[nattyreb]

important info annexed...




THE NEW BLACK PANTHER PARTY

NATIONAL MINISTRY OF CULTURE

PO BOX 25332, NEWARK, NJ 07101

201-602-0780



June 19, 2008



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE



JUSTICE FOR MARQUIS RANDLE!



On Saturday, June 21st, Zayid Muhammad, the New Black Panther Party’s national minister of culture, will rally with the Millions More Movement and the Peoples Organization for Progress in Roselle, New Jersey to demand justice for Marquis Randle, a victim of an unwarranted police shooting in November that may leave him partially paralyzed.

The rally will take place from 12 noon to 3p.m. at Roselle’s Boro Hall, located on Chestnut Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenues.

Randle, a high school student from Plainfield, was visiting relatives and friends when he had his tragic encounter with Roselle police several months ago.

In spite of large protests, a Union County grand jury exonerated officer Craig Howlett, the officer who shot Randle, of any wrongdoing.

Protesters are now pushing for a federal civil rights investigation into the incident.

Muhammad grew up in Roselle and knows members in both Randle’s family and Howlett’s and has expressed being especially heartbroken by this saga.

“It breaks my heart to have to go back to Roselle for something like this, but the injustice is real, and the pain and suffering is real,” Muhammad said in angry resignation.

In addition to supporting the local call by Randle’s supporters for federal rights charges, Muhammad has challenged Roselle’s new mayor, Garrett Smith, to fire the acting police chief, Denis Kelleher, who was on the scene and who perhaps could have prevented the incident from escalating to its tragic consequences.

“This guy has taken community policing and violently turned on its head, and if Roselle were a bigger town, this is the kind of thing that could tear a town apart,” Muhammad went on.

“We are sick of Black mayors and Black elected officials who can only say what they can’t do whenever our people are brutalized by the police on their watch,” he commented. “It’s not what they can’t do, it’s what they don’t have the courage to do. Our elders and ancestors did not sacrifice their lives for the vote for us to be left with spineless leadership.”

For more information, please call 908-943-2414…



FREE MUMIA!



On Tuesday, June 24th, Muhammad will be on hand for the NY Free Mumia Coalition’s special book party for the important new book ‘Framing Mumia Abu Jamal,’ by author Pat O’Connor. Joining O’Connor will be former MOVE political prisoner and survivor of the horrific bombing of Philadelphia’s Osage Avenue, Ramona Africa, and of course, Pam Africa, MOVE’s minister of confrontation and head of the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal, and other special guests.

The event will begin at 6p.m. and will be held at the Brecht Forum, 451 West Street in lower Manhattan.

Panther legend and revolutionary journalist and author, Mumia Abu-Jamal will mark his 26th year on death row on the 4th of July. He recently received a negative ruling from the third circuit federal court of appeals which calls for him to be resentenced to either life without parole or to be resentenced to death. His lawyers are currently appealing that very dangerous ruling.

For more information about this event, please call the Free Mumia Hotline at 212-330-8029…



SHUT’EM DOWN! NO MORE LIQUOR STORES IN OUR ‘HOOD!



On Tuesday, July 1st, the struggle for ‘The Soul of the South Ward’ continues.

After rallying the community to demand the shutting down of an unwanted new liquor store and club on Bergen Street and Custer Avenue, the community resistance will finally be officially heard by the city of Newark’s ABC Board, the city responsible for giving the ultimate to open liquor establishments.

Although the community’s resistance is public and widely known, having had several rallies at the site of the contested establishment and having addressing Newark’s City Council, the hearing before the ABC Board marks the first legal expression of the community’s opposition and will be critical in determining the outcome of the issue.

People with ties to that South ward neighborhood who want to be heard before the ABC Board should call 973-318-7013 as soon as possible so your name can be listed among to be heard. Expected to be heard are people like Carolyn Kelly-Shabazz, owner of Bergen Street’s First Class Gym, who has been a key organizer of the resistance, retired educator Nathaniel Potts, Imam Aqeel Mateen of United Muslim Inc., Min. Lawrence Muhammad of Mosque #25 and the Million More Movement, Dr. Colleen Walton, Dr. Asya Aquil and more.

Ironically, Mayor Cory Booker told the community that he has the power to “tie up” the permit process at their moving march and rally just this past Saturday, June 14th. But in court on the following Monday June 16th, the city’s lawyers presented papers supporting the perspective owner and operator Rafael Rodriguez, siding with the “legal correctness” of his application.







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