Mumia Abu-Jamal's Radio Broadcasts

Higher Quality Audio files available info@prisonradio.org

Copyright 2005 Mumia Abu-Jamal/Prison Radio

"What to a Prisoner is the Fourth of July "

  written by Mumia Abu-Jamal, and read by Bernadette Devlin McAliskey  

My name is Bernadette Devlin McAliskey. Mumia Abu Jamal's deep and resilient voice has been silenced and censored! I will read to you one of his illuminating commentary’s written on the occasion on Nelson Mandela’s visit to Philadelphia, in 1993.  Its message is still irrelevant today.  These words were hand written in a solitary confinement cell, by a man waiting execution! Mumia begins with a passage from Mandela’s speech that quotes Fredrick Douglas.  What to a Prisoner’s 4th of July?

“At a time like this scorching irony, not convincing argument is needed.  Oh had I the ability and could I reach the nation’s ear.  I would today pour out a stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach withering sarcasm and stern rebuke. For it is light that is needed but fire, it is not the gentle shower, but thunder.  We need the storm, the whirlwind, the earthquake.  The feeling of the nation must be quickened, the conscience of the nation must be roused, and the propriety of the nation must be startled. The hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced. What to the American slave is your 4th of July? I answer a day that reveals to him, more than all the other days in the year. The gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham, your boasted liberty an unholy license, your national greatness swelling vanity. Your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless. Your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impotence.  To the slave your shouts of liberty and equality are hollow mockery.  Your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity. Are to him mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety and hypocrisy! A thin veil to cover up crimes, which would disgrace a nation of savages! There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, then are the people of these United States at this very hour”

End quote Frederick Douglas on July 5, 1852.  July 4, 1993 saw African national congress president Nelson Mandela in Philadelphia quoting this Fredrick Douglas speech, as he accepted the Liberty medal along with South African State president F. W. DeKlerk.  If the joint presence of Mandela and DeKlerk were not enough to stir controversy, then the award presenters Philadelphia mayor, Ed Rendell, and U.S president Clinton certainly stoked controversy amongst radicals.  Hundreds of black Philadelphians, while certainly admirers of Mandela took umbrage at DeKlerk's presence. Although we the awarders are known as we the people Philadelphia.  The actual everyday people of Philadelphia had little say in choosing the Liberty medal awardees and less say in rejecting the widely unpopular honoree DeKlerk.  The choice of Liberty medalists was not made by the people, but by corporate Philadelphia, big business.  Why? Why were the people many of whom have worked for more than twenty years against apartheid and for Mandela’s release frozen out? Their protests against DeKlerk all but ignored! When the African majority takes power in South Africa, U.S big business wants friends there.   If one reads the names of corporate sponsors of the Liberty medal, it sounds like roll call of the chamber of commerce:  Unisons Corp, Pennsylvania Bell and the like.  Mandela, who has not voted in the government election in seventy four years and DeKlerk President, by way of election counting only minority non black votes, has only the hope of Liberty no more! The white majority in South Africa has done its level best to stifle African Liberty for three hundred years.  The African majority even after the awards still isn’t free.

  [Check out Mumia's latest: *WE WANT FREEDOM:
A Life in the Black Panther Party*, from South
End Press (http://www.southendpress.org); Ph.
#1-800-533-8478.]
===============================

"When a cause comes along and you know in your bones that it is
just, yet refuse to defend it--at that moment you begin to die.
And I have never seen so many corpses walking around talking about
justice." - Mumia Abu-Jamal

MUMIA'S COLUMNS NEED TO BE PUBLISHED AS BROADLY
AS POSSIBLE TO INSPIRE PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT AND
HELP CALL ATTENTION TO HIS CASE.

The campaign to kill Mumia is in full swing and we need you to
**please** contact as many publications and information outlets as
you possibly can to run Mumia's commentaries (on-line and
**especially off-line**)!! The only requirements are that you run
them *unedited*, with every word including copyright information
intact, and send a copy of the publication to Mumia and/or ICFFMAJ.
THANK YOU!!!

Keep updated by reading ACTION ALERTS!!
at http://www.mumia.org, http://www.onamove.com/ and their links.
========================================

To download Mp3's of Mumia's commentaries visit
http://www.prisonradio.org or http://www.fsrn.org
==============================================>

The Power of Truth is Final -- Free Mumia!

PLEASE CONTACT:
International Concerned Family & Friends of MAJ
P.O. Box 19709
Philadelphia, PA 19143
Phone - 215-476-8812/ Fax - 215-476-6180
E-mail - icffmaj@aol.com
AND OFFER YOUR SERVICES!

Send our brotha some LOVE and LIGHT at:
Mumia Abu-Jamal
AM 8335
SCI-Greene
175 Progress Drive
Waynesburg, PA 15370

WE WHO BELIEVE IN FREEDOM CAN *NOT* REST!!

Submitted by: Sis. Marpessa

Subscribe: mumiacolumns-subscribe@topica.com
Read: http://topica.com/lists/mumiacolumns/read
Subscribe ICFFMAJ email updates list by e-mailing
icffmaj@aol.com!

For additional information and to order Mumia's new book We Want Freedom,

visit: southendpress.org

Check out Mumia's NEW book:
"Faith of Our Fathers: An Examination of the Spiritual Life of African and African-American People" at www.africanworld.com

PLEASE CONTACT:
International Concerned Family & Friends of MAJ
P.O. Box 19709
Philadelphia, PA 19143
Phone - 215-476-8812/ Fax - 215-476-6180
E-mail - AND OFFER YOUR SERVICES!

Send our brotha some LOVE and LIGHT at:
Mumia Abu-Jamal
AM 8335
SCI-Greene
175 Progress Drive
Waynesburg, PA 15370

WE WHO BELIEVE IN FREEDOM CAN *NOT* REST!!

Submitted by: Sis. Marpessa