The Deathrow Notebooks | Mumia Abu-Jamal Documentary

Mumia Abu-Jamal: This is PBS. My name is Mumia Abu-Jamal. I'm on death row in Pennsylvania. I'm ex-president of the Association of Black Journalists of Philadelphia. I'm still a continuing revolutionary journalist, and I write for anybody who wants me to write for them. And I'm fighting my conviction, fighting the sentence, fighting for my life. Yes, I am a political prisoner. From death row, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal. As a youth in the '60s, I was impressed by the Black Power movement that was sweeping Black America and the Black world, in Africa and the Caribbean. This was 1968, and it was the presidential nomination of George Corley Wallace III. I think that's his name. But he was running for president on the American Independent Party. In retrospect, it's kind of crazy to think that we would go down to a demonstration in South Philadelphia, which is like predominantly white, and protest against George Wallace coming to Philadelphia. But at that time, you know, we believed that it was our city, as well. So we did it. And every one of us got our asses kicked by plainclothes policemen.

Speaker 2: Oh, shit.

Mumia Abu-Jamal: You've probably heard the tale, I'll beat you so bad your own mama won't know you. It has a particular relevance to me, because as I was laying in the hospital, charged with assault and aggravated assault and beating of a police officer, my own mother walked by me, looked me dead in the eyes and kept walking, because she couldn't recognize me. I was beaten unrecognizable. I was in my mid-teens at that time.

Speaker 2: Down with Bizzo! Down with Bizzo! Oh, yeah! Now we're free! Oh! Careful, pal! Oh! Careful, pal!

Mumia Abu-Jamal: From that period and from those experiences, from me having to go through the hell of that and seeing the complete lack of power of people to resist that, I was attracted to the Black Panther Party, you know. So, because there was not a functioning, active Black Panther Party at that time, we founded one and built one in Philadelphia, you know. I was the lieutenant of information.

Speaker 3: We had many an opportunity to kill them, but my police don't kill people in cold, bold blood. Let him go!

Speaker 2: Let him go! Let him go! Let him go! Let him go! Let him go! Let him go! Let him go! Let him go!

Mumia Abu-Jamal: The COINTELPRO program was a terroristic program. Its function was to terrorize radicals, revolutionaries, Opponents of government programs, and to stigmatize and isolate them from the general population. My career as a journalist began with the Black Panther newspaper. There is where I learned how to write. In fact, I got into broadcasting because I enjoyed writing so well. It is the media that gives people the reflection and the perception of changes and political moods changing. What you have now, more than any other time in America's history, is more corporate, multinational control of media. So when the media gives a certain slant and a certain perspective that is always pro-government, you know, the government is right, they don't do anything wrong, or it's, you know, the only time they really get investigative is if dealing with someone else's sexual foibles, instead of a real Basic economic, social, political breakdown on what's happening in America, then you can easily slander.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Mumia Abu-Jamal: You see what I'm saying? MOVE is a family of revolutionaries committed to resisting this system. As a reporter covering them, I became exposed to them, as opposed to reading about them, and found out that what I read about them had no relationship to the kind of people they were and what they were about, that every published report was tinged with prejudice.

Speaker 2: Say it loud! Every time a MOVE member leaves headquarters, he's followed by these persecutory cops. What we're saying is, we want an end to this persecution. We want an end to this hypocrisy of calling this the land of the free, home of the brave. You got a weapon?

Speaker 4: No, sir.

Speaker 2: He had one, man. This guy's got ammo up his ass.

Mumia Abu-Jamal: I might have to medevac this guy.

Speaker 2: If we get him patched up, we might get plenty of guys in trouble.

Mumia Abu-Jamal: At that time, in late 1981, what you had was you just had 9 members of the MOVE organization being sentenced to 30 to 100 years for a crime that everybody knew they did not commit. 9 people cannot kill 1 man. It's impossible for me to say what my feelings were at that time. Sitting in a courtroom, seeing that kind of naked injustice, it rankled me to the core. You know, I said a minute ago I was seduced into the MOVE organization by the loveliness and goodness of its people and its members. I was probably enraged, as well. It's sitting in a trial in an official capacity, objective as a journalist, and seeing that the law really didn't matter, that it didn't matter whether a man was innocent or guilty. It didn't matter what the law says your rights were.

Speaker 3: The press is responsible for what's happening in this city. A new breed of journalism that doesn't want public trials.

Speaker 4: Jamal, a local newspaper and radio reporter. He is under guard in Jefferson Hospital with a bullet wound of the chest. Detectives say Jamal appeared, apparently from across the street, and gunfire erupted. The backup officers found Faulkner lying fatally wounded.

Mumia Abu-Jamal: I was charged with homicide of a police officer in Philadelphia. I read a quote by Thomas Jefferson. He says, I have no right which another can take away from me. But when I was on trial and I exercised purely constitutional right to defend myself, and it was denied, It went through me like a thunderbolt. The prosecutor introduced an article from the Philadelphia Inquirer, which was an interview with me when I was a young teen, when I was lieutenant of information of the Black Panther Party. If the jury were not predominantly white, middle class, older, in their 50s.

Speaker 3: About the table?

Mumia Abu-Jamal: Black Panther would not have had the kind of impact, a negative impact, if they were young people, Blacks, Puerto Ricans, who had knowledge of the current and contemporary history of Philadelphia. The word Black Panther means different things to different people, depending on their perspective. And the prosecutor knew that exceedingly well.

Speaker 2: Thank you very much.

Mumia Abu-Jamal: I was convicted of murder in the first degree and sentenced to death.

Speaker 3: Independence weekend celebration at JFK Stadium. But first, the big story in Action News is the sentence of death for convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Mumia Abu-Jamal: Every prosecution is a public and symbolic act, a political act by the state to show the populace the illusion of control. When you look at the prisons anywhere in America, you're looking at a burgeoning population, busting out of walls, you know, just growing, growing, growing. People are being put 2 to a cell and doing life sentences. You know what I mean? The Census Bureau said something like 31 million people were in poverty. They can't eat. They can't have shelter. They can't have clothing. And you have an infusion of drugs from Central America, which provides an economic incentive. You have a lot of these people coming into these prisons. You know, they find this is an empty hole. You know, there's nothing, nothing corrective being done to people in these jails. Huntington as an institution reflects Huntington, the valley— rural, maybe 98% white. The rural area is like an appendage. The prison is a great economic resource for this area. People on staff here come here at a young age and retire from here. And their sons come here, and their grandsons come here. There are generations of people working here from the same background. The only blacks they may see, other than Bill Cosby on TV or Blacks in handcuffs, you know. So it tends to give one a kind of skewed perception of who Black people are, you know. So it's a perfect breeding ground for racism. When you talk about symbols, The death penalty comes readily to mind. Historically, and according to statistics published by the same government, right, the death penalty was found to be of the greatest utility for controlling blacks.

Speaker 2: Right.

Mumia Abu-Jamal: Here in Pennsylvania, blacks are about 9% of the national population. Here in Pennsylvania's death row, We approach 53% on death row.

Speaker 3: That's crazy.

Mumia Abu-Jamal: Nationally, the population of blacks in prison, period, are something like 47%, when we're 13% of this nation's population. Clearly, just looking at the numbers, looking at the amount of blacks in prison, on death row, You must address the racist nature of the criminal justice system.

Speaker 2: I'm sorry.