience opens my feelings more fully
to the losses experienced by other people.
Nearly every week for the
last year and a half I have stood in vigil opposing the sanctions which are
racking the people of Iraq -- particularly the children. As I hold in memory my
family gathered around my mother’s hospital bed as she breathed her last
breaths, I have to contrast that picture with one of an Iraqi mother holding in
her arms a young child dying before it had hardly lived.
My mother was
eighty-four years old. Although we could not be ready to lose her, she was
ready to go. She died without pain and without fear. Our loss is not poisoned
by the knowledge that this was not right, that she could have lived a long full
life. She had lived a long, full, creative life -- full of love, full of work
for justice, full of the creativity of teaching, full of years of raising a
family. A verse rang in my head as she lay there, the words of Simeon “Now
lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.” (Luke 2: 29) This cannot be
said about a child only a few years old, dying of a water-borne disease. The
U.S. bombed Iraq’s water, sewage and electrical systems in 1991 and has
prevented their reconstruction through the sanctions. This cannot be said of the
twelve-year-old poet who died of leukemia. Cancers of all sorts, and major
birth defects, have proliferated since the U.S. used Depleted Uranium in
southern Iraq. The medicines which could save some lives cannot be imported in
sufficient quantity due to the sanctions. U.S. government officials have
repeatedly stated that the sanctions will stay until Saddam Hussein leaves
office. This requirement is not included in the terms of the U.N. authorization
of the sanctions. By all impartial standards and according to top inspectors,
Iraq is already effectively disarmed. Iraq poses no threat to anyone. People
are dying every day for the sake of the U.S. desire to control the region and to
“win” against Saddam Hussein. I had never before kept watch beside
someone who was dying. Any reader of these words who has, I ask you to place
that memory next to a picture of a mother and her child -- whose life is “worth
the price” in Madeleine Albright’s geopolitical terms. By the values
of every faith and of basic humanism, no person’s life is to be played as a
poker chip in another’s game. “. . . no more shall be heard the sound
of weeping and the cry of distress. No more shall there be an infant that lives
but a few days, or an old man who does not fill out his days . . .”
(Isaiah 65:19-20)
The vigil to oppose the sanctions against the people of Iraq
continues each Tuesday, noon to one, at the Oakland Federal Building, 1301 Clay
Street near the 12th Street BART Station. Please come to this, or other
gatherings in a number of communities.
A very exciting response to the
economic sanctions is being planned by American Friends Service Committee and
Fellowship of Reconciliation. The Campaign of Conscience will purchase
critically needed items which have not been permitted to be imported by Iraq and
send them to Iraq as part of a nonviolent campaign to lift the sanctions. High
on the list of prohibited items are parts to repair water systems and sewage
treatment plants, the destruction of which in 1991 and the continued lack
thereof has been a major cause of water-born diseases and death. These will
probably make up part of the Campaign’s focus. For more information
contact AFSC or FOR. In the San Francisco area AFSC’s number is (415)
565-0201.
Other responses to this holocaust can include writing or
calling the president, our senators and congresspeople, writing letters to the
editor. And we can share our concerns with friends who may have forgotten that
Saddam Hussein is by no means the worst dictator the U.S. has ever supported (as
it did), that his death toll does not match ours world-wide (remember Vietnam?),
and that it is the weak, the poor, the old and the very young who are dying.
Every day.
March 7, 2000 Ballot Proposition Recommendations From California Church
IMPACT Summary.
For pros and cons, and further analysis from California Church IMPACT
contact them at: 2700 L Street, Sacramento, CA 95816 phone (916) 442-5447, fax
(916) 442-3036, or you may E-mail them.
Regarding that Envelope included in each issue of Planted by the Waters. If each person who received Planted By the Waters put a check into the envelope and mailed it to EPI/CALC, it would greatly improve our ability to do the work for justice and peace which we are called to do together. It doesn't have to be a lot. Every little bit counts.
Please help by being part of the Peace and Justice work of
Ecumenical Peace Institute/CALC and sending your tax-deductible contribution
of::
____$35 for annual membership ($10 for low-income subscribers)
____$10.00
____$25.00
____$35.00
____$50.00
____$100.00
_________(other)
Or, pledge $_________ monthly,
$_________quarterly.
Please make checks payable to E.P.I., and thank you for the generosity
of your your support.
Back to the Directory
