Newark, N.J., group to protest banning of Mumia-Abu Jamal documentary

Supporters of Mumia Abu-Jamal in front of Newark City Plex theater, April 26.

On Friday, May 17th, the People’s Organization for Progress will hold an informational picket at Newark’s City Plex 12 Movie Theatres for their decision to ban the critically acclaimed documentary, “Long Distance Revolutionary: A Journey with Mumia Abu-Jamal.”   It will take place at 5:30 p.m.  City Plex is located at Springfield Avenue and Bergen Street in Newark.

The film, directed and produced by Newark native, Steve Vittoria, was originally scheduled to be shown on April 26. It is playing to packed houses in cities across the country. It was just extended for an additional week in Philadelphia, where media towards Abu-Jamal have historically been the most hostile.

Instead, the Newark film showing was cancelled without notice suddenly on April 11. POP, the New Black Panther Party, Women In Support of the Million Man March, Amiri Baraka and the NYC Free Mumia Coalition decided to rally at City Plex on the day it was supposed to be shown, [April 26], to condemn the cancellation.

The film has been critically received across the political spectrum and actually seeks to capture the humanity of the celebrated but imprisoned journalist.

Abu-Jamal is fighting a conviction for supposedly killing a Philadelphia police officer in 1981. He had been sentenced to death and has survived the signing of two death warrants. His death sentence was recently overturned in federal court. He has yet to be able to get new evidence proving his innocence into the appellate courts.

The People’s Organization for Progress meets every Thursday evening at the Abyssinian Baptist Church, 224 West Kinney St., Newark, at 6:30 p.m.

For more information about this action, please call 973-801-0001.

Lawrence Hamm is the chairperson of POP.