Professor defends comparison of convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal to MLK - EAGnews.org powered by Education Action Group Foundation, Inc.

Professor defends comparison of convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal to MLK - EAGnews.org powered by Education Action Group Foundation, Inc.:

"NEW YORK – Fox News host Megyn Kelly posed a simple question on her Tuesday program:

Why on earth would anyone want to teach children that convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal “is in any way like Martin Luther King?”

Kelly was asking the question in response to EAGnews reports that labor unions in California are pressuring the Oakland Unified School District to reinstate a series of lessons that teaches students that Abu-Jamal’s views are similar to those of King.
For answers, Kelly interviewed Johanna Fernandez, a coordinator for the “Campaign to Bring Mumia Home.”
 After several minutes of rehashing the facts of Abu-Jamal’s case, Fernandez finally answered Kelly’s original question: Why should any student “hear this man compared in any serious tone to Dr. Martin Luther King, who was against violence?”
Fernandez’s answer was revealing:
Well, you know what, Miss Kelly? I think that Americans don’t really know who Martin Luther King was. By the end of his life, Martin Luther King said at the Riverside Church in 1967 that the United States is the biggest purveyor of violence in the world.
He also said in his “I Have a Dream” speech that he could not stand by, uh, before the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. Essentially, by the end of his life, Martin Luther King – like Mumia Abu-Jamal – was a radical.
So, according to Fernandez, Abu-Jamal – who was convicted of shooting Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner five times, including once in the face – was simply picking up where King left off."