Talk given by Gloria Verdieu of the Socialist Unity Party at the May Day rally in San Diego.
Freeing Political Prisoners is a Working-Class Struggle. Why? It is our class, our families. Our youth, brothers, sisters, aunts, and uncles, are being locked up.
Employed and Unemployed; Organized and Unorganized; Unionized or not! We are the Working Class! It is up to us to Free All Political Prisoners! Our Elders are facing death by incarceration, and our brothers, sisters, and youth are spending decades in prison.
The Power is in the hands of the Working Class.
Freeing All Political Prisoners is our Struggle.
Let me give you an example; in 1999, when Mumia’s death sentence was signed for the second time, the International Longshore Workers Union Local 10 in San Francisco, the most radical union in the United States, shut down all 29 ports on the West Coast to stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal and just recently on Feb. 16 Local 10 shut down 16 bay area ports demanding Judge Clemons to grant Mumia a new trail to prove his innocence. Imagine if all the unions across the nation had taken the same action.
We need a movement of millions of the poor, of workers, women, youth, students, prisoners, and all people dedicated to change, to build independent organizations that can’t be bought or sold and will do the work necessary to be free.
We need a movement of millions that is anti-imperialist, anti-racist, and that unites us, not divides us.
We need a movement of millions in the United States, and we must begin right here.’
Bring Mumia Abu-Jamal and Leonard Peltier home!
Free all Political Prisoners! End Mass Incarceration!
Shut down the Prison Industrial Complex!
What’s the Call? Free Them All!
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