Among the things I learned and observed are:
1. A lot of black people are interested and impassioned about Mumia. But they see his case as part of larger issues and made a point of this. The Mumia case was tied to the issue of capital punishment,which itself was connected to this nation's history of slavery, oppression of blacks, and revolt by blacks and others. Other political prisoners were discussed, most prominently Leonard Peltier.
2. Mumia earned an MA degree recently through correspondence type courses, but his actual diploma was confiscated by prison authorities as contraband!!
3. There is now a prison cable channel akin to the infamous Channel One in public schools.
4. None of the 12 states without capital punishment are in the South. 500 of the 600 persons executed since the early 1970s were executed in the South.
5. Since 1970 the US prison population has risen tenfold from 200,000 to 2,000,000. Capital executions have similarly incresed about tenfold.
6. Within the past few years alone, 87 persons on death row have been conclusively proven to be innocent, including 5 in Bush's Texas.
7. The US's largest union, SEIU, a union dominated by women and minorities voted at its recent convention in Pittsburgh to go on record in favor of abolishing the death penalty and also in favor of a new trial for Mumia. Good news indeed.
8. The issue of reparations resonated very positively. This issue was tied to the issue of the national question, i.e. blacks considering themselves to have constituted a sovereign nation after the Civil War with every right to demand reparations. A reparations website can be found at <www.ncobra.com>.
9. I am more disgusted than ever with those who downplay the importance of the Mumia case.
Michael Yates