Mumia Abu-Jamal

Bio and Case History

Mumia Abu-Jamal is one of the country’s longest held political prisoners, held now for 43 years. He is one of our most brilliant journalists. In 1981, he was shot, nearly killed, convicted of murdering a Philadelphia police officer, and sentenced to death, partly based on his writings as a teenaged member of the Black Panther party. Mumia has always insisted on his innocence. His conviction came in a trial that Amnesty International showed extensive evidence of prosecutorial, judicial, and police misconduct, and effectively stripped him of any meaningful legal representation in violation of international legal standards. He’s now serving life without parole after his death sentence was ruled unconstitutional.

In the late 1970s, he worked as a reporter for several Pennsylvania radio stations, including WUHY, now called WHYY, which was the NPR flagship station. And he filed nationally for NPR’s All Things Considered and the Morning Report, and won numerous journalism awards. In 1981, he was elected president of the Association of Black Journalists in Philadelphia. For 30 years from his prison cell, Mumia has produced radio and print commentaries on media, criminal justice, and a wide range of global and national issues. He’s written or edited 15 books while behind bars, the most recent of which is the co-edited anthology, “Beneath the Mountain, an anti-prison reader.”

He’s now finishing his Ph.D. at the University of California – Santa Cruz, about the renowned theoretician and advocate of anti-colonial revolution Martinique, Dr. Franz Fanon. Especially relevant to this workshop is that, in 1994, NPR signed a contract with him for monthly commentaries on criminal justice, not including his own case.

When right-wing Congress members found out and threatened NPRs funding, they caved immediately and canceled his contract. But WBAI and other Pacifica stations picked up the slack and have continually broadcast his commentaries produced by the platform for voices of incarcerated people known as Prison Radio or PrisonRadio.org, which is co-led by the dedicated Noelle Hanrahan, who was also on Mumia’s legal team.

Later in the 1990s, the Pennsylvania legislature passed a law clearly aimed at Mumia, but applying to all incarcerated people that’s still in the books today, barring journalists from bringing recording equipment into prison visits. That’s how powerful Mumia’s voice is. You can find more about his life and links to his writings at prisonradio.org.

It’s important to say that it’s largely the corporate media with their constant pro-police reporting on his case and many others and putting forward lies that has built the public support to keep Mumia locked up. So much so that even liberal prosecutor Larry Krasner, who has ended the wrongful incarceration of other people in Pennsylvania (because of their situation in Philadelphia where he’s the D.A.) but has continued to fight any efforts to reopen Mumia’s case in court.

For more information on the campaign that’s now seeking proper healthcare and nutrition often denied to him and many others, for this 71-year-old man who has had open-heart surgery in 2021, and to contact Governor Josh Shapiro to support executive clemency from Mumia and all elderly Pennsylvania prisoners, visit https://www.prisonradio.org/.