WEAR BLACK!
It's a nationwide epidemic - POLICE BRUTALITY - It's a national outrage. It has to stop!
Who's being protected and served when a cop in Newark, New Jersey guns down an unarmed pregnant woman? When US marines patrolling the Mexico-US border in Texas stalk an shoot a young man tending his family's goats? When a NYC cop shoots a 16-year-old in the back and gets selected as the officer of the month by his precinct? When San Francisco cops pepper spray a Black man to death? When Chicago cops gun down a deaf mute for refusing to obey their verbal commands while his mother and grandmother watch in horror? These foul murders are just the tip of the iceberg. Cops, La Migra, and prison guards brutalize and murder people all over the country and are almost never punished for their crimes against the people.
Who would punish them when the President brags about putting more cops on the street and building more prisons? When the US Congress passes more and more restrictive laws? When the whole court system works to exonerate brutal murdering cops?
The INS treats immigrants like they're less than human. They cooperate with the police to criminalize them and brutalize and murder them at the border. The authorities treat our youth like permanent suspects who are guilty until proven innocent--if they survive to prove their innocence. >From arrest to trial to sentencing, the criminal justice system discriminates against Blacks, Latinos, and other people of color. Geronimo ji Jaga (Pratt) is out of jail, but Mumia Abu Jamal is still on death row and Leonard Peltier is still locked down, as are many other political prisoners.
It's up to us to stop this! People have been resisting from St. Petersburg, Florida, and Leland, Mississippi where people fought back against police murder, to Chicago, LA, NY, and Pittsburgh where people are mobilizing against brutalizing, murdering cops. Last October 22nd in 45 cities across the US, thousands of people marched, rallied, and protested against police brutality in other ways. Many people wore black on that day. All this represents a good start.
But much more is needed. It's up to us to build a fighting, nationwide movement that can raise a giant stop sign against brutal, murdering cops and those who unleash and protect them. We need to make a big leap in building that movement.
On October 22nd, 1997, the 2nd National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression, and the Criminalization of a Generation, we will begin making that needed leap. On that day in cities all across the country, people of different nationalities will march, rally, hold poetry readings and other cultural events. Many, many people will wear black in solidarity with the protests and in memory of the victims of the police. Many will come from the experience of living our lives under the guns and billy clubs of brutal, murdering cops. Many others will come from different backgrounds, but we will all be standing together and saying police brutality must stop, NOW! And we will call on everybody who opposes this injustice and brutality to join with us in this important fight.
- National Coordinating Committee of
the Oct. 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality
Oct. 22nd Coalition
c/o KHL, Inc.
Box 124
160 First Ave.
NY, NY 10009
212-822-8596
Oct. 22nd Coalition, Chicago
773-794-8114
http://www.october22.org
1022Chicago@unstoppable.com
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