For over a week, the media and millions of viewers and readers have been focused on the ever changing events of Ferguson, Missouri, where a local teenager, Michael Brown, was shot to death by a white cop. What has been consistent and unchanging was the level of outrage among Ferguson residents, men and women who have resisted every attempt to silence or sidetrack their efforts; of their efforts — to achieve the arrest, prosecution, and conviction of a white cop, Darren Wilson, who shot and killed Mike Brown.
They are fueled by fury and by a long train of police repression. They haven’t let anything– promises, provocations, politicians, or police turn them away from their objectives. The system has used weapons of war, sniper rifles, armored personnel carriers, submachine guns, and other implements of military violence to intimidate the people, to threaten the people, to silence the people. They only continued their marches for justice for Mike Brown. They faced sweet-talking politicians promising peace, police with dark faces promising protection, preachers praying for placidity; and they kept on marching.
They were threatened with arrests if they broke curfew and received the acrid rain of tear gas, and they kept on marching; marching for justice for Mike Brown. A reporter for a national cable outlet asked five teams clad in baseball hats and bright red bandanas to identify themselves. One by one, they announced this name, “Mike Brown.” They were all Mike Brown. And as they march through fear, they are indeed Mike Brown, as are we all. From in prison nation. This is Mumia Abu Jamal.
These commentaries are recorded by Noel Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
