Mumia Abu-Jamal – författare

"Revolutionary love, revolutionary memory and revolutionary analysis are at work in every page written by Mumia Abu-Jamal … His writings are a wake-up call. He is a voice from our prophetic tradition, speaking to us here, now, lovingly, urgently. Black man, old-school jazz man, freedom fighter, revolutionary—his presence, his voice, his words are the writing on the wall."—Cornel West, from the foreword

From the first slave writings to contemporary hip hop, the canon of African American literature offers a powerful counter-narrative to dominant notions of American culture, history and politics. Resonant with voices of prophecy and resistance, the African American literary tradition runs deep with emancipatory currents that have had an indelible impact on the United States and the world. Mumia Abu-Jamal has been one of our most important contributors to this canon for decades, writing from the confines of the U.S. prison system to give voice to those most silenced by chronic racism, impoverishment and injustice.

Writing on the Wall is a selection of more than 100 previously unpublished essays that deliver Mumia Abu-Jamal''s essential perspectives on community, politics, power, and the possibilities of social change in the United States. From Rosa Parks to Edward Snowden, from the Trail of Tears to Ferguson, Missouri, Abu-Jamal addresses a sweeping range of contemporary and historical issues. Written mostly during his years of solitary confinement on Death Row, these essays are a testament to Abu-Jamal''s often prescient insight, and his revolutionary perspective brims with hope, encouragement and profound faith in the possibility of redemption.

"Greatness meets us in this book, and not just in Mumia''s personal courage and character. It''s in the writing. This is art with political power, challenging institutional injustice in the U.S. while catalyzing our understanding, memory and solidarities for liberation and love. Writing on the Wall can set the nation aflame—yes, for creating new possible worlds."—Mark Lewis Taylor, Professor of Theology and Culture, Princeton Theological Seminary

Mumia Abu-Jamal is an award-winning journalist and author of two best-selling books, Live From Death Row and Death Blossoms.

Johanna Fernández is a Fulbright Scholar and Professor of History at Baruch College in New York City.

Cornel West is a scholar, philosopher, activist and author of over a dozen books including his bestseller, Race Matters. He appears frequently in the media, and has appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher, The Colbert Report, CNN and C-Span as well as Tavis Smiley.

"A must-read for anyone interested in social justice and inequalities, social movements, the criminal justice system, and African American history. An excellent companion to Michelle Alexander''s The New Jim Crow and Ava DuVernay''s documentary 13th."?Library Journal, Starred review

"I was fortunate to grow up in a community in which it was apparent that our lives mattered. This memory is the antidote to the despair that seizes one of my generation when we hear the words ''Black Lives Matter.'' We want to shout: Of course they do! To you, especially. In this brilliant, painful, factual and useful book, we see to whom our lives have not mattered: the profit driven Euro-Americans who enslaved and worked our ancestors to death within a few years, then murdered them and bought replacements. Many of these ancestors are buried beneath Wall Street. Mumia Abu-Jamal''s painstaking courage, truth-telling, and disinterest in avoiding the reality of American racial life is, as always, honorable."—Alice Walker

"Prophet, critic, historian, witness . . . Mumia Abu-Jamal is one of the most insightful and consequential intellectuals of our era. These razor sharp reflections on racialized state violence in America are the fire and the memory our movements need right now."—Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination

"Mumia Abu Jamal''s clarion call for justice and defiance of state oppression has never dimmed, despite his decades of being shackled and caged. He is one of our nation''s most valiant revolutionaries and courageous intellectuals."—Chris Hedges, Pulitzer-prize winning journalist and author of Wages of Rebellion: The Moral Imperative of Revolt

"This collection of short meditations, written from a prison cell, captures the past two decades of police violence that gave rise to Black Lives Matter while digging deeply into the history of the United States. This is the book we need right now to find our bearings in the chaos."—Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of An Indigenous Peoples'' History of the United States

In December 1981, Mumia Abu-Jamal was shot and beaten into unconsciousness by Philadelphia police. He awoke to find himself shackled to a hospital bed, accused of killing a cop. He was convicted and sentenced to death in a trial that Amnesty International has denounced as failing to meet the minimum standards of judicial fairness.

In Have Black Lives Ever Mattered?, Mumia gives voice to the many people of color who have fallen to police bullets or racist abuse, and offers the post-Ferguson generation advice on how to address police abuse in the United States. This collection of his radio commentaries on the topic features an in-depth essay written especially for this book to examine the history of policing in America, with its origins in the white slave patrols of the antebellum South and an explicit mission to terrorize the country''s black population. Applying a personal, historical, and political lens, Mumia provides a righteously angry and calmly principled radical black perspective on how racist violence is tearing our country apart and what must be done to turn things around.

Mumia Abu-Jamal is author of many books, including Death Blossoms, Live from Death Row, All Things Censored, Writing on the Wall, and Jailhouse Lawyers.

"[Mumia''s] writings are a wake-up call. He is a voice from our prophetic tradition, speaking to us here, now, lovingly, urgently."—Cornel West

"He allows us to reflect upon the fact that transformational possibilities often emerge where we least expect them."—Angela Y. Davis

"These writings date from the late 1990s and often show prescience on the part of the author, who was writing well before the Black Lives Matter movement that ''when the system kills Blacks, there is no outrage, for it has been normalized by centuries of white enslavement, terrorism, and injustice. Such violence is simply the accepted way of how things are.'' Also included is a series of articles on the killing of Trayvon Martin, accurately anticipating the acquittal of the white man who shot him, and another series on Ferguson and its aftermath—how ''Ferguson may prove a wake-up call that Black lives matter. A call for youth to build social, radical, revolutionary movements for change.'' The last piece is the longest, a pamphlet on how to build such a movement with a historical perspective on why this is necessary."—Kirkus Reviews

"While the author does reflect on the widely reported cases of police violence against African Americans, as well as on the role of the media in determining what gets attention, the strength of the book rests in the essays that draw attention to lesser-known victims of police violence, particularly women of color whose stories never reached the mainstream media. Over the course of nearly four decades in prison, Abu-Jamal . . . has become an astute student of the justice system as well as a particularly cogent opponent of the death penalty."—Publishers Weekly

Profound meditations on life, death, freedom, family, and faith, written by radical Black journalist, Mumia Abu-Jamal, while he was awaiting his execution.

During the spring of 1996, black journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal was living on death row and expecting to be executed for a crime he steadfastly maintained he did not commit—the murder of a white Philadelphia police officer. It was in that period, with the likelihood of execution looming over him, that he received visits from members of the Bruderhof spiritual community—refugees from Hitler''s Germany—anti-fascist, anti-racist, and deeply opposed to the death penalty. Inspired by the encounters, Mumia hand-wrote Death Blossoms—a series of short essays and personal vignettes reflecting on his search for spiritual meaning, freedom, and truth in a deeply racist and materialistic society.

Featuring a new introduction by Mumia and a report by Amnesty International detailing how his trial was "in violation of minimum international standards," this new edition of Death Blossoms is essential reading for the Black Lives Matter era, and is destined to endure as a classic in American prison literature.

Praise for Death Blossoms, Expanded Edition:

"For years in my classrooms I have watched Death Blossoms do its luminous work. It has awakened the conscience of so many of my student readers. … From streets to classrooms and back, Death Blossoms keeps opening up consciences, hearts, and minds for our revolutionary work."—Mark Lewis Taylor, Professor of Theology and Culture at Princeton Theological Seminary, and author of The Theological and the Political: On the Weight of the World

"Targeted by the FBI''s COINTELPRO for his revolutionary politics, imprisoned, and sentenced to death, Mumia found freedom in resistance. His reflections here—on race, spirituality, on struggle, and life—illuminate this path to freedom for us all."—Joshua Bloom, co-author with Waldo E. Martin Jr. of Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party

"In this revised edition of his groundbreaking work, Death Blossoms, convicted death row prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal tackles hard and existential questions, searching for God and a greater meaning in a caged life that may be cut short if the state has its way and takes his life. … If there is any justice, Mumia will prevail in his battle for his life and for his freedom."—Lara Bazelon, author of Rectify: The Power of Restorative Justice After Wrongful Conviction

"Mumia Abu-Jamal has challenged us to see the prison at the center of a long history of US oppression, and he has inspired us to keep faith with ordinary struggles against injustice under the most terrible odds and circumstances. Written more than two decades ago, Death Blossoms helps us to see beyond prison walls; it is as timely and as necessary as the day it was published."—Nikhil Pal Singh, founding faculty director of the NYU Prison Education Program, author of Race and America''s Long War

"For over three decades, the words of Mumia Abu-Jamal have been tools many young activists have used to connect the dots of empire, racism, and resistance. The welcome reissue of Death Blossoms is a chance to reconnect with Abu-Jamal''s prophetic voice, one that needs to be heard now more than ever."—Hilary Moore and James Tracy, co-authors of No Fascist USA!, The John Brown Anti-Klan Committee and Lessons for Today''s Movements

“Expert and well-reasoned commentary on the justice system . . . His writings are dangerous.”—The Village Voice

In Jailhouse Lawyers, award-winning journalist and death-row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal presents the stories and reflections of fellow prisoners-turned-advocates who have learned to use the court system to represent other prisoners—many uneducated or illiterate—and, in some cases, to win their freedom. In Abu-Jamal’s words, “This is the story of law learned, not in the ivory towers of multi-billion-dollar endowed universities [but] in the bowels of the slave-ship, in the dank dungeons of America.”

Includes an introduction by Angela Y. Davis.

Mumia Abu-Jamal’s books include Live From Death Row and Death Blossoms.

Essential radical texts by enslaved, jailed, and imprisoned Americans, edited by renowned political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal and activist-scholar Jennifer Black.

“Filled with insight and energy, this extraordinary book gifts us the opportunity to encounter people’s understanding of the fight for freedom from the inside out.”—Ruth Wilson Gilmore, author of Golden Gulag and Abolition Geography

“Martin Luther King told us what he saw when he went to the mountaintop....But there’s also the foot of the mountain, and there are also the regions beneath the surface. I want to try to tell you a little something about those regions.”—Angela Y. Davis, author of Angela Davis: An Autobiography

Beneath the Mountain is a reader’s guide for understanding the evolution of anti-prison tenets. This essential core of primary texts provides an arc of insurgent writings by dissidents and revolutionaries who experienced incarceration and state terror first-hand. With contributions from John Brown, Frederick Douglass, and Crazy Horse, to Assata Shakur, Malcolm X, and Leonard Peltier, it also includes a previously unpublished communiqué from Angela Davis, written from jail at the time when she was forging the anti-prison critique that has since inspired a national movement.

Beneath the Mountain offers a record of the historic foundations for the contemporary abolition movement. What emerges from these texts is an emancipatory vision that inspires the work being done today, a vision centered on organizing and solidarity as an antidote to repression. An invaluable resource for readers on both sides of prison walls, this compendium of resistance and hard-won vision will be essential to all who seek to develop an abolitionist critique and to further an understanding of the nature of repression and liberation.