Mumia Abu Jamal: Lydia Barashango – Presente!

Lydia Barashango, 64, a nurse and social worker who was the sister of Mumia Abu-Jamal, died Wednesday, Sept. 28, in Maryland of breast cancer. Friends said she had been living in Baltimore.

Mrs. Barashango was a strong defender of her brother, the Philadelphia radio reporter and Black Panther who was convicted and sentenced to death by a jury in 1982 for the murder of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner.

Abu-Jamal, 57, has become the object of a decades-long debate over the use of the death penalty for his role in the Dec. 9, 1981, shooting of Faulkner. In addition to the death-penalty issue, supporters and opponents disagree on whether Abu-Jamal is guilty, and on whether he received a fair trial.

Mrs. Barashango was interviewed in 2000 for an A&E documentary about the case. She said that the day after the shooting, she didn’t recognize her brother at the hospital because he had been “brutalized” by police. When she asked him if he was all right, he told her, “I’m innocent. I’m innocent.”

In 1999, Mrs. Barashango participated in a march around City Hall with 10,000 of her brother’s supporters, many waving “Free Mumia” signs.

Demanding a new trial, she told the crowd, “This rally takes our struggle to a whole new level. We aren’t playing anymore.”

Mrs. Barashango’s husband, Ishakamusa, a minister and African American scholar, died in 2004.

Arrangements for services are pending.