We are public school teachers from Oakland, California and New York City. Between January and May 1999, educators in dozens of schools in the Bay Area and New York City offered lessons on issues raised by the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. We found that our students benefited enormously from these lessons. We are asking other educators to join with us this Fall

in presenting pro and con readings, discussion, debate, writing assignments, video showings, rap/poetry workshops, and art projects in the public schools and other educational sites.

In particular, we suggest that educators schedule their lessons to take advantage of the publicity that will be generated during "Mumia Awareness Week," called by his supporters for September 19-25, 1999. Briefly, we'd like to explain why we think this is an important topic for study in public schools. We also want to tell you about some of the innovative lesson plans and other educational resources that we found effective.

This summer, Philadelphia newspapers reported that Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge will sign a death warrant for Mumia Abu-Jamal in the near future. This fall, Jamal's legal team will file the final appeal of his conviction and death sentence in the federal courts. Mumia Abu-Jamal may be granted a new trial. Or, he may become the sixth radical activist to be officially executed in the U.S. in this century amidst protests of innocence and judicial misconduct --following labor organizer Joe Hill, anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, and communists Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

As this journalist's life hangs in the balance, educators can give students a sense of historicity--the unfolding of events in a world of possibility, where outcomes are not pre-determined, where individual actions, social movements and institutional traditions have their impact, where public opinion and pressure can have a palpable effect.

2. The case raises issues crucial to preparing students for full participation in society--issues central to U.S. history, Black history, law and government, ethics, economics, arts and media studies.

• Is the criminal justice system fair to all?
• Should the death penalty be legal? Is it ethical?
• What should be the standards of evidence for capital cases?
• Is it right for police and the FBI to conduct surveillance of political activists, including high
  school and college students?
• Does a person's political beliefs and involvement with political groups affect the way a judge and jury would judge him? Should it?
  
• Should prisoners be able to speak to the media or publish their writing?
• Why is the incarceration rate in the U.S. the highest in the world?
• Why do African-American men, who are only 6% of the U.S. population, constitute 40% of the people on Death Row?
• Is there a prison/industrial complex? If so, who benefits from it? Who loses?
• What is the relationship between U.S. police departments and the communities in which they work?
• Why are documented incidents of police brutality rising nationwide, especially in communities of color?

There are strong social movements for and against a new trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Maureen Faulkner, widow of slain police officer Daniel Faulkner, is speaking widely, making appearances on ABC's "20/20" program and college campuses. The 283,000-member Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), the largest organization of U.S. law enforcement professionals, is mobilizing police officers and their supporters around the country to demand a speedy execution. The FOP's recent convention called for a public boycott of firms and individuals lending support to Jamal.

Rev. Jesse Jackson, authors Alice Walker and Elie Wiesel, Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, Danielle Mitterand, widow of the French prime minister, and the musical group Rage Against the Machine are among those calling for a new trial. On April 24, 1999, West Coast longshoremen organized in the International Longshore and Warehouse Union staged a one-day political strike to demand freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal--an action virtually without precedent in U.S. labor history.

Never before has the death penalty been such a focal point of popular debate in the U.S. as today. On August 22, The New York Times devoted a major article, "Living Alumni of Death Row," to examining whether the lives of innocent people are being taken by the state. It pointed out that "In Illinois, one of the two states without a statute of limitations (the other is New York), one inmate has been exonerated for every inmate executed over the last 12 years."

This controversy, and the resonance of many issues raised by Mumia Abu-Jamal's case in mass media and popular culture (from the liberal film "Dead Man Walking" to Clint Eastwood's death penalty drama "True Crime," from folk music to hip hop, and in a broad spectrum of visual and performance art) has engaged students powerfully. The cogent and rebellious voice of Jamal himself, heard in his radio commentaries and now collected on compact disc, has also made the case more compelling for students.

We strongly believe that students should be exposed to different viewpoints on Mumia Abu-Jamal's case and related issues--followed by critical study and discussion. In order to achieve our educational goals, all students (as well as their teachers) must be encouraged to express their views freely. Only in this way can students develop their:

• critical thinking skills
• ability to read, analyze and write about key texts that take opposing positions
• creativity and intelligence in the visual arts, dance, music, raps, poems and plays
• ability to develop, defend, and act constructively on their own positions.

The activities that we have used with our students include:

• showings of Mumia Abu-Jamal: A Case for Reasonable Doubt? (a British documentary shown on PBS stations), which offers both prosecution and defense arguments, followed by a review of the evidence by a student jury;
• debates on the death penalty;
• discussions of Mumia Abu-Jamal's writings on the criminal justice system and racism;
• writing op ed pieces;
• historical research on the imprisonment of political activists.

The Oakland teach-in on "Mumia Abu-Jamal and the Death Penalty" on January 14, 1999 came under public attack for supposedly distracting students from learning the 3R's and raising their test scores. But many students eloquently defended their right to have the teach-in and described the importance and relevance to them of the issues it raised. They explained that the focus on Mumia Abu-Jamal had increased their motivation to come to school--prepared to participate and learn. By contrast, when some school districts in Philadelphia, western Pennsylvania and Massachusetts banned in-school activities around Jamal's case in April 1999, hundreds of students walked out of their schools.

In Oakland, attempts by the Board of Education and some administrators to cancel the teach-in did not stop many teachers from going ahead with the lessons they had prepared. With the support of impassioned students, parents and respected community members, these teachers invited TV news teams into their classrooms on the day of the teach-in.

In New York City, educational activities occurred in at least 25 small and large high schools on May 11, 1999. In some schools, one or two teachers showed A Case for Reasonable Doubt? or assigned some of Jamal's writings. These lessons were often integrated into a social studies or African-American literature unit. In one of these high schools, five more teachers then decided to teach material on the case after their students said they didn't want to miss out on what their friends had studied in their classes.

In a number of schools, students initiated their own research projects, and wrote and performed poems and raps about what Mumia Abu-Jamal meant to them. In another school, nearly all classes discussed the case and related issues; speakers from legal and prisoners' rights organizations addressed a school-wide assembly. An after-school event at an alternative high school in Manhattan was attended by 100 people, mostly high school students.

Students from Harlem, Bedford-Stuyvesant and the South Bronx linked the issues raised by Jamal's case to conditions they were experiencing directly: The police killing of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed 22 year-old college student from Senegal; the official stop-and-search policy directed at youth on the street; the take-over of school security by the Police Department; and the high incarceration rates and increasingly long prison sentences endured by people they knew.

We are confident that many more teachers around the country brought Mumia Abu-Jamal's case into their schools last year. If you have done so, and especially if you can share lesson plans, educational materials and student work with others, please contact us.

* * * * *

Some will argue that concerns about Mumia Abu-Jamal and the Criminal Justice System are outside issues that shouldn't be brought into our schools. But issues of police brutality, the death penalty and racial profiling are all over TV and the newspapers. These issues are already in our schools--because our students are thinking and talking about them. That is why these important issues need to be part of our curriculum, and this fall's educational activities can be a big step in that direction.

In the Oakland and New York City schools, we have seen how this approach has motivated our students to learn, and to develop the skills and knowledge that they need to succeed and become a positive force in society. That's why we deeply believe that we would fail our students and abdicate our mission as educators for a democratic society if we lack the courage to bring current and contested issues into our classrooms.

September 5, 1999

Oakland Educators                         New York City Educators

Andrew Bonthius                                            John Breitbart
Larry Felson                                                   Paulette d'Auteuil
Sara Fuchs                                                     Dave Pugh
Bob Mandel                                                   Juliet Ucelli

• www.aspenlinx.com/mumia: (On the home page, click on Teach-In Index, and then look for Mumia Curriculum and Death Penalty Curriculum.) Educational resources developed by teachers in Oakland for their teach-in in January 1999. At present these materials are located within a broader Bay Area website.

• www.geocities.com/collegepark/square/3889: Resources developed by NYC teachers.

• To purchase the video, Mumia Abu-Jamal: A Case for Reasonable Doubt? write to:
  Bob Mandel c/o Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, 3425 Cesar Chavez Street,
  San Francisco, CA 94110. Price: $10, includes postage. Please make out your check
  to "Bob Mandel."
  
  
• Mumia Abu-Jamal's first book, Live from Death Row, is now widely available in paperback. Price: $12. (If you cannot find it locally, contact Plough Publishing below.)

• Jamal's second book, Death Blossoms (with a foreword by Cornel West) is available from Plough Publishing House, part of the Bruderhof Christian communities. Price: $12, with no shipping/handling. Call 1-800-521-8011 to order.

• The compact disc All Things Censored is a compilation of 16 radio commentaries by
  Mumia Abu-Jamal. To purchase the CD, contact Prison Radio/Quixote in San Francisco at (415) 648-4505. Price: $15 each; $6.50 each for more than 10 copies.

• In New York City, e-mail us at: mumiateachin@yahoo.com
  or leave a message for us at: (212) 561-9570

• In Oakland, e-mail us at: bobm@ousd.k12.ca.us
  or call us at: (510) 536-1216

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