Philadelphia, PA – 3,000 people rallied here Aug. 17, demanding freedom for framed death row revolutionary and journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal. Speakers included Ossie Davis, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, poet Sonia Sanchez, Ramona Africa, comedian Dick Gregory, and Mayor Bernard Birsinger of Bobigny, France.

Philadelphia, PA – Facing protest and international pressure in support of framed political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, federal judge William Yohn threw out his death sentence on Dec.18, 2001. Yohn ordered the state to conduct a new sentencing hearing within 180 days. If the state does not conduct a new hearing, Mumia will, according to Yohn's ruling, be sentenced to life in prison.

As the rich grab up every piece of land they can on Chicago’s South side, thousands of low-income people are being pushed out of the neighborhoods they call home. Powerful institutions like the University of Chicago and its local partner The Woodlawn Organization are colluding with Mayor Daley to subject neighborhoods like Woodlawn to a feeding frenzy by greedy developers – a nightmare for families who can no longer afford skyrocketing rents and property taxes. But as the tenants of the Kimbark Tenants Association are showing, you don't have to just pack up – you can fight back.

Chicago, IL – “Ain’t no power like the power of the people ‘cause the power of the people don’t stop!” echoed up and down Cottage Grove, Aug. 25, during the Hands Around Grove Parc demonstration. Tenants and supporters linked hands and held signs saying “Urban renewal = black removal” and “I live in Grove Parc, I want to stay, not gonna go no way!” as passing cars honked and cheered the demonstrators on.

Chicago, IL – “Homeland security arrests us ‘cause we are trying to stay in our homes. We told them, ‘Housing is a human right and we wasn’t goin’ without a fight!’” said Grove Parc tenant and Southside Together Organizing for Power (STOP) organizer Lonnie Richardson amidst cheers of tenants and supporters gathered on a cold November day outside the offices of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in downtown Chicago.

For nearly five months in the fall and winter of 1968-1969, San Francisco State College was paralyzed by a student strike.

Interview with Parents of Police Murder Victims

Fight Back! talked on May 8 with Elizabeth (Bonnie) Moore, whose son Rasheed, 26, was killed in January by Newark, NJ police officer Thomas Ruane (see Fight Back! March/April 2005.) Fight Back! also talked with Earl Williams, whose son Earl Faison was killed by Orange, NJ policemen in April of 1999. After a struggle of five years, led by the Faison’s family and by the People’s Organization for Progress, four cops were sentenced to terms of 33 months each for violations of the victim’s civil rights. One officer was sentenced to nine years.

“You don’t care about Black People”

Chicago, IL -“I feel about UIC like Kanye West said about George Bush: You don’t care about Black people,” snapped Lou Jones, state representative from Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood. She was confronting administrators at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) about charges of neglect by Black and Latino medical students.

Chicago, IL – Residents of the Woodlawn neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side are fighting to hold on to our neighborhood. We are threatened by gentrification, which is happening in many poor areas of the city. What does this mean? It means that 61st Street, which used to have a thriving business strip, would have condos instead.

Newark, NJ – Rasheed Fuquan Moore, 26, was killed Jan. 24 by Newark police officer Thomas Ruane in a 12:30 a.m. shooting incident. In the same incident, Ruane’s partner, officer Nicholas Popolizio, shot Richard Guy, 26, in the leg.