Mumia Abu Jamal

Note the similar handcuffed fist of Mumia and the RNR logo!

Just ahead of the Republican National Convention, a liberal organization of actors and musicians will gather in New York this week to pay tribute to what it calls "unconventional heroes" -- a group that includes librarians from Santa Cruz, Calif., and the father of an American contractor who was beheaded in Iraq earlier this year.

The Artists Network of Refuse & Resist! will present "Unconventional Heroes: An Evening of Performance to Honor Courageous Resisters" Thursday at NYU's Skirball Center for the Performing Arts. The organization said the event is intended to recognize "everyday heroes who put their reputations, their jobs and even their lives on the line to preserve their freedoms and voices."

Former Rio Rancho High School humanities and poetry teacher/coach Bill Nevins of Albuquerque, New Mexico, was given a 2004 Courageous Resister Award by the Artists Network of REFUSE & RESIST!, a national organisation, in a well-attended public ceremony on August 26 at New York University in Manhattan.

Controversial country star Steve Earle presented Nevins with his award. Nevins was joined by more than a dozen other 'resisters', each cited in the Unconventional Heroes program notes for "their acts of defiance, at times in the face of grave consequences for both them and their loved ones".

Nevins was praised for his work with at-risk and other students engaged in creative writing and poetry performances in the Rio Rancho high schools, and for his active protest of censorship of "controversial" opinions at the school in the time leading up to the start of the 2003 Iraq War.

When Rachel Corrie was two and a half, she asked her mother if being brave is part of growing up. I thought.really good question. It could be.Except for.think about all the official and unofficial signposts in this late-imperialist society that tell you instead to be craven, to be fearful of the people in (or from) other countries or even the next town over; fearful of the unknown, the uncommon, the new, of change itself.

But people don't always do what the powers tell them to. And so 500 of us gathered in New York University's Skirball Auditorium on August 26--a week before the coronation of the most-hated and least-brave President ever--to honor more than a dozen "unconventional heroes" who had shown remarkable courage in their resistance to the dictats of this regime.

On the eve of the Republican National Convention, as the battle raged for the streets of New York City, the Artists Network of Refuse & Resist! presented an evening of performance to honor Courageous Resisters. The honorees included Aaron Lebowitz, a high school student in Darby, Montana who resisted a resolution to make creationism part of the public school curriculum; Toni Smith, the NYC College basketball player who, in the months leading up to the war on Iraq, turned her back on the US flag during the singing of the national anthem; Camilo Mejia, the first soldier to go AWOL because of his opposition to the Iraq war; Juanita Young, a leader of the movement against police brutality in New York City whose son was killed by the police, and many more.