Daily Archives: April 23, 2010

At its core, the death penalty derives from, and thus replaces, lynch law. States in the former confederacy established the convict lease system, where prisoners worked, without pay, for the state. Both Black men and women became “slaves of the state.”

Celebrate Mumia’s 56th birthday on Saturday, April 24, 4-6 p.m., on KPFA 94.1 FM and KPFA.org. Mumia is the award-winning journalist who has spent the last 28 years on death row. And come to Washington, D.C., on April 26 to call for a Justice Department investigation of his case.

Rwandan opposition presidential candidate Madame Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, Rwanda’s first female presidential candidate, was released on bail one day after being jailed by the Kagame government of Rwanda. “Ingabire was arrested on trumped-up, political thought crimes," asserted law professor Peter Erlinder, one of Ingabire’s U.S. lawyers.

Mumia Abu-Jamal faces perhaps the most crucial period since 1999 when then-Governor of Pennsylvania Tom Ridge signed the last of the two death warrants for Mumia, the first being in 1995. Students and young people are needed at the forefront of a movement to free Mumia.

It's your last chance to see Marcus Gardley's mythical epic “… And Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi” at Cuttingball Theater in residence at the EXIT Theater, 277 Taylor St., San Francisco, Friday-Saturday, April 23-24, at 8 p.m., and Sunday at 5 p.m.