Mumia
Abu-Jamal's Radio Broadcasts
Ode
to Jo Jo White
Long
version: mp3,
2.52 MBs, 3.04
[Col. recorded
11/01/03]
It was several
years ago when I received a letter from Sister Kiilu Nyasha a popular
broadcaster in San Francisco, about the tragic killing of a promising
youth named Jo Jo White. At 23 years old Jo Jo had barely begun
to live, yet his astonishing thirst for life and his loving sense
of humanity endeared him to many.
Many more people
than his parents Naomi White and Derrel Myers could even begin to
believe. Like most parents Naomi and Derrel saw their boy as special
but they had no real way of knowing that hundreds perhaps thousands
of other people from a wide swath of humanity felt the same way
about the young man. However they would learn, he loved life like
most young people but he seemed to possess a deep love of people
and reflected it in his daily work and life. He worked with children
in San Francisco and with his peers in the hip - hop and music community.
He was a passionate and devoted supporter of mine and visited Cuba,
Mexico and other sites in the world to
create better relations between peoples. In his heart of hearts
he was an
internationalist who saw himself, not so much as American as human,
as part of the people of the entire world.
In response
to the tragic killing of their only child, Naomi and Derrel were
understandably thrown into a world of horror, loss, pain and despair.
But a remarkable thing happened days after his shooting. A week
after his passing, several hundred people, friends of JoJo from
his job, from school, from the hip hop nation, gathered at the corner
of sixteenth and Carolina to pay tribute to a life that touched
them all. This, in the pouring rain, was a measure of how he was
regarded by those who knew him. His parents were stunned and moved.
Through the
rain and tears they saw in the glow of young candlelit faces the
meaning of a life lived in loving touch with others. That vigil
gave birth to a diverse confederation of broken, yet resilient and
hopeful young hearts, the JoJo White Solidarity Project, based on
the view that JoJo was a victim of not just one lone shooter, but
was one of many victims of an unjust, and violent social system.
Within days, an overflowing memorial for JoJo initiated work to
help raise awareness of Mumia’s case, and the plight of millions
of others downed by law. Plans were made to honor his life with
a memorial trip to Cuba, where scores of his young friends later
traveled and experienced an alternative to this social system. Since
then their commitment of resistance to war and injustice has inspired
and helped hundreds of others to carry out solidarity work in the
U.S. and around the globe. They continue to fight against the system
that made his and so many other lives seem cheap. They work for
life. JoJo would be proud.
From Death Row
this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Copyright
2003 Mumia Abu-Jamal
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
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 - 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
Text
© copyright 2003 by Mumia Abu-Jamal.
All rights reserved.
Reprinted by permission of the author.
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