Philadelphia

14 May 2001--We made history in Philadelphia this weekend with the spirited and highly successful Free Mumia/Justice for MOVE Encampment outside City Hall. We pitched tents, and set up our encampment for 48 hours after forcing the city to back down in their attempt to deny our permit requests. Hundreds participated in the Hip Hop concert on Friday night; many stayed overnight at our tent city; and well over a thousand joined the march on Saturday.

Participants came from as far away as New Mexico, Indiana, Boston, St. Louis, Baltimore, D.C. and New York, and as near by as Center City Philadelphia. The highly multinational encampment brought together many youthful activists, as well as older seasoned activists. There was a large LGBT contingent with Rainbow Flags. There was a tremendous spirit of cooperation, as everyone pitched in to set up, serve food, secure our space from occasional provocateurs, and do continuous outreach about Mumia's case.

Both Friday and Saturday nights, encampment participants held "honk for Mumia" at the corner of Market & 15th St., receiving a tremendous response. Saturday's honk continued from around 9pm until around 5am on Sunday morning. Many times the sound of the honking was deafening!! On Sunday morning, we held a street meeting as hundreds of thousands of "Race for the Cure" marchers went by our encampment. While we heard the usual anti-Mumia remarks one might expect from this largely suburban crowd, we also overheard many marchers engaged in discussing what they'd recently heard about the case.

The week-end wound up with the Clark Park rally to commemorate the 16th anniversary of the City's bombing of the MOVE house on Osage avenue and their murder of eleven men, women and children.