Welcome login | signup
Language en es fr
We are the 99 percent

News Archive

Mumia Abu-Jamal: "To My Friends of OWS"

Posted 12 years ago on Dec. 17, 2011, 5:39 p.m. EST by OccupyWallSt

<img style="margin-right:0.7em" src=//i.imgur.com/sbHqB.jpg" align="left" />

Message to OWS dictated while in Administrative Custody at SCI Mahanoy in Frackville, PA.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

My Friends of OWS,

My message will have to be brief. But let not this brevity take from it, its strength.

You are the central movement of the hour. You're raising questions that are in the hearts of millions. Your motto, "We are the 99%," has been heard, heeded, and responded to by millions. You can be certain that the 1% have heard you clearest of all.

Your work, however, is just beginning. You must deepen, strengthen, and further your work until it truly reaches the 99%, almost all of us: workers, black folk, Latinos and Latinas, LGBTs, immigrants, Asians, artists, all of us, for we are integral parts of the 99%. I salute you and hope fervently that you will grow beyond number.

Though I speak to you today by proxy, I'm confident that you will hear my voice soon.

Love, fun and music,

Mumia Abu-Jamal

383 Comments

Letter from Council of Elders to Trinity Church

Posted 12 years ago on Dec. 16, 2011, 9:43 p.m. EST by OccupyWallSt

December 16, 2011
Dear Rev. Dr. James Cooper,

We are veterans of the Civil Rights, Women’s, Peace, Environmental, LGBTQ, Immigrant Justice, labor rights and other movements of the last 60 years. Many of us have been or continue to be leaders of religious congregations and organizations, so we are deeply understanding of the need to protect the spaces and buildings that generations of the faithful have transmitted to us.

We are also deeply committed to using the share of God’s abundance that has been entrusted to us for the help and healing of those “least of these” – the poor, the humiliated, the hungry, the homeless, the dis-empowered – whom God has called us to protect.

We have special understandings of both of those commitments because as leaders of the social-change movements of the 20th century we have been called to deploy resources for the sake of racial and social justice and the cause of peace. Today we see the Occupy movement as efforts by a new generation of (mostly young) people to move forward as we did toward fuller justice and democracy for the diverse peoples in our nation.

We are concerned to hear that Occupy Wall Street has asked Trinity Church for use of the Lent-Space on 6th and Canal to gather, and has been refused.

Read More...

83 Comments

Hunger Strikers Arrested At Occupy DC Rally for DC Autonomy

Posted 12 years ago on Dec. 16, 2011, 5:20 p.m. EST by OccupyWallSt

occupy the vote dc

In Washington, DC, protesters at Occupy DC-K Street are on Day 9 of a hunger strike for DC voting rights. As Occupy the Vote DC has written, “Despite paying taxes to the federal government and sending our citizens to fight and die in every war, Washingtonians have had no voting representation in Congress and have had to seek approval from people they did not elect on all legislative and budgetary matters.” Over 600,000 people live in the District, the majority of whom are people of color, immigrants, in poverty, or from other marginalized groups.

Today, Congress voted on riders that would, among other things, deny residents of the District their right to provide abortion to low-income women and block funding for a harm reduction needle exchange program that DC residents overwhelmingly support. Occupy DC, in solidarity with the Occupy the Vote DC Hunger Strikers, marched to the Capitol to demand legislative and budget autonomy for the District. Traffic was blocked on Independence Avenue along the National Mall.

Four people were arrested by police outside the House of Representatives, including one of the hunger strikers who has since been hospitalized.

71 Comments

Newer Posts | Older Posts