FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL! Stop the Execution!

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Mumia Abu-Jamal is a Black journalist and community activist currently on death row in Pennsylvania. He was arrested on Dec. 9, 1981, after he intervened in the police beating of his brother during a street altercation in Philadelphia. A police officer was killed in the incident; Abu-Jamal also was shot and seriously wounded.

In July 1982, a jury with only one Black person on it convicted Abu-Jamal for the murder of the police officer. He was given a death sentence.

The prosecution argued that the death penalty was warranted because of AbuJamal's involvement in militant political causes. In 1968, at the age of 14, Abu-Jamal was Minister of Information of the Black Panther Party in Philadelphia. Later, he became a supporter of the MOVE organization, which was the frequent target of attacks by the Philadelphia cops.

In 1980, at age 26, Abu-Jamal was elected president of the Association of Black Journalists.

In October 1990, the U.S. Supreme Court denied both of Abu-Jamal's petitions for a rehearing on his sentence. Since then, his death warrant has been sitting on the desk of pro-death-penalty Gov. Robert Casey. Casey has already signed 15 death warrants-and could sign Abu-Jamal's at any time.

A worldwide campaign, supported by Amnesty International, has flooded Casey's office with letters, calls, and telegrams demanding a new trial for Abu-Jamal. Noted civil liberties attorney Leonard Weinglass and NAACP Legal Defense Fund lawyer Steven Hawkins are gathering evidence of irregularities in Abu-Jamal's trial and confirming his innocence. They expect to file a motion to overturn his conviction.

On Dec. 9, the 11th anniversary of Abu-Jamal's arrest, a march will be held in Philadelphia to demand, "Stop the execution!" Buses and caravans will depart from other areas of Pennsylvania and from New York, Washington, D.C., and Boston. The march will begin at Broad and Jefferson Streets at 11 a.m. and go to City Hall for a noon rally.

For more information, tee-shirts, videos, and speakers, contact Equal Justice USA/Quixote Center, P.O. Box 5206, Hyattsville, MID 20782.

Telephone (301) 699-0042. Taxdeductible contributions toward Mumia's legal expenses should be sent to Black United Fund/Mumia Abu-Jamal Defense, 419 S. 15th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19146.

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... Why Malcolm X endures Lee was able to raise money from a number of Black entertainers and business people.)

In spite of all this distraction, Lee has turned out a film that keeps you engrossed for almost three and a half hours and accomplishes what the book does: You want to know more about Malcolm X.

In the opening scene, Spike Lee dramatically reminds the audience that the social conditions and racism that radicalized Malcolm X still exist in full force With Malcolm X's voice in the background, and video images of the L.A. police beating of Black motorist Rodney King flashing by, a flaming American flag slowly burns into an "X."

Lee adheres almost to the letter of the book, with the movie constructed in three distinct sections: Malcolm X when he was a street hustler in the 1940s; his time in prison, where he served six years for a burglary conviction and was converted to the Nation of Islam; and his meteoric rise in public consciousness as a brilliant spokesperson and organizer for the Nation of Islam.

Inis last section includes Maicolm X's break with the Nation and gives some heretofore unknown insight into the growing friction and jealousy between Malcolm and Elijah Muhammad.

Actor Denzel Washington does an excellent job of making you believe you are seeing Malcolm X. He obviously studied film clips of the man quite closely and is most effective when he becomes the Malcolm X we all know—a firebrand speaker who was brutally and eloquently frank about the racial oppression faced by African Americans.

This is by far the best section of the movie, the part the audience is eagerly ... Revolution Rap (continued from page 1: “Why Malcolm X has endured nearly 30 years after his death”) awaiting, because it is here we see the man who called himself "the angriest Negro in America;" the man who could tap right into the frustration and anger of the disenfranchised Black masses.

"Life of changes"

Malcolm X told Alex Haley shortly after his split from the Nation, "My life has been a life of changes." And in the movie, Spike Lee documents these changes. But it would be nearly impossible to make a movie that could completely portray the complicated evolution of Malcolm X. And because Lee adheres exclusively to Haley's book, the most important period of Malcolm X's life-his last year-is only a small section of the movie.

As Clayborne Carson, author of the book, "Malcolm X: The FBI File," stated in a review of the movie in the San Francisco Examiner (Nov. 22, 1992):

"Malcolm intended that his autobiography would give guidance to the lives of other Black people, but he himself was uncertain about his political direction help on the countdown to Armageddon," when be told his story to journalist Alex Haley. Lee's script, based on Haley's book, succeeds more in depicting the life Malcolm was abandoning than in suggesting where his life was headed at the time of his assassination."

Lee undoubtedly saw his movie the same way that Malcolm X saw his biography: An example to other Black people-especially Black youth-of a man who rose from the ashes to become one the greatest Black leaders in American history. Consequently, he spends over a third of tha mania an Alalonlm'o lifa so a pimp, dope-peddler, and burglar in order to underscore this transformation.

The material that Lee used for depictingMalcolm X's last year-from his break with the Nation of Islam to his assassination—was based on the lengthy epilogue written by Alex Haley after Malcolm's death.

But here, too-to his credit-Lee scrupulously repeats the inner thoughts that Malcolm expressed to Haley-the only difference being that Lee has Malcolm saying them to his wife, Sister Betty Shabbaz.

For example, he depicts Malcolm's decision to stop accusing the Muslims of trying to murder him. "I'm going to tell you something," he says to his wife during a telephone call on the eve before his assassination. "The more I keep thinking about this thing, the things that have been happening lately, I'm not at all that sure it's the Muslims. I know what they can do, and what they can't do, and they can't do some of the stuff recently going on.

As he is speaking the camera pans to another room where FBI agents are listening in on a phone tap.

The last year JOSEPH RYAN/SOCIALIST ACTION Lee accurately portrays Malcolm's efforts to build an idependent Black political organization-the Organization of Afro-American Unity-and his first trip to Mecca, where he revised his opinion of white people after observing the brotherhood that existed between Black and white Muslims.

But because of Lee's sole reliance on Haley's epilogue, Malcolm's rapid political evolution in an anticapitalist direction is never acknowledged.

His conclusion, stated on many occasions, that you can't have racism without capitalism, is muted in the tilm.

No mention is made of Malcolm's opposition to both capitalist political parties-the Democrats and the Republicans.

Nothing is said about his opposition to the Vietnam War. And his second trip to Africa, where he met with heads of state to internationalize the African American struggle, is omitted.

Malcolm said to Haley on a couple of occasions during his final year that his life and ideas were changing so quickly that he thought the "Autobiography" might be rendered obsolete.

This is because the "Autobiography" was about Malcolm X, the Black Muslim. And although Malcolm remained a Muslim, in his last year he also became Malcolm X, the Black revolutionary.

But even though beset by these omi(continued on next page)

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