Bring this down (applause)! On the move! On the move! Long live revolution! It’s really good being back here, and what’s really good about it, here, is one of the places where he brought tens of thousands of people into the street. First, I wanted to thank Jeff Mackler for pulling this together, because what he realized is that we need funds in order to continue this part of the battle for Mumia’s life, and we’ve got to be in the street. We have to have posters everywhere. We have got to travel. So Jeff called me and said he was going to put a fundraiser together to help us do just that. And this is this fundraiser.
Now, we got something we need to shout about, and everything that you said is magnificent and it’s wonderful, but the only way that we can bring Mumia home is that, with what Judith had brought out, and what we do best — we stomp this sucker into the ground (applause). It was this entire government, the entire government, whose desire is to execute Mumia, and they were so sure that they was going to be able to do it. Whenever we would have events like Rage Against the Machine, Chumbawumba, Black Star, which is Mos Def, and, you know, some other people, put together an event in Jersey for Mumia — and the Fraternal Order of Police, the Governor of Jersey, and lawyers and judges — they all got on, they had microphonic seizures. They got on the air and was announcing that, you know, if anyone –the Fraternal Order of Police and the state troopers said we will not [have] any service that day, and they was on a campaign, a high campaign.
Every news media, Howard Stern had it on there, but the power of the people — there was a stadium that sat 60,000 people. Rage Against the Machine sold that stadium out in one day (applause). No tickets left. The Fraternal Order of Police now, and the judges, got together and they lied again. They said that people were turning in tickets, and it was over 300 tickets that was turned in already, right? And what happened? We had a concert on the inside, and on the outside. 300 tickets and you can sell 60,000 seats in a day? And also, you can imagine what happened when they said they had 300. There was a huge concert on the outside because the 300 wasn’t true. But I say that to say it was the people, the people. Mumia’s death warrant, we was able to beat it back, and against the odds. People would say, “You’ll never be able to do that.” But again, ain’t no power, like the power of people, when the power of people don’t stop! You would think they understood that! (applause) but no!
Mumia comes off the death row and then he turns around, not long after Mumia got off of death row–Mumia hadn’t been sick other than a cold in the 30 something years that he spent on death row. When he got off, it was about a year later, Mumia was diagnosed. He started getting sick, and then he was diagnosed with hepatitis C. The hepatitis C pill was $1,000 a pill. You had to take it for 90 days. So you talking about $90,000. Again, ain’t no power, like the power of the people, when the power of the people don’t stop! You had the people saying, “Oh, no, he’ll never get that. He’ll never get it.” But here in California, in France, in Germany, in Africa, all around, people rose to it because they understood what they couldn’t kill Mumia legally on death row, so they turned around and started this medical thing! Mumia had to give up blood when he came off of death row into general population. All of a sudden, Mumia has hepatitis C, and it was so horrible. Mumia’s hair was coming off his face, his skin was completely covered with this black substance that was all over him and he went into almost a diabetic coma. And our Mumia darn near died three times.
But you know, one thing I want to talk about real fast — tell me my timing, so I can work it in here. (Audience laughing and clapping) Okay. The brothers inside the prison. People hear stories about men inside the prisons, always that they’re fighting. They’re doing this, they’re doing that. But inmates inside that prison, I learned about the love and the caring, the fathering and the mothering that goes on inside that prison, because in order for Mumia to live, someone had to step up to this government inside the prison. We didn’t know what was going on inside there at this particular time, but a brother named Major Tillery saw Mumia. Mumia’s neck was this big, his head was huge, his body, his fingers would look like Fred Flintstone fingers. He couldn’t fit his feet into a pair of shoes, and he was — body was just tore up from him scratching, because he scratched 24 hours a day, seven days a week, nonstop. He wasn’t sleeping. This brother saw the prison warden come through, and he said, “Yo, you got to do something about Mumia.” The prison guard, I mean, the prison head warden and all, told him, you know, “Step back and you know, “Mumia is not your business.” He said, “Mumia is my business!” So it started [with] men, you know, moving on the prison institute about Mumia.
Mumia, [unclear] one day wounded up in the hospital. That’s when we found out that he was almost dying at that particular point. But the point here is that it was another brother– because when the medication they was giving Mumia really wasn’t doing him any good; he had not had the hepatitis C shot yet. But they told Mumia, with these scales, like fish scales, that was black and thick all over his body, that what you do — you don’t wash them, you know. You get in some warm water and you pat them. Another brother that was inside the prison, that even the guards wanted to help them out when they were sick, with massages — this brother had magical hands. He looked at Mumia. Mumia was in a wheelchair, head down, couldn’t move, and the brother said, “Yo, Mu, you got to get up from there,” you know, and he picked Mumia up and he started walking. Mumia said, “He held me like he held a baby,” and started him walking and walking until Mumia can walk through. The scales on Mumia’s body — He said, “We’ll put you in a tub of hot water.” He says, “And I’ma scrub ’em off.” Mumia said, “No, the doctor said –” He said, “But I’m telling you.” Anyway, the brother saved Mumia’s life; two brothers inside the prison who cared and went up against the administration (applause).
We must always talk about the loving and the caring that goes on inside these prisons as well! And these brothers, they not only do that for Mumia, they do it for each other. But anyway, we wound up winning that battle. We wound up going to court. With all the people saying, you know, “Well, y’all got him off the death row, and that was pure luck.” Bullsh**! Excuse me, church, oh!. That was people power, and we can never say that was anything other than that! The power of the people working with the lawyers, everybody pulling together. And there are differences in the movements. But when it came to Mumia, all them differences is shoved to the side and people came together and did what was necessary to get Mumia that hepatitis C medicine. The cure — not the maybe cure — but the cure is what they was trying to keep from Mumia. And because we did that. We did that! And Mumia got the hepatitis C [treatment], and every inmate inside the prison who found out about the court case that we won the battle for — and it was another judge.
This was this judge in Scranton. When we went in Scranton, Scranton is known as Klu Klux Klan territory. When we went up in there, we act just like we was in Philadelphia. We did the dang dang with them, for the lack of the other word, but what we found out when we went there, was people, white people, was coming over to the microphone with us and talking about their families with hepatitis C and how they were suffering; how they suffered inside the prisons and things. People were shocked. I was not shocked, because in traveling around and even going up to the prison, when Minister Louis Farrakhan went up to the prison to visit Mumia, the white guards were saying, “This man shoots from the hip. He’s telling the truth.” So, I’m saying, you know, you had to dispel about a myth. You got to go into places that you never been before to find out what’s going on there. So that support was there.
Mumia wound up getting the hepatitis C [treatment] because — the Governor, the prisons — we were up there on a weekly basis. Charlotte O’Neal, from Tanzania came over and demonstrated with us outside the prison. Outside, inside, where they had the big administration building, we was there at Camp Hill, the Governor’s office, the Governor’s mansion, and the best place to be was in Center City, where he lived, where his office was at, at the Bellevue. He was very seldom there, but it was in a key place in a Center City. They building all new hotels and things there. So we go there, we set up. You only need four or five people to go out there, hold the signs and start kicking off about hepatitis C. What we found out about hepatitis C was 7000 people in the state of Pennsylvania who had hepatitis C. By wanting to do more and know more about it, and pulling people in, we went to the Board of Health. “What do you know about hepatitis C?” Well, they told us, it was 46,000 people in the city — not the state — the city of Philadelphia. They said Hepatitis C is an epidemic. And we also went to the AIDS clinics to find out what they knew. So, we all pulled in together, the Philadelphia Board of Health, before they [hand clap] pulled them back, the AIDS clinic and everybody else. So, we was having massive demonstrations cuz the right place to be was not in Harrisburg, where the Governor’s at and where all their people was at. You go there and you talk to the people there, and then they like, “Okay [mimicking voice while clapping] Thank you for coming!” No! You gotta raise pure Cain!
When we would come in front of the Governor’s office in Philadelphia, the Bellevue Stratford, they would shut it down. They guests had to go into the back door. So that went on — four minutes –long enough. What we wounded up doing, they wound up kicking the governor out the office. The governor wound up saying that people in Philadelphia can get the hepatitis C cure and in the prison. That was consistent! When people tell you what you can’t do, that’s how a lot of people lose, because they believe them. Because it’s in the interest of this government to make us think that we can’t do, but one thing we do know, again — the people united can never be defeated! Will never be defeated. (applause)
So right now, that goes to show Mumia’s life, and the life of other prisoners. is not in the hands of these misfits. It is in our hands. And, because it was here that shut down the entire West coast for Mumia. We felt it around the world. It was here that the people demonstrated. It was here that Angela Davis was arrested. And I wanna say something about my sisters and brothers up here: they ain’t no part time revolutionaries. They’re not people who talk that talk, but don’t walk that walk [applause]. They have gone to jail. They have gone around the world letting people know what is going on.
Right now in two minutes, what I gotta say is: we gotta organize like we never organized before. [applause] My hair, when I first started this, was jet black or dark brown. It’s gray. All of us. And of the one thing about us, we understand that this isn’t just about Mumia. This is about each and every last one of us. Mumia is the one who brings attention to the millions. Because of Mumia, a lot of people are getting hepatitis C cured. A lot of mothers, fathers and children are able to hold their loved ones even it’s in prison because so many of them was dying in prison and all. But now there’s that hope. There’s that hope with the Williams case that wasn’t there before, because it has gone to the point where people around the world know. And Mr. Krasner, I don’t care where he go at — we’re there. We’re there. And with Judge Tucker, when he made his first decision — DA Krasner, the Attorney General did for — 45– [time check], lied and said that, “Oh, you know…” He’s boasting around about how he was exonerated. Well, Krasner was damn near the same way! Until the judge, Judge Tucker, a Black, Republican judge — all of us was like, we could not believe this! He stood up then! And when Krasner started lying, this man took a position, planted his feet down on the ground, told him what a liar he was! Told how he was manipulating the people! This is in the paper last week. So, we had the DA who was caught outright lying!
And the thing is, Mumia is not doing well. I got to tell you this. His skin still itch, seven days a week, 24 hours a day. Mumia is putting four jars of Vaseline on his entire body, not missing a crack anywhere. He now has glaucoma, but he’s still working and working his butt off, with the itching and the pain and stuff that he’s going through. His brother is on the verge of dying right now. He lost a child. I’m saying all these things that we go through, he’s going through, but I don’t think anybody got this particular problem, this now problem that he had. But we got to rise up. The things that we did, that we put 10,000 people in the street. And that was the young, it was the old. It was all of us. We got to do it again, and we can do it again. We have been showing these people over and over again that we will not sit by, but our timing, our timing, because when they talking about appeal after appeal, we’re saying “Release Mumia! Release him now!” (applause) based on police, judicial and prosecutorial misconduct. That’s not if, and, or, maybe this is what we want –it’s factual! The judge said it! The judge said it! So, what I’m saying is, when we leave here tonight, we gotta do what is necessary. We gotta bring all those rap groups, those entertainers, those poets, the people in the street, getting to the churches like we did today. I am so sorry, Jeff, I’m going over time, but rise up everybody. Let’s get ready to do some work. Let’s tear this sucker down! We are not without! We are with! On the move! Long live revolution! Long live the people power to tear this mothersucker down! On the move! (Applause and cheering)
These commentaries are recorded by Noelle Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
