The successful August 12 demonstration in Philadelphia was an important boost in the fight to win a new trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal. It was also the largest mobilization against the death penalty in some time. The challenge now is for supporters of Abu-Jamal and all opponents of capital punishment to maintain the momentum and win broader support.
Now is not the time to pause, but to keep the pressure on. The cops, the courts, and the government - while set back - have not abandoned their hopes of seeing Abu-Jamal in the death chamber.
Trying to take some wind out of the sails of Abu-Jamal's supporters, a recent New York Times story made much to do about the celebrities who have lent their support to his case. "Abu-Jamal can only be thankful for the agitation of famous people," says New York Times writer Francis Clines, implying that "radical chic" made the case a "cause," whether it is legitimate or not. An editorial in the August 17 Times cautions those who are trying to expose the frame- up of Abu-Jamal to "be careful" saying, "The case for his innocence is not unimpeachable."
But the biased courtroom performance of "hanging judge" Albert Sabo and the facts that have come to light about the frame-up character of the case against Abu-Jamal have convinced thousands of people around the world not to "be careful," but to demand justice. The power of this fight is aided by well-known figures who have come forward to help, but the victory of the stay of execution belongs to Abu- Jamal, who refuses to silently go to his death, and to the thousands who took to the streets in protest on his behalf.
Working people can look to the case of Clarence Brandley, a Black man who was wrongly convicted in Texas of rape and murder in 1981, to see how the government will fight to maintain the death penalty. Brandley was tried twice by an all-white jury and sentenced to death.
A defense committee waged a struggle on his behalf and exposed the racist frame-up by the cops, the prosecution, and the judge. Only after thousands rallied to his defense and the case received national prominence was he eventually freed.
Capital punishment is a weapon used by the wealthy class to terrorize working people. In South Africa, where the death penalty was recently abolished, at least 1,212 people were hanged in the decade between 1979 and 1989. That's an average of more than two executions a week! Many rail workers, miners, and other fighters against the apartheid system were placed on death row.
Civil rights organizations, the labor movement, and other groups can be won to this fight. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference pledged to throw its weight into the fight along with "the hundreds of organizations and individuals worldwide who are demanding - here and now - justice for Mumia Abu-Jamal."
The working class has more at stake than anyone else in fighting for a new trial for Abu-Jamal and to abolish the death penalty. Supporters of his fight for a new trial and the lifting of the death sentence should explain his case to co-workers and urge the labor movement to throw its weight into the battle.