-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Aug. 3, 2000
issue of Workers World newspaper
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PHILADELPHIA: CLERGY, ACTIVISTS DENOUNCE COP TERROR
By Betsey Piette
Philadelphia
An indoor interfaith rally against police brutality July
23 drew over 1,000 people in the wake of the racist police
beating of Thomas Jones and the killing of Robert Brown by
Amtrak cops.
A multinational crowd of over 800 filled the Morris Brown
A.M.E. Church to capacity while hundreds more gathered
outside, a few blocks from the intersection where a news
helicopter taped police beating Jones on July 12.
Rally organizer the Rev. Vernal Simms Sr., president of
the Black Clergy of Philadelphia, promised the movement
wouldn't stop there. He called for a march to target
Philadelphia District Attorney Lynn Abraham, who has filed
41 charges against Jones, yet refused to charge any of the
police who beat him.
Several speakers left the indoor rally to address those
who stood outside for over three hours, frequently chanting
"No justice, no peace" and urging organizers to bring the
event outside to the streets.
Rally speakers included Black, Latino and Asian clergy,
political and community representatives from Philadelphia,
and the Rev. Al Sharpton and Martin Luther King III, both
national leaders in the fight against police brutality.
Activist Pam Africa of International Concerned Family &
Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal was welcomed to the stage.
Several family members of both Jones and Brown were in
attendance.
Minister Rodney Mohammad of the Nation of Islam denounced
claims that the Jones beating wasn't racist because Black
cops were involved.
The Rev. Luis Cortez described the police assault and
beating of a Puerto Rican minister, the Rev. Frank Buelna,
last October. "We were told to be patient," Cortez said.
"But the officers who beat Buelna have been on the streets
for nine months now."
Attorney Charles Bowser recalled the names of many Black
men who were killed by the police in Philadelphia. He
warned the audience not to fall victim to the press
campaign to smear the victims of police brutality,
recalling a case from the 1970s when the media found Black
school children "at fault" for allegedly inciting the
police who beat them.
Martin Luther King III urged the crowd to join an August
26 rally against racial profiling in Washington. The Rev.
Al Sharpton challenged city officials, the media and other
church officials who violence-baited the rally.
"They have the arrogance to tell us to calm down. Some one
should have told the police to calm down," Sharpton said,
noting that Brown was shot and killed less than a week
after Jones was beaten.
Sharpton also chided those who publicly criticized his
participation as "an outsider," noting that they are
welcoming Bush and 45,000 Republicans to town at the same
time.
- END -
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