AMAJ Press Release on Tribunal Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit mark.taylor@ptsem.edu (Taylor, Mark) A M A J ACADEMICS FOR MUMIA ABU-JAMAL FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE NOVEMBER 18, 1997 CONTACTS: AMAJ Coordinator, Professor Mark Taylor, c/o Princeton Theological Seminary, P.O. Box 821, Princeton, NJ 08542-0803. Phone:609 497-7918. Fax: 609 497-7728. PRESS RELEASE PROFESSORS AND AUTHORS ENDORSE "TRIBUNAL" IN THE PHILADELPHIA CASE OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL "REASONED INQUIRY" SAID TO BE MISSING FROM CURRENT JUSTICE SYSTEMS Princeton, NJ - Authors and well-known professors have endorsed an "International People's Tribunal for Justice for Mumia Abu-Jamal." Abu-Jamal, the award-winning journalist on Pennsylvania's death row for allegedly shooting Philadelphia police officer, Daniel Faulkner, will again be the focus of international attention on December 6, when independent judges will travel to Philadelphia to hear and evaluate extensive testimony never considered by standing judicial bodies. Mark Taylor, an author and professor of religion and culture at Princeton Theological Seminary, who also coordinates the 600-member group, AMAJ (Academics for Mumia Abu-Jamal), announced today that some of the best and most creative minds in public life have now endorsed the tribunal. Nobel Prize winner, Toni Morrison, and former U.S. Attorney General, Ramsey Clark, along with novelist Alice Walker, the noted philosopher, Jacques Derrida, David DuBois (son of W.E.B. DuBois and professor of journalism at University of Massachusetts), Angela Davis, PENN/Faulkner award-winning writer, John Edgar Wideman, Dennis Brutus (University of Pittsburgh), Samuel E. Anderson (author and mathematician), Ward Churchill (University of Colorado), and the celebrated poet Sonia Sanchez (Temple University) were among those who stepped forth immediately to endorse this event when it was first called by an "Ad Hoc Coalition" of national and international activists. AMAJ has now announced a growing list of other academics who have endorsed the tribunal. Michael L. Radelet is exemplary of the kind of scholar who is coming forward. He is a professor of sociology at the University of Florida holding degrees in medical sociology and psychiatry. He has also testified in several dozen death penalty cases throughout the country and worked with more than 100 death row inmates. He teaches courses in Medical Ethics, Criminology, and the Sociology of Mental Health. He is best known for co-authored works like IN SPITE OF INNOCENCE: ERRONEOUS CONVICTIONS IN CAPITAL CASES (with Hugo Bedau and Constance E. Putnam) and EXECUTION OF THE MENTALLY ILL (with Kent Miller). Other distinguished scholars notifying AMAJ of their support include Peter Matthiessen (author of IN THE SPIRIT OF CRAZY HORSE, and other books), Homi K. Bhabha (University of Chicago and author of THE LOCATION OF CULTURE), Cornel West (Harvard University and author, RACE MATTERS), Howard Zinn (historian and author of A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, the acclaimed history book that continues to sell more copies in each year since its 1980 publication), Leslie Marmon Silko (Laguna Pueblo novelist and MacArthur Award-winning author of CEREMONY and ALMANAC OF THE DEAD). The list features other well-published scholars such as Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (Harvard University), Michael Zuckerman (University of Pennsylvania), Farah J. Griffin (University of Pennsylvania), Peter Linebaugh (University of Toledo) who is an expert on the history of the death penalty in Europe and the U.S., James Marsh (Fordham University), Molefi Kete Asante (Temple University), Mark I. Wallace (Swarthmore College), Antonio McDaniel (University of Pennsylvania), Daniel Berrigan (author and activist), James H. Cone (Union Theological Seminary), Francis Fox Piven (City University of New York), Martin Bernal (Cornell University and author or BLACK ATHENA: THE AFRO-ASIATIC ROOTS OF CLASSICAL CIVILIZATION), Herbert Aptheker (celebrated writer of six volumes on African-American history), Jeanne Woods (Loyola Law School), Silvia Federici (Hofstra University), Carole Yawney (University of Ontario), Anna J. Brown (St. Peter's College), Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (Columbia University and author of THE POSTCOLONIALIST CRITIC), Chung Hyun-kyung (Union Theological Seminary), Dwight Hopkins (University of Chicago), Harvey Cox (Harvard Divinity School), Manning Marable (Columbia University), Wahneema Lubiano (Duke University), Michael Dyson (Columbia University), Dr. Chinisole (San Francisco State University). When asked why noted professors and authors would support such an event, Taylor noted that "academics claim a commitment to the moral value of reasoned inquiry, and they expect such inquiry to prevail in criminal justice systems to promote the public good. When both reason and the public good are subjugated to a racist adversarial politics, as they appear to be in Philadelphia's treatment of Abu-Jamal, then academics lose confidence in the officially-sanctioned justice system. The people's tribunal is a welcome forum for getting out the truth about Abu-Jamal, and for doing justice by him. The public good of all people can only be enhanced by such an effort," Taylor concluded. * * OTHER ACADEMICS WISHING TO JOIN IN ENDORSING THE TRIBUNAL SHOULD NOTIFY MARK TAYLOR AT THE ABOVE CONTACTS OR AT MARK.TAYLOR@PTSEM.EDU . YOU AND YOUR INSTITUTION (FOR IDENTIFICATION PURPOSES ONLY) WILL BE LISTED AS AN ENDORSER BY AMAJ AND BY THE TRIBUNAL AD HOC COMMITTEE. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytrc-11.15.97-04:04:00-8529