Mumia Abu-Jamal (1954 - )

Sat Apr 24, 1954

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Mumia Abu-Jamal, born on this day in 1954, is a radical political activist and prison journalist who was targeted by COINTELPRO and sentenced to death in a widely condemned 1982 trial. His work can be found on Prison Radio.

Mumia’s trial generated a storm of international protest - Amnesty International issued a statement in 2000, saying “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”.

Prior to his conviction, Mumia was deeply involved with the Black Panther Party and illegally surveilled by the FBI as part of the COINTELPRO program. In the 1970s, he provided sympathetic coverage to the anarchist MOVE organization in Philadelphia, later joining the organization.

Following his conviction, while on death row, Abu-Jamal became noteworthy for his writings and critical commentary on the criminal justice system in the United States. After numerous appeals, his death penalty was overturned by a federal court, reduced to a sentence of life imprisonment without parole. As of 2021, Abu-Jamal has served 37 years in prison.

“Elie Wiesel says that the greatest evil in the world is not anger or hatred, but indifference. If that is true, then the opposite is also true: that the greatest love we can show our children is the attention we pay them, the time we take for them. Maybe we serve children the best simply by noticing them.”

- Mumia Abu-Jamal