Black Journalist Herb Boyd:

Rally for Mumia's Freedom!

WV received the following letter, dated April 25, from Herb Boyd, managing editor of The Black World Today (www.tbwt.org). The letter was sent to various individuals and organizations and was edited for publication here with the permission of the author.

A number of pertinent questions were raised at a recent forum on hip hop culture conducted by Professor Cornel West at the Schomburg Center in Harlem. None of the questions or comments, however, resonated with as much political conviction as the one posed by Don Alexander, a member of the Partisan Defense Committee.

Alexander very passionately alerted the audience to the urgency of dealing with the plight of Mumia Abu-Jamal. He pressed the importance of mobilizing immediately in order to galvanize support for Mumia who faces the possibility of execution for a crime he did not commit.

Like Alexander, I believe the confession of Arnold Beverly, who admitted that he was the person who shot and killed the police officer that fateful morning nearly a quarter of a century ago, a murder for which Mumia was convicted and has been languishing on death row these many years.

The execution of Tookie Williams a few months ago was a warning to all justice-seeking people that the state is preparing to take Mumia from us in the same way. In general, I oppose the death penalty, and in the case of Mumia, who has been a voice for the voiceless, an execution would be doubly painful and unforgivable.

Let this letter join the hundreds being written and the thousands now assembling in a mass protest of this miscarriage of justice.

It is time now for all freedom-loving people to rally like we used to when our precious liberties were threatened, time to mobilize as we did during the Vietnam era, to stop the senseless murder of innocent people.

To murder Mumia would be akin to losing a Malcolm, a King, an Ella Baker, a Geronimo, a Che, a Lumumba. We must salvage his life knowing that if they come for him in the morning, they will come for us in the evening.