Chicago: Successful Music Benefit for Mumia

CHICAGO—On June 15, over 200 people turned out in Chicago for a live music fund-raiser for Mumia Abu-Jamal sponsored by the Partisan Defense Committee. The event, held at the Hot House, a premier jazz venue, netted over $1,500 for Mumia’s legal defense. “Thanks to everyone attending this event,” Mumia said in a message conveyed by Rachel Wolkenstein, PDC counsel and formerly one of Mumia’s lawyers. “I appreciate your support. It reminds me that despite the best efforts of the state, I am not alone.”

Mumia is an innocent man whose case is a blatant example of racist and political frame-up. A former Black Panther Party member, a MOVE supporter and acclaimed journalist, Mumia was framed up in 1981 for shooting a Philadelphia cop and has languished on Pennsylvania’s death row for 24 years. Court after court has ignored the mountains of evidence proving Mumia’s innocence, including the confession of Arnold Beverly that he shot the cop and that Mumia had nothing to do with it. The case has now entered a critical phase. It is on the “fast track” for legal decision in the federal court of appeals, with the state as determined as ever to execute him.

The significance of the Chicago music benefit went well beyond the money raised, because it succeeded in putting this case back on the political map in the city. In building for the event, PDC representatives were featured in three live radio interviews on WVON’s Cliff Kelley show and on WHPK. The fund-raiser was also featured on the official weekly “short list” of musical events to go to in the widely circulated Chicago Reader.

The attendance at the Hot House was very integrated and included several transit workers, hospital workers and other trade unionists. A hard core of longtime Mumia activists turned out, including attorney Standish Willis, and Tracy Kostenbader of the Chicago Committee to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal. One man stopped as he passed the Hot House and bought two tickets, saying his son had a “Free Mumia” T-shirt and that he wanted to learn what the case was all about. A group of over 40 student interns came from the Chicago Urban Life Center program. People also came to show their solidarity from Gary, Indiana, and as far away as Detroit and Ann Arbor, Michigan. Even the International Socialist Organization’s Campaign to End the Death Penalty sent two supporters.

“There is an important link between Mumia and events in Chicago which put Mumia at the top of the FBI and Philadelphia police radar,” Wolkenstein told the gathering. “In December 1969 Chicago cops and the FBI murdered Black Panther Party leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark as part of the FBI COINTELPRO attacks which led to 38 Panthers killed nationwide and hundreds more arrested on frame-up charges. Mumia traveled to Chicago to view the site of the FBI’s murderous assault and then was a main spokesman at the memorial meeting/protest in Philadelphia.”

Many at the fund-raiser who had participated in protests on Mumia’s behalf in the 1990s questioned where the protest movement had gone. Our comrades argued that the movement was demobilized by reformist illusions that the capitalist courts would dispense justice or a “fair trial.” As Wolkenstein said:

“While all legal proceedings and legal remedies should be pursued on Mumia’s behalf, we cannot have any illusions or reliance in the capitalist courts. There is a concerted effort by all wings of the capitalist class—represented by both the Democratic and Republican parties—to see Mumia executed. Demands for a new trial will not lead to Mumia’s freedom. These demands only breed illusions in the capitalist courts. These illusions demobilized a movement of millions around the world.”

The music for the event was provided by the popular world music dance band Funkadesi, who mixed reggae, Latin and Bollywood beats. The group’s founding “baba,” Philadelphia jazz great Byard Lancaster, joined as special guest. Lancaster, a jazz avant-gardist in the 1960s whose range now stretches from reggae to blues to classical, has been associated with Mumia’s case for many years. In 2000, after he led a march of thousands for Mumia while visiting France, Lancaster began facing regular harassment from the Philly cops while street playing, for which he sued the cops and won. Lancaster’s latest release on the CIMP label is named Pam Africa after the coordinator of International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal (and it received a rave review in the June JazzTimes).

One musical highlight was Mars Caulton’s performance of her spoken word piece “Eve of an Execution,” for which she is known in Chicago as “the Mumia Poet.” Backed by Lancaster’s flute and Funkadesi’s hand drums, the poet asked:

“Why would they be afraid to kill Mumia

Fearing violence in the streets

Why would they fear thousands in the streets tomorrow

Unless we’re in the streets today?

See isn’t that the question

Deserving full public attention

Of just how to make the rulers

Fear the price they’ll have to pay?”

Central to any strategy of building a mass movement to win Mumia’s freedom must be mobilizing the ranks of the labor movement behind his cause. In building for the Chicago fund-raiser, our comrades sold dozens of tickets to members of the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU), United Auto Workers (UAW) and the Teamsters Black Caucus. In important shows of solidarity, both ATU Local 308, representing rail transit workers, and UAW Local 6, representing Navistar workers, made contributions directly to Mumia’s legal defense. As Wolkenstein urged the crowd: “Those of you here need to spread the truth about Mumia—that he is innocent. That the capitalist state has spent decades framing him up is the truth. That the state has put its lying corrupt class- and race-biased forces to see Mumia dead is the truth. Mumia needs you to join in the campaign for his freedom. To bring out more power, social power—to fight for Mumia’s freedom NOW!”