Mumia Abu-Jamal address to students protesting genocide in Gaza

On the night of April 26, revolutionary political prisoner and Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal called in to students at CUNY University to deliver a message at this historic moment in the movement for Palestine. For the past two weeks, encampments have sprung up all across the United States in solidarity with the people of Gaza. The students are urging their universities to disclose their ties and divest from corporations that fund the Israeli occupation of Palestine. The following transcript was originally posted on PrisonRadio.org.

Mumia Abu-Jamal Speaks With CUNY Students at Free Palestine Encampment (April 26th 9:41 PM)

04/30/24

Brothers, sisters, comrades, friends. I greet you from the American system of mass
incarceration. What we are involved in right now, I think, is something called mass
education, and City College and Columbia and Emory and USC are all part of that process right now. That education is about the repression that Gaza is suffering under.

It is a wonderful thing that you have decided not to be silent and decided to speak out against the repression that you see with your own eyes. So, you are part of something massive. And you are part of something that is on the right side of history.

You are against a colonial settler regime that steals the land from the people who are
indigenous to that area. And you are saying that this is wrong. I urge you to speak out
against the terrorism that is afflicting Gaza with all of your might, all of your will and all of your strength. Do not bow to those who want you to be silent.

It is time right now, this day, this hour, this moment, to be heard. And to shake the earth so that the people of Gaza, the people of Rafah, the people of the West Bank, the people of Palestine can feel your solidarity with them. (Cheers from the crowd.)

I am a student of the late, great Frantz Fanon. And I read him every day and think about his ideas. And when I see what is happening in Gaza right now, I know that right now the people of Gaza are “the wretched of the earth”. And they are fighting to be free from generations of occupation. So it is not enough, brothers and sisters, students, it is not enough to demand a ceasefire. How about this: Make your demand Cease Occupation!
Cease Occupation! Cease Occupation! 

[Cheers. Students chant “Cease Occupation! Cease
Occupation! Cease Occupation! Cease Occupation!”).

Let that be your battle cry because that is the call of history, of which all of you are a part.

You are part of something magnanimous, magnificent, and soul changing, life changing, history changing. Do not let go of this moment. Make it bigger. Make it more massive. Make it more powerful. Make it echo up into the stars. I am thrilled by your work. I love you. I admire you. On the Move!