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April 18, 2008<br><br>
To Mumia Abu-Jamal -- my brother in this Struggle; and your family,<br>
friends, and supporters.<br><br>
I offer you my warmest greetings. How appropriate, after so
many<br>
years, that I now send you word from a cage housed in the very same<br>
state as yours.<br><br>
Perhaps it is destiny that we would find ourselves incarcerated so<br>
near, under similar circumstance, by similar forces, using similar<br>
excuses, for a similar love of our people.<br><br>
Perhaps it is destiny that we arrived at a similar truth -- that we<br>
had to stand in opposition to a similar oppression.<br><br>
Perhaps it was destiny that we were unable to stand idly by with<br>
similar brutality all around us, and similar violence thrust upon
us,<br>
as the only means to survive.<br><br>
Given the choice of lying down to die or standing up to live, we
chose<br>
to live. Standing up and living is our only crime in this, the
land<br>
of the free and home of the brave. Our dream is still alive, and
as<br>
hunger striker Bobby Sands once said, you can lock up the dreamer
but<br>
you cannot place chains around an idea.<br><br>
While acknowledging another setback for Mumia in the lack of a new<br>
trial, I am hopeful for the new sentencing hearing on April 19.
Like<br>
so many before us, our smaller victories will one day result in our<br>
ultimate triumph, and we will carry on the Struggle until that day.<br>
For we are one, and we are many. We are forever, we are
timeless. We<br>
are Crazy Horse, we are Geronimo, we are Mumia, we are Leonard<br>
Peltier, we are Malcolm X, and we are Martin Luther King. We are
the<br>
voice of justice and natural living. We are the American
Indian<br>
Movement, we are the Black Panthers, we are MOVE, we are the Viet<br>
Cong, we are the Irish Republican Army, and the Palestinian
Liberation<br>
Organization.<br><br>
We are every man, woman and child who desires to see a sunrise in a<br>
land of freedom and opportunity, a land of plenty and not hunger, a<br>
land of choices without fear, a land of progress without brutality.<br>
We are not only the citizens of Belfast and Pine Ridge, Philadelphia<br>
and Gaza. We are children of Earth, a place worth living in and
not<br>
just surviving in. A place where every life, no matter if it
is<br>
wrapped in brown skin or black, red skin or yellow, white skin or
any<br>
color skin, is precious to our God and to each other.<br><br>
I pray and I live for the day that we meet as free men, and embrace<br>
each other in our own communities, with our families and the world
as<br>
witness to our liberation and our triumph. For make no mistake
the<br>
world is watching, and our children are learning. And every
slight,<br>
every insult, every injustice, every bruise, every injury, every
lost<br>
battle, every second behind bars, will be redeemed in the colorblind<br>
laughter of our children. Theirs is the future that we struggle
for,<br>
and why we will never stop speaking the truth.<br><br>
Free Mumia!<br><br>
In the Spirit of Crazy Horse,<br><br>
<br>
Leonard Peltier<br>
Lakota, Anishinabe<br><br>
Time to set him free... Because it is the RIGHT thing to do.<br><br>
Friends of Peltier<br>
<a href="http://www.freepeltiernow.org/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.FreePeltierNow.org<br><br>
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