I received word some days ago from Sophia Williams of the movement for Mumia, and also confirmation just yesterday from Johanna Fernández’s brother, that Johanna passed this last Thursday night, July 30, 2026.

Words come hard now. The ache is acute, as I feel the loss of a friend, a scholar, colleague and an activist who gave so much to the movement for Mumia and for justice and revolution in so many ways. One of the things she did was to rejuvenate Educators for Mumia Abu-Jamal (EMAJ), the group I founded in the mid-1990s.