Mumia Abu-jamal's Radio Essays

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It's boy's night out, and a group of brothers are having a bachelor's party at a neighborhood club. One of them is particularly thrilled, because his marriage to the woman he loves is just hours away. But he will never marry, because a pack of wild, undercover cops will execute him, and unleash a deadly rain of 50 bullets on he and his friends. The crime? Cruising While Black ... Sean Bell, unarmed, was 23. And the corporate media merely explains it may've been a case of "contagious" shooting -- one cop fires, two cops fire, three cops ... get the picture? It's a kind of social illness, like alcoholism. But neither Sean Bell, Trent Benefield, nor Joseph Guzman were armed. According to some reports, one of them *said* he was armed. Like the madmen who launched a preemptive war on the unsubstantiated suspicion of weapons of mass destruction, undercover cops launched an urban preemptive war on unarmed young Black men, reportedly based on unsubstantiated suspicions. *50 shots*. Death, and s

November 30, 2006 Sisters and Brothers, The right wing forces of Philadelphia and wherever else were not able to pull off their attempt to intimidate the French with threats of a legal suit, with offers of life in prison without parole (which they had no power to enforce), and after being prepared for in France, both in Saint-Denis and in Paris, with Pam Africa and Ramona Africa right there, with a series of meetings with the mayors, with demonstrations, and a press conference -- backed off completely and never even showed up! All Power to the People! The international solidarity movement for Mumia just won a great victory in forcing the enemy to back down. See the message below from Saint-Denis. Also, check out Mumia's perfectly pronounced French message to the press conference tomorrow in Paris on www.prisonradio.org, under messages. [Or here it, and all of Mumia's commentaries, on his podcast. Go to http://mumiapodcast.libsyn.com/ for more info] -Suzanne Ross, Co-Chair of the Free Mumia

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To this day, I can hardly bear to think of that quintessentially American holiday -- Thanksgiving. When I do, however, I do not dwell on pilgrims with wide black hats sitting to sup with red men, their long hair adorned with eagle feathers. I think not of turkeys, nor of cranberry, foods now traditional for the day of feast. Unlike millions, I don't even think of the day's football game; and not thinking of it, I don't watch it. I think of the people we have habitually called 'Indians'' the indigenous people of the Americas. Those millions who are no more. I think of those precious few who remain, and wonder, what do they think of this day; this national myth of sweet brotherhood, that masks what can only be called genocide? Several years ago, I read a thin text that was pregnant with poignancy. It was a collection of Native remarks from the first tribes who encountered whites in New England, and down through several hundred years. Throughout it all, the same vibration could be felt, no matt

Since the recent Democratic wins in the U.S. House and Senate, there has been a concerted effort from the corporate media to evoke from them pre-installation promises of moderation, and a mass denial that there are any plans to impeach a widely unpopular President, George W. Bush. There has been equally aggressive attention paid to House Speaker-elect, Nancy Pelosi (Dem. - Ca.), who makes history as the first American woman to reach what is essentially the third most powerful office in the nation. With few exceptions, most outspoken legislators have pooh-poohed the idea of impeaching the President, even before there have been hearings into the events that led to the ruinous disaster in Iraq. Columnists lecture, "It would be too divisive." Others decry such talks as 'radical.' What is more radical than war? Why are the same voices and institutions that led the cheerleading squad to war now setting the parameters of acceptable political debate and activity? Perhaps the most influential newspa

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Several weeks ago, a long, dusty trail of thousands winded their way from the southern city of Oaxaca, to the capital of Mexico City, some 800 kilometers (or over 250 miles) to support democracy, and demand the removal of the governor, who got there through a stolen, and deeply corrupt election. The marchers, a motley crew of teachers, students, farmers, vendors, and the like, made their tortuous way over mountain and valleys, through slashing rains, blistering heat, and numbing cold, marching for 19 days, to take their complaints to the seat of government. The group, calling itself the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (or APPO, the Spanish acronym for Asemblea Popular del Pueblo de Oaxaca), has rocked Mexico with its strong, principled insistence that elections be truly fair and free of corruption, and that the will of the People be heard. I've actually been reading about the events in Oaxaca for several weeks, and every time I read about them, I thought of Americans, who quietly accepted t

Thomas Merton Award 2006 honors Angela Y. Davis! November 10, 6pm at Sheraton Station Square Student, teacher, writer, scholar, and activist/organizer, Davis is an advocate of prison abolition and has developed a powerful critique of racism in the criminal justice system. She has received the distinguished honor of an appointment to the University of California Presidential Chair in African American and Feminist Studies. In this podcast, Mumia introduces Angela Y. Davis at the Awards Dinner

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With excitement and barely suppressed glee, the media announced the death sentence returned against Iraqi strongman, Saddam Hussein, for crimes against humanity during the 1982 Dujail massacre. In the face of the deadly horror that is Iraq, Hussein has become little more than a bad, but distant memory. Indeed, in both print and audio interviews I've read and heard in the last few weeks, Iraqis looked to life under the Hussein regime as the good old days. That is a measure, not of how 'good' the old days were, but of how anguished is the present. While Shi'as groaned under the repression of the secret police, and the Kurds lived in terror of the central government, the day-to-day life of Iraqis was one that was among the most envied of the Arab world. Its populace was among the most educated, certainly one of the highest among women in that region. With the very serious exception of the omnipresent threat of government security forces, Iraqis lived lives of relative safety and security. Today,

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If the minions of the neocon right are to be believed, the struggle in Iraq, (and by extension, the Middle East) is essentially a war against what they call "extremism." Even the verbally challenged President George W. Bush has argued, quite strenuously, against "Islamic extremists." It seems like many in the right are trying out new terms every week, to stoke the fires of fear about new and foreboding threats to the besieged American republic: "extremists"; "Islamic extremists"; "Islamofascists"; "dead-enders", et al. For politicians words are weapons, which are used to sell images, such like Madison Ave. sells soap. Every so often, even the best product must be made "new" or "improved!" And why shouldn't they? Hasn't it worked before? We now sneer at the phrase 'weapons of mass destruction', but several years ago it rang in the head like a klaxon. Is it radical or extremist to fight against foreigners who invade your country, and try to impose strangers who function as puppets for these

The numbers recently announced from a John Hopkins University study could not be more stunning: since the March 2003 start of the Iraq War, some 600,000 Iraqi civilians have died. 600,000! The number, drawn from a random sampling of Iraqis, drew almost immediate condemnation from the military-news media establishment. Even George Rex III, sniffed at a recent press conference, "That study is flawed." This from the guy who, when asked several months ago, how many Iraqi civilians died, blithely replied, "I dunno -- around 30,000." The John Hopkins study, published in a recent edition of The Lancet, the journal of the British Medical Association, did not claim that 600,000 Iraqis were slain by so-called ''coalition forces." The number reflected deaths from all causes, including illnesses, and accidents. But what Dr. Gilbert Burnham did say could hardly be called reassuring. Burnham, the study's lead author, and professor of international health at John Hopkins, said that the coalition directly c

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ONA MOVE! I greet you all, those gathered here in support of the work and liberty of Attorney Lynne Stewart, on the eve of her sentencing in federal court. It is my pleasure to join y'all, if only in this limited way. I also want to be clear that the sentiments expressed here are my own, and are not those of Lynne. I speak only to support her, and wish her a very favorable outcome in the days ahead. Lynne Stewart is, simply speaking, a legend in the realm of law, for her defense of people engaged in struggles against the powerful. That said, I think it's safe to say that although she has defended Black nationalists, Lynne Stewart is not a Black nationalist. She has defended Puerto Rican nationalists, though I bet she isn't a Puerto Rican nationalist. And though she has defended Omar Abdel-Rahman (known as the blind Sheikh), who was convicted of involvement in the first terrorist strike at the World Trade Center, we can all agree she's no terrorist. It is only in the maddening age, in the sh