Newsletter December 1999 home

Dear friends,

Services to our clients have been expanded this year by sharing our space with the Downtown Business Improvement District (BID) which operates the Downtown Services Center in conjunction with our soup kitchen.

Our ongoing battle against the injustices of racism, poverty (homelessness) and police brutality took the form of organizing for a new trial for the African-American journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal. He has been on death row for 17 years for allegedly killing a Philadelphia policeman.

New Appeal Prompts Stay

Of Abu-Jamal Execution
Associated Press

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PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 26-

The Dec. 2 execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal was stayed by a federal judge today as the former journalist and Black Panther began another round of appeals.

The stay came 13 days after Gov. Tom Ridge [R] signed the second death warrant for Abu-Jamal, who was convicted of murdering a police officer in 1981.

This latest appeal is the first to the federal courts. His appeal to state courts ended earlier this month when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s rejection of his state appeal.

Abu-Jamal, 45, was convicted of murder in the shooting death of Philadelphia police Officer Daniel Faulkner. The appeal argues that prosecutors manipulated witnesses to falsely identify Abu-Jamal as the shooter and that they suppressed and destroyed critical evidence.

It also claims the judge was biased, blacks were improperly kept off the jury and Abu-Jamal’s original defense was inadequate.

Let Freedom Ring for Mumia and other Political Prisoners! - July 4th, 1999

^{We have a bus that is going up for another Philadelphia demo on Dec. 11th. Please get on board!!! Call for details.

Our work has been severely hampered this year since there are essentially only three of us sharing the work with Eric Thomas bearing most of the burden for the soup kitchen. We have severely limited the intake into our community of homeless individuals unless they are completely free of debilitating addictions. It is for these reasons we are appealing for new members who can assist us in continuing our work (service, resistance and contemplation). We do not require that the person have any definable religious faith but have experienced that only those with fanatical commitment to justice and non-violently changing the world can be nourished by the required sacrifices. No one is salaried; but room and board is provided.

We would like to thank those who made our Christmas celebration last year so very successful. We are again planning for another this year on the 24th of December. Please call if you would like to participate.

We completely depend on this appeal for donations at this time of the year to get us through the year. So please dig as deep as you can. (Make checks payable to OLIVE BRANCH and send to PO BOX 73497, WASHINGTON DC 20056-0009).

For the community,

Harold Moss}