Mumia Abu Jamal was born in Philadelphia on 24 April 1954, and was given the slave name
Wesley Cook. From an early age, he became
politicized. In high school, after beginning a Swahili class, he
followed in the tradition of Muhammad Ali and dropped his “slave name”,
or the name he inherited from enslaved ancestors. He took the name
Mumia, meaning “Prince”, and which was also the name of an anti-colonial
freedom fighter from Kenya.
In 1968, in one of Mumia’s first
forays into politics, he and his friends decided to attend a George
Wallace campaign rally in Philadelphia. Wallace, who had previously
served as governor of Alabama, was one of the most unabashedly
anti-Civil Rights politicians and was running for president.
Mumia and his friends, outraged that such a notorious racist was coming
to their city, disrupted the rally with shouts of “Black Power!” Mumia
and his group were soon attacked and beaten by the white attendees of
the rally. Mumia described his experience in an interview in the
documentary Mumia: Long Distance Revolutionary:
“The
police surrounded us, you know, in a matter of moments, and escorted
us, rather roughly I should say, out of the [venue of the rally]. There
were people spitting on us, n***er this, n***er
that. I remember being pummeled and being beaten to the ground. I
remember looking around and I saw a pant leg. It was blue and had a
stripe on it, so it told me this was a cop. So doing what I was taught
to do all my life I said, ‘Yo, help, police,’ you know? And I remember
the guy walking over very briskly, and his foot going back and kicking
me in the face. I’ve always said thank you to that cop because he kicked
me straight into the Black Panther Party.”
Mumia, as a 14-year-old enraged at
the systematic mistreatment and oppression of Black people by police,
became a young Black Panther. Mumia quickly rose to the Minister of
Information in the fledgling Philadelphia chapter of the Black Panther
Party, gaining revolutionary journalistic experience. His
articles, serving a catalyzing purpose beyond the distribution of
information, often ended with a call to action: “Do Something, N***er,
[Even] If You Only Spit!”Philadelphia
Police illegally stripped searched Black Panthers after raiding their
office. After this attack, Police Commissioner Frank Rizzo publicly
threatened the Panthers.
It was also around this time that the
FBI, as part of its illegal counterinsurgency operation against the
Panthers (COINTELPRO), began to keep tabs on Mumia. The police were part
of this operation, and the Philadelphia Panthers became the victims of
several raids of their Party office by the police. Police commissioner
Frank Rizzo emerged as a key enemy of the Panthers. After a particularly
harsh and illegal raid, in which police forced the Panthers to strip in
the streets, Rizzo remarked, “They were humiliated. We took their pants
off them to search them…only brave when they outnumber people…if they
break our law, we’ll be there. The police, we’ll be there, and we’ll see
who wins.”
As described
by researcher, author and journalist Todd Steven Borroughs, “More than
600 sheets of paper would be compiled on Cook [by the Federal Bureau of
Investigation] from 1969, when he had turned 15, until about 1974, the
year of his 20th
birthday.” Much later, when COINTELPRO documents began to be released
to the public, supporters discovered a photograph of Mumia, obtained
from the FBI, which had the word “Dead” scrawled across the back.
Mumia left the Black Panther Party in
1970 at the age of 16 and he continued his studies, which he had put on
pause to be a full-time Panther. He went on to use his experience as
Minister of Information to become a radio journalist.
Yet he never abandoned his
revolutionary politics. In his career, he relentlessly pursued the
truth, no matter how that pursuit challenged those in power. After the
Black revolutionary MOVE organization was systematically persecuted and
framed by the Philadelphia police for the alleged murder of an officer,
Mumia became one of the only journalists in the city to cover MOVE
sympathetically.
The Move Organisation
founded by an African American named John Africa was a black back to nature
group with an anarcho primitist outlook that rejected the system.
It's members and supporters faced a daily onslaught against them for a
number of years, being systematically targeted for their beliefs and on
numerous occasions faced violent retribution from the state.
His support of this organisation and his reporting of unpopular causes
which included exposing the violence of the state, as it manifests in
entrenched poverty, endemic racism, police brutality and celebrating a
peoples unending quest for freedom led him to lose his job as a radio
journalist, so he took up taxi driving in order to provide for his
family.
On Dec 9th 1981 he had just dropped a client off when he heard gunshot
and saw people running.He then he saw a police officer aiming a gun at him, he
was shot and beaten, and later was charged with the murder of Officer Daniel
Faulkner who had died from gunshot wounds only a feet away from where
Mumia himself had fallen. Mumia himself remained in critical condition
for a period of time, but his case was rushed to trial within 6 months
.A trial that Amnesty International condemned as failing to meet even
the most minimal standards of fairness, and that is an
understatement.The trial was a farce with witnesses constantly changing
statements, vital evidence being buried, proceedings marked by judicial bias, prosecutorial misconduct, racial
discrimination in jury selection, police corruption, and tampering with
evidence to obtain a conviction– and to cap it all a bigoted and prejudiced judge.
There was no way that Mumia was going to get the justice he deserved,
and he was found guilty and sentenced to death.
One of the key prosecution witness was a prostitute with a long history
of arrests and her testimony contradicted previous statements and that of
other witnesses. A man was with dreadlocks was seen running from
the scene, Mumia has dreadlocks, there are so many doubts. Several
prosecution witnesses from his trial have since recanted their testimony
, furthermore another individual Arnold Beverly has since subsequently
confessed to killing Faulkner. Mumia has always maintained his
innocence.What came later was a global movement. Abu-Jamal became an international
symbol for institutional racism and judicial abuse and a cause celebre
for anti-death penalty advocates. His face was a prominent image at
anti-death penalty rallies, progressive gatherings and music
concerts.
By the1990s, his name had become a shorthand for injustice and racism
within America. In doing so, his supporters turned Abu-Jamal from a man
into a myth. .
Mr. Abu-Jamal’s supporters have rallied international support and many
prominent supporters to his cause. His 1982 trial is widely criticized
as unfair due to misconduct by police and prosecutors, and
pro-prosecution bias by the trial judge, who was accused of “polluting”
Mr. Abu-Jamal’s 1995 appeals hearing.
Many have come to believe that he was a victim of a miscarriage of justice who had been
systematically targetted by the police and the authorities in order to
beget his silence.According to human rights group Amnesty International, “After many years
of monitoring Mumia Abu-Jamal’s case and a thorough study of original
documents, including the entire trial transcript, the organization has
concluded that the proceedings used to convict and sentence Mumia
Abu-Jamal to death were in violation of minimum international standards
that govern fair trial procedures and the use of the death penalty.
Amnesty International, therefore, believes that the interests of justice
would best be served by the granting of a new trial to Mumia
Abu-Jamal.”
Philadelphia police organizations and their supporters claim Mumia received a fair and just trial.
Despite his continuing imprisonment Mumia has not been silenced even with the U.S Governments
best efforts to do so, he is is still writing, still speaking out, with a powerful artuculate voice opening up the
eyes of the people to the injustices of the system that imprisons him,
his books and writings in venues as diverse as the Yale Law Review, Forbes, The Nation, and street-papers for the homeless, have led many to hail him the voice of the voiceless, and a champion of the oppressed.
Becomming a potent iconic figurehead for many.
While behind bars he has written a series of widely-read books, including Live from Death Row (1995), Death Blossoms (1996), and a history of the Black Panther Party entitled We Want Freedom
(2004). In December 2001, His revolutionary spirit intact,
his books and writings in venues as diverse as the Yale Law Review, Forbes, The Nation, and street-papers for the homeless, have led many to hail him the voice of the voiceless, and he has become a potent figurehead for many.You can imprison somebody but you cannot kill their spirit. Now he's off death row but he is still in prison, so the movement to free Mumia continues and all others suffering from miscarriages of justice.
Mumia: Long Distance Revolutionary is an
inspiring portrait of a man whom many consider America’s most famous
political prisoner – a man whose existence tests our beliefs about
freedom of expression.
Through prison interviews, archival footage, and dramatic readings,
and aided by a potent chorus of voices including Cornel West, Alice
Walker, Angela Davis, Ruby Dee, writer Tariq Ali, author Michelle
Alexander, and others, this riveting film explores Mumia’s life before,
during and after Death Row – revealing, in the words of Angela Davis,
“the most eloquent and most powerful opponent of the death penalty in
the world…the 21st Century Frederick Douglass.”
For 40 years—30 of them on death row—Mumia a prisoner of injustice was locked in the dungeons of
Pennsylvania, framed by the cops and judicial system, for a crime he
didn’t commit. The current Philadelphia DA, “progressive” Larry Krasner,
repeats the lies of the cops and blocked Mumia’s recent legal appeal
for a new trial, which had been granted by the first African-American
judge to hear his case. Other anti-racist and anti-imperialist political
prisoners have spent decades imprisoned, are also aging, ill, and
serving life without parole—on slow death row.
Since Mumia’s conviction, the
movement to free him has won significant victories. In 2001, Mumia and
his supporters succeeded in vacating his death sentence. Mumia has
suffered various health struggles while in prison, but his successful struggle for Hepatitis-C treatment
set a precedent in improving treatment for the disease for other
prisoners. Media projects such as Prison Radio successfully promote
Mumia’s political commentary and written works, ensuring that the state
never succeeds in silencing his powerful voice. Both Mumia and his
supporters continue to protest in the streets and fight for appeals to win his release.
In addition to chronic heart condition, Mr. Abu-Jamal suffers
cirrhosis of the liver caused by Hepatitis C, hypertension and a severe
skin condition.
And in late February,2021 he was also diagnosed with COVID-19. Mumia’s doctor, Dr. Ricardo
Alvarez, says the only appropriate treatment is freedom
On his 68th birthday I urge people to join in the call for the liberation of all prisoners that are being
held on political grounds, including Mumia Abu-Jamal, the remaining
prisoners of the Move group imprisoned now for over 40 years, and the
remaining Black Panthers who still sit in jail decades after being
imprisoned, as well as Julian Assange, held in a British jail at the behest of the U.S.
government, for telling the truth about the killing of civilians in
Afghanistan and Iraq.
' Another Nameless Prostitute Says The man is Innocent' For Mumia Abu -Jamal
By Martin Espada
The board-blinded windows knew what happened;
the pavement sleepers of Philadelphia, groaning
in their ghost-infested sleep, knew what happened;
every black man blessed
with the gashed eyebrow of nightsticks
knew what happened;
even Walt Whitman knew what happened
poet a century dead, keeping vigil
from the tomb on the other side of the bridge
More than fifteen years ago,
the cataract stare of the cruiser's headlights
the impossible angle of the bullet,
the tributaries and lakes of blood,
Officer Faulkner dead,suspect Mumia shot in the chest,
the nameless witnesses who saw a gunman
running away, his heart and feet thudding.
The nameless prostitute know,
hunched at the curb, their bare legs chilled.
Their faces squinted to see that night
rouged with fading bruises. Now the faces fade
Perhaps an eyewitness putrifies eyes open in a bed of soil,
or floats in the warm gulf stream of her addiction,
or hides from the caged whispers of the police
in the tomb of Walt Whitman
where the granite door is open
and fugitive slaves may rest.
Mumia: the Panther beret, the thinking dreadlocks,
dissident words that swarmed the microphone like a hive,
sharing meals with people named Africa,
singing out their names even after the police bombardment
that charred their black bodies
so the governer has signed the death warrant.
The executioner's needle would flush the poison
down into Mumia's writing hand
so the fingers curl like a burned spider;
his calm questioning mouth would grow numb,
and everywhere radios sputter to silence, in his memory.
The veiled prostitutes are gone,
gone to the segregated balcony of whores
But the newspaper reports that another nameless prostitute
says the man is innocent, that she will testify at the next hearing.
Beyond the courthouse,a multitude of witnesses chants,
pray, shouts for his prison to collapse, a shack in a hurricane.
Mumia, if the last nameless prostitute
becomes an unravelling turban of steam,
if the judges' robes become clouds of ink
swirling like octupus deception,
if the shroud becomes your Amish quilt
if your dreadlocks are snipped during autopsy,
then drift above the ruined RCA factory
that once birthed radios
to the tomb of Walt Whitman
where the granite door is open
and fugitive slaves may rest.
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