Prison Radio
Mumia Abu-Jamal

“When Babies Rebel.”

They came from across the country. They assembled in almost 100 U.S. cities and in cities around the world. Who are they? Teenagers, high school students mostly. They were the survivors of the latest Valentine’s Day massacre from the carnage of a Florida school where a deeply troubled young men waged war against other young people and made Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School the latest American death site like Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech, Columbine.

But something new emerged from the death and destruction in Parkland, Florida. The children rebelled. They looked at the so-called adults who were supposed to protect them and, perhaps for the first time, truly solve it. These adults, police and politicians, looked at their pain and barely raised an eyebrow. They were too busy protecting the gun lobby, the NRA, who paid millions for such service.

They learned that if it was a conflict between their worth as children and the interests of the rich and powerful, they would lose. So they screamed at the adults world, its hypocrisy, its evil, and they rebelled. They protested and shook the nation. They woke up from their childhood slumber and saw politics as the poison it’s always been.

Their voices now echo around the world as a new youth movement emerges. They now know something that separates them from the play and folly of childhood. They know that they can no longer depend on adults. They know that they must organize or nothing will change.

From imprisoned nation, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.

These commentaries are recorded by Noelle Hanrahan of Prison Radio.