Mumia in the Middle



photo: Joe Rocco

An immigration center finds itself in a controversy involving Martin Sheen, Daniel Berrigan and Philadelphia’s most famous murder.

by Frank Lewis

At last year’s fundraising luncheon for the Philadelphia Immigration Resource Center (PIRC), the lights went out for a moment while Mary McAleese, president of Ireland, addressed the crowd. If that’s the worst thing that happens at this year’s event, PIRC board chair Anne O’Callaghan will breathe a heavy sigh of relief.

Because by then she will have been dealing with a controversy involving this year’s honorees — peace and civil rights activist Father Daniel Berrigan, and actor Martin Sheen, star of The West Wing— for more than a month. Fewer people are impressed by the PIRC’s coup in securing commitments from both men to attend the May 16 event, it seems, than are outraged over statements they’ve made in the past regarding a wholly unrelated matter that has surprising resonance in the Philadelphia-area Irish-American community: the case of convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Located in Upper Darby, the PIRC is a source of great pride for the various Irish-American organizations that established it in 1999, partly in response to the unceremonious jailing and deportation of some young Irish nationals the previous year. Last year’s fundraiser, featuring McAleese, attracted hundreds and was an unqualified success.

This year, the board of directors decided to use the event to bestow a new honor, the Dennis Clark Solas Award. (Clark is a late historian, and author of The Irish in Philadelphia: Ten Generations of Urban Experience; "solas" is the Irish Gaelic word for light.) The award will be given to those who fight for the rights of "the dispossessed," as O’Callaghan puts it.

Berrigan, perhaps best known for his demonstrations against the war in Vietnam, and Sheen, who wrote the forward to Berrigan’s last book, Job: And Death No Dominion, were chosen "because of their steadfast and universal commitment to the rights of oppressed minorities and immigrants around the world, including the Irish communities in the United States and in Ireland," according to a statement from the board. "Their work is most deserving of the Solas award named in honor of Dennis Clark."

The board’s vote had been unanimous. Abu-Jamal’s name wasn’t raised until weeks later, when O’Callaghan put out the word about the selection. Someone observed that the honorees are "pretty liberal," she recalls, and wondered aloud whether either has ever spoken out on Mumia’s case.

O’Callaghan searched online, and sure enough, they have. In an audio clip from a CD that accompanies Abu-Jamal’s book All Things Censored, Sheen calls the death row inmate an "incisive critic of our criminal justice system" and a "voice of the voiceless." Berrigan is named on a lengthy list of known Abu-Jamal supporters maintained by the Grand Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police.

O’Callaghan says she then contacted fellow PIRC board member Robert Hurst, a former head of the FOP in Philadelphia, and he confirmed that Mumia supporters "would not be welcome in Philadelphia," she says, "and that my best bet would be to cancel."

Apparently word spread quickly, and O’Callaghan soon learned that intense discussions were taking place with and between board members. Those opposed to the speakers "tried to stir up passions that they knew were there," she says.

So another board meeting was called. After three and a half hours of debate, the members voted 13-6 to proceed with the event as planned. O’Callaghan and another member, attorney Mark Kearney, drew up a statement that reads in part: "The honoring of the work performed by Fr. Dan Berrigan and Martin Sheen, however, does not in any way endorse or express support for every view expressed by them, particularly any view either expressed or held by these men regarding the murder of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner.

"To the contrary, the Board stands with, and fully supports, Maureen Faulkner, Ken Faulkner, their families and their friends in demanding justice for the murder of Officer Daniel Faulkner."

But this wasn’t enough for Hurst, who resigned from the PIRC board. An open letter to O’Callaghan, posted on the website of the organization Hurst heads, the Mayo Association of Philadelphia, cited "strong disagreement with the selection of the honorees."

"Mumia Abu-Jamal was found guilty and sentenced to death for the murder of Officer Danny Faulkner," Hurst wrote. "Now years later, we are asked to honor people who publicly support his murderer. As a former law enforcement officer and president of the Fraternal Order of Police … I can no longer in good faith be associated with the Philadelphia Immigration Resource Center."

Hurst could not be reached before press time.

Much of the local Irish-American community is fiercely protective of Faulkner’s memory and loyal to his family. A recent benefit concert dubbed Artists for Daniel Faulkner, organized by local pop band Cloning Einstein, ended up consisting almost entirely of Irish acts; other bands were too worried about negative publicity. Faulkner’s name shows up on various signs and floats in the St. Patrick’s Day parade every year, and a Philadelphia division of the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH), an Irish-Catholic group, is named for him.

"I think it’s because [Mumia supporters] have generated all this publicity for him," says Bob Gessler, president of the Philadelphia board of the AOH. "The Irish have always liked the underdog."

Gessler says the matter will be discussed at an upcoming meeting of AOH division leaders, but he believes the organization will not support the PIRC’s event. Nor, however, will the AOH take part in demonstrations outside the Wyndham Franklin Plaza during the luncheon, as some have suggested should occur. The AOH’s boycott, Gessler stresses, "is not going to affect our support for the immigration center."

Rich Costello, president of the local lodge of the FOP, is taking a similar tack. While not pleased that "supporters of the cold-blooded killer of a Philadelphia police officer" are being honored "for anything," Costello says he would not accept an offer to join a protest. Maureen Faulkner, widow of the slain officer, recently asked him not to take action against another non-profit group’s event, around the same time, at which another person who once ran afoul of the pro-Faulkner camp will speak.

Councilman Jim Kenney, a supporter of the PIRC and Irish groups in general, also is opting out. "I know the people [at the PIRC] well, and I know Martin Sheen’s views [on Mumia] don’t reflect their own, but I won’t be attending," he says.

So the PIRC officers are left wondering who will come, and how this all became so heated, so fast.

"I don’t think anybody expected this firestorm would come up," says PIRC board member Pat Coughlan, a regional director for the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International. "And I don’t think the board has done anything to support a cop killer.… I don’t know one person on this board who would even support a new trial for this creep."

When O’Callaghan discusses the controversy, her tone alternates between saddened and defiant.

"We selected these guys because they have consistently stood for the same values we have stood for," she says. "And for supporters of Daniel Faulkner and his grieving family to make [the event] about Mumia is a travesty.… Either they have another agenda, or they’re totally confused.

"This is not about Mumia," she continues, "and [for the board] to act according would compound the situation, and really make me question my own integrity."

So her principles are intact, but the tension remains. Maureen Faulkner, the slain officer’s widow, says she won’t attend the event, but won’t call for or endorse any demonstrations. "The good [the PIRC is] doing outweighs who they’ve chosen to speak," she says. Still, she flatly rejected a good-faith measure offered by the board: to arrange a meeting between Berrigan and Sheen and members of the Faulkner family.

"I will not meet with them," she says. "These people come out and make statements before educating themselves on the case.… So no, I have nothing to say to them."

O’Callaghan, who’s already weary of the controversy, jokes that the late Dennis Clark, for whom the award is named, may have a hand in all of this.

"He wouldn’t want the event to be harmed, and he would support the mission of the immigration center," she says, "but he certainly enjoyed controversy and working it through."