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Democracy and Politics Todd Steven Burroughs Democracy and Politics Todd Steven Burroughs

How the “Free Mumia” movement rocked Black journalists in 1995 and how the case still resonates in 2024: Part 3

In 2024 and beyond, it might be hard for those who have grown up with the World Wide Web, and social media in particular, to understand that there was not an instant grapevine in 1995 for Black journalists from across the nation to immediately learn about the First Amendment violations of a convicted murderer in Philadelphia who was an affiliate president 15 years prior to the 20th anniversary NABJ convention.

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Democracy and Politics Todd Steven Burroughs Democracy and Politics Todd Steven Burroughs

Journalism and advocacy in the 1995 Mumia Abu-Jamal and National Association of Black Journalists controversy: Part 2

NABJ was an easy target for the “Free Mumia” movement because the traditional professional journalism values of objectivity and detachment, according to the group’s president, prevented it from taking a political position. But this only raised some important questions: Don’t people form organizations in order to be able to take a collective stand? Doesn’t the organization provide a cover, a collective shelter of the results of private votes, in order to do what you could not get away with as an individual? How come, at least for NABJ, the situation seemed to work in the reverse?

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Democracy and Politics Todd Steven Burroughs Democracy and Politics Todd Steven Burroughs

Mumia Abu-Jamal turns 70 this year: A look back at the 1995 “Free Mumia” movement’s clash with the objectivity of the National Association of Black Journalists

The professional maxim in the journalism profession, at least in mainstream quarters, is that a journalist should never be part of the story he or she is covering. It’s a challenge to the mainstream journalist, who always has to draw the fine line between observing and participating.

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Democracy and Politics Josie Gonsalves Democracy and Politics Josie Gonsalves

Photo Essay | In all their sublimity, “Free Palestine” marchers take on the dusk into the night in Newark

On November 9, the growing global movement for a "Free Palestine" took to the streets of Newark for the Shut It Down for Palestine rally and march; the third time in under a month.

In his Black-and-White medium, Brian Branch Price, Public Square Amplified photojournalist, and editor, narrates the Palestinian community's profound rage, indomitable spirit, and unwavering determination to end the war on Gaza, and he and they find a narrow space that allows him both distance and intimacy.

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Democracy and Politics Zoe Van Gelder Democracy and Politics Zoe Van Gelder

Jersey City teenagers rally at City Hall to lower voting age for school board elections

Standing atop the steps with Ali are Abeera Saeed, the co-founder of the Ali Leadership Institute and Yale graduate; Uriel Bruno, a junior at County Prep High School, Azra Bano, a Piscataway High School senior, and Zachary Yabut, a High-Tech High School senior. Attendees rallied at city hall to demand state officials lower the voting age to 16 for school board elections.

Aside from building the Vote@16 initiative, which organized the rally, Bano is also co-chair of Vote16NJ. She said the impetus for the rally stemmed from earlier movements like the one in Takoma Park, Maryland, the first city in the United States to allow 16-year-olds to vote in local elections.

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Democracy and Politics Renee Johnston Democracy and Politics Renee Johnston

Prisons, policing, and cop cities: They cannot exist in a democratic society

There are two definitions of the word “democracy” that are critical to understanding the core principles that should guide organizers and activists. The first is from the Oxford Languages, which reads that democracy is “the practice or principles of social equality,” and the second is from Webster, which says that democracy is “the absence of hereditary or arbitrary class distinctions or privileges.”

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