Rally of 3,000 in NYC: Stop incarcerations & torture

The historic Riverside Church on Manhattan’s Upper West Side was filled Sept. 14 with 3,000 people — many of them activists of all ages and nationalities — for a rally to end mass incarcerations and torture, to shut down Attica prison and to demand freedom of all political prisoners.

The rally was timed around the 41st anniversary of the heroic Attica prisoner rebellion, which took place from Sept. 9-13 in 1971. Black, Brown and anti-racist white prisoners took guards hostage to demand an end to inhumane conditions inside the walls and much more. Then Gov. Nelson Rockefeller ordered the police and National Guard to slaughter more than 40 prisoners along with their hostages.

At the time of the rebellion, there were an estimated 200,000 prisoners in the U.S. Today, that number has skyrocketed to close to 2.5 million prisoners, the most populous prison system in the world. The U.S. has 5 percent of the world’s population and 25 percent of its prison population. To go a step further, more than 7 million mainly people of color and the poor are reportedly incarcerated, on parole or on probation within the framework of the U.S. criminal in-justice system.

This rally comes eight months after the transfer of political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal from Pennsylvania’s death row — where he spent over 30 years — to a minimum-security prison due to the strength of a worldwide support movement. The former Black Panther and MOVE organization supporter is still fighting through the courts against a sentence of life in prison without parole. After an inspiring recorded message, Mumia was able to speak live to the rally by speakerphone, which ignited the crowd with chants of “Free Mumia!”

Asha Bandele, poet, author and director of the Advocacy Grants Program at the Drug Policy Alliance, chaired the rally. She introduced the Rev. Stephen H. Phelps, a senior minister at Riverside Church, and Bernard White, a commentator with Community Progressive Radio/Metro, who both greeted the audience.

Pam Africa, MOVE’s Minister of Confrontation and a leader of the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, offered a powerful reminder to the crowd to continue the fight to free all political prisoners like Mumia, the MOVE 9 and Sundiata Acoli.

Soffiyah Elijah, executive director of the Correctional Association of New York, spoke on why it’s important to build a campaign to shut down Attica, an institution symbolic of the unspeakable brutality that takes place throughout every U.S. prison and jail.

The main part of the rally featured a discussion among panelists Angela Davis, author, professor and former political prisoner; Michelle Alexander, civil rights attorney and author of “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness”; and Joseph “Jazz” Hayden, founding member of the Campaign to End the New Jim Crow, who is now on trial for trumped-up charges related to his anti-stop-and-frisk activities in Harlem.

Also on the panel were Marc Lamont Hill, a professor at Columbia University and co-author with Mumia of “The Classroom and the Cell”; and Cornel West, activist, author of “Race Matters” and Princeton University professor. Suzanne Ross, also representing ICFFMAJ, moderated the panel, which connected the issue of mass incarceration to the broader issues of global capitalism, education, mental health, racism, transphobia, sexism and activism.

Hill raised the case of CeCe McDonald, a Black transwoman falsely imprisoned for defending herself against a racist, anti-trans attack. McDonald’s supporters continue to struggle both to have her moved out of a men’s prison and to free her as soon as possible. To view the panel discussion, go to cprmetro.blogspot.com/.

Many of the 50 or more groups that endorsed the Riverside Church rally have joined the Sept. 14 End Mass Incarceration/Close Attica Coalition, which will present petitions to shut down Attica to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office during a noontime protest on Sept. 26. For more information, go to freemumia.com.