Placing Mumia Abu-Jamal Into a Wider Context of Race, Racism and Resistance, Critically Account for His Contributions to Struggles Against Racism.

Placing Mumia Abu-Jamal into a wider context of race, racism and resistance, critically account for his contributions to struggles against racism.

The election of a Black president is a hallmark in American history, but however it does not exonerate the jails of the country holding thousands of prisoners for decades awaiting their trial or their death. There is an extremely long way to go before those who are detained in jails can claim freedom. Mumia Abu-Jamal is one such prisoner who has been locked up on death row since 1982, and is continuing to fight for his justice and others who are suffering the same unjust imprisonment. Mumia’s case has become one of immense controversy, dividing people who believe that he is guilty and those who claim that his trial was not fair.

Mumia Abu-Jamal’s cultural production generates and reproduces much attention. It matters for studies of prison, media and culture. It twists and remakes time, space and code through unique vocal, textual and digital technique. Most importantly, it incorporates Abu-Jamal himself through mediated communication.

Mumia Abu-Jamal is an award-winning journalist who chronicles the human condition. He has been a resident of Pennsylvania’s Death Row for twenty-nine years, his 1982 murder trial and subsequent conviction have been the subject of much debate.

Abu-Jamal started to suffer the effects of racism from quite a young age, in his own writings he describes his adolescent experience of being “kicked…into the Black Panther Party” after suffering a beating from “white racists” and a policeman for attempting to disrupt a George Wallace for President rally in 1968 (Abu-Jamal 1996:151). The following year at the age of 15, he helped in forming the Philadelphia branch of the Black Panther Party (Burroughs 2004), taking the position of (in his own words) as the chapter’s “Lieutenant of Information”, exercising a responsibility for authorizing information and news communications. He was a party member...