Mumia Abu Jamal Celebration in Philly on Dec. 9, 2010

DECEMBER 9th,, 2010 !
pamafrica@gmail.com


CELEBRATE 29 YEARS OF RESISTANCE AGAINST GOVERNMENTAL TERRORISM IN THE BELLY OF THE
BEAST

DECEMBER 9, 2010 IS THE 29TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE DAY THE COPS ATTEMPTED TO KILL MUMIA
ABU JAMAL. THEY TERRORIZED, BEAT, SHOT, KIDNAPPED, JAILED, FRAMED, AND SENTENCED HIM
TO DEATH ROW. JOIN US AS WE CELEBRATE THE UNCOMPROMZING LIFE OF MUMIA ABU JAMAL & A
TRIBUTE TO THE LATE GREAT STATE REPRESENATIVE, DAVID P RICHARDSON AND OUR BRAVE
SISTER, VERONICE JONES. BE THERE AND BRING PEOPLE WITH YOU!

A REVOLUTIONARY ORGANIZERS DINNER & A MOVIE

“BLACK AND BLUE” - A powerful mix of archival material, news clips and documentary
footage which chronicles impassioned community responses to decades of deadly force
against people of color by members of the Philadelphia police force. (See bottom of
posting for more info on film)
&

“THE GREAT DEBATE” – People’s screening of the 11/08 debate between Michael Coard,
Johanna Fernandez, Tigre Hill, and Seth Williams on the innocence and guilt of Mumia
Abu Jamal.  This film was taken by the people and features the audience and a
variety of shots not shown in the debate footage taken by the Constitution Center
and viewed online.


THURSDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2010
DOORS AT 5:30pm
FIRST FILM STARTS 6pm Sharp!
DOWLINGS PLACE
1310 N. BROAD STREET
PHILADELPHIA, PA 19121

$5 suggested donation

Dowling's Palace famous SOUL FOOD will be available for purchase (vegetarian food is
also available)!

215-476-8812
http://freemumia.com
icffmaj@aol.com


STAY AROUND for Part II

At 9:00 PM, BLACK ART MOVEMENT ICON COMES TO PHILLY. BIN UMA HASAN OF THE LAST POETS
WILL BE AT JUS WORDS OPEN MIC EVENT


Admission $5
Philadelphia Inquirer, April, 1987
By Carrie Rickey
Inquirer Movie Critic

    Ten years in the making, the shocking documentary Black and Blue lays out two
decades of Philadelphia police brutality against minorities. This heartfelt,
heartrending film diary by Hugh King and Lamar Williams, in searing footage and
cold statistics, indicts city officials for institutionalized racism and de
facto apartheid.

    Rather than formally accusing W. Wilson Goode, Frank Rizzo and Ed Rendell,
Black and Blue presents them in a way that permits the three mayoral candidates
(and other officials) to indict themselves.  

    "My police don't kill people in cold blood -- we leave that to the courts,"
asserts Police Commissioner Frank Rizzo, responding in 1967 to charges of
unwarranted police force against people of color. In his response, he seems
unaware that to victims of this force justice can appear to be a white
prerogative. That implication is made horrifyingly palpable in subsequent
footage devoted to Jose Reyes, Winston CX Hood, Mumia Abu-Jamal and other
victims of overzealous police behavior.

    (From prison, where he is serving a sentence for killing white Police Officer
Daniel Faulkner, whom he swears he did not harm, the black Jamal asks, "If
Jamal had died and Faulkner had lived, would he be here?" His rhetorical
question is answered shortly in the film by an assistant district attorney
[George Parry] who explains, "Juries don't like to convict cops.")

    Easily the most unsettling footage is from 1978, showing a policeman kicking a
handcuffed Delbert Africa in the face as five other cops appear to urge their
colleague on. Confronted with this document as evidence of police brutality,
then-District Attorney Rendell counsels that such an action "can't be viewed as
an isolated film clip, it must be seen in the context of events that came
before."

    Both in his position as managing director and as mayor, Wilson Goode fares not
much better than Rizzo and Rendell in Black and Blue. He offers answers that
appear designed to offend neither the police nor the victims.

    However partisan, Black and Blue attempts to hear the other side of the story.
Yet according to this film, the pattern is clear: For 20 years and several city
administrations, there has been a consistent record of police brutality -- from
the Columbia Avenue riots in 1964 to the Osage Avenue firestorm in 1985.    

    Over the last decade alone, according to the film, over 1,000 incidents of
police brutality against minority citizens -- 700 shootings and 300 killings --
have been protested by victims, their families and the community. This record
gives an ironic interpretation to the statue of a Caucasian officer protecting
a Caucasian child that stands before police headquarters on Race Street.

    As if to illustrate John Lennon's aphorism, "Think global, act local,"
filmmakers King and Williams place Philadelphia's problem in the context of
white colonialism in Third World countries. Theirs is a movie that should be
required viewing for all Philadelphians. This means you.