Mumia Abu-Jamal's Radio Essays
951 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 8 years ago - ★★★★★ - 96 ratingsMumia Abu-Jamal is an award-winning journalist who chronicles the human condition. He has been a resident of Pennsylvania's death row for twenty-five years. Writing from his solitary confinement cell his essays have reached a worldwide audience. His books "Live From Death Row", "Death Blossoms", "All Things Censored", "Faith of Our Fathers" and "We Want Freedom" have sold over 150,000 copies and been translated into nine languages. His 1982-murder trial and subsequent conviction have been the subject of great debate. Major issues in the trial have led to a worldwide campaign to gain Mumia a new trial and, ultimately, to gain his freedom.
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Episodes
Message to the 3rd World Congress to Abolish the Death Penalty
February 03, 2007 03:13 - 1 minute - 651 KBThis message was delivered at the Opening Session of the 3rd World Congress against the Death Penalty on February 1st. The Congress, held this year in Paris from February 1-3, 2007, gathers hundreds of abolitionists from all over the world: activists, elected officials, legal specialists and others. The Opening Session, an "Overview of the situation of the death penalty worldwide and its abolition," featured Mumia's message and presentations from Sidiki KAaba, President of the Internation...
How Black is Our History Month
February 02, 2007 07:11 - 4 minutes - 2.16 MBFor years, decades now, folks have celebrated Black History Month, with a plethora of events. There will be movies, book readings, poetry events, concerts and the like. Coming, as it does, on the heels of the nation's celebration of the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., much of what will be heard will no doubt echo that event. But Black History is far richer, and far deeper than King. Rev. Dr. King, who has been edited into a safe, sweet, nonviolent modern-day Christ-like figure and icon ...
Speech to Jan 27 Anti-War Marches in SF and Washington
January 26, 2007 18:59 - 2 minutes - 943 KB-undefined-
Special Message to Young People via Byard Lancaster
January 26, 2007 18:51 - 1 minute - 480 KB-undefined-
The Other Army
January 26, 2007 18:45 - 3 minutes - 1.48 MBWhile media pundits and politicians bum rush the mike about President George W. Bush's plans to "surge" U.S. troop forces in Iraq, little is being said about another army there. By this I refer not to the British, who, as the junior partners in this nefarious occupation, have contributed a significant number of troops to this operation, nor to the other so-called 'coalition of the willing', most of whom have only sent token numbers. I mean the private armies, known best by the term "contr...
Harold Wilson Organizing After Death Row
January 26, 2007 18:44 - 2 minutes - 973 KBHarold C. Wilson is still fighting -- even though he's been 'free' since November 2005. He's been off Death Row since his acquittal on *three* counts of murder by a Philadelphia jury on retrial. DNA evidence proved his innocence of the crimes, after 17 years on Death Row -- years that have left him almost broken in health, but not in mind. He's fighting these days to teach people what the death penalty really means -- not in theory, but in fact. He's been forced to work to build the Harol...
How the Forces of Capital Got us Where We Are (or "Global Warming II")
January 22, 2007 22:44 - 3 minutes - 1.77 MBQuite recently, I offered some thoughts on the startling warm winter weather we're having. While I talked about the probable impact of global warming (greenhouse gases), I didn't directly address the sources of much of it. Let's be clear. Much of it, perhaps most, is cars. Some folks may be thinking -- 'uh oh -- here he goes again with that back-to-nature, John Africa talk again. He actually wants us to give up our cars!' But how many of us know that in the good old days -- say, in the ...
The Planet's Death Row
January 21, 2007 22:30 - 4 minutes - 1.88 MBWhen I went into the yard several days ago, (OK--cage) I couldn't help but be shocked. It was still dark, as the sun hadn't yet risen, not quite 7 a.m. It was nearly 60 degrees. When I felt how warm it was, I was absolutely stunned. The grass was still green, and it felt like a moist, spring morning. I couldn't help but think of global warming -- the dumping of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which traps heat near the earth's surface, like a blanket on a bed. It has been c...
Hornblower Strike SF Docks
January 15, 2007 01:04 - 1 minute - 865 KBWaterfront union workers will mark Martin Luther King's birthday Sunday, January 14th, with a special demonstration starting at Hornblower headquarters, Pier 3, at 11am and marching to the Alcatraz ferry at Pier 33. The ten year "exclusive and lucrative Alcatraz ferry contract" was awarded Hornblower Cruises by the Bush Administration last fall and workers have been protesting ever since as Terry MacRae, Hornblower boss, "refuses to hire qualified, trained, professional Inland Boatmen's Uni...
Martin Luther King's Second Martyrdom
January 15, 2007 00:50 - 3 minutes - 1.64 MBSoon, every TV station and network, and many of the nation's radio stations, will air stock film footage (or tape) of Martin Luther King, Jr., his handsome dark face shining in a sea of dark faces, captured in his moment of triumph: the "I Have a Dream" speech in Washington. They will gladly air this 'safe' Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who spoke loftily and eloquently of dreams. Few will dare air his remarks made at Riverside Church in New York City, where an older, wiser Martin spoke,...
No Matter What : Bush Speech Jan 10th
January 13, 2007 01:09 - 2 minutes - 1.05 MBI did not wait with baited breath for the President's long-anticipated speech on a "new strategy" for Iraq. For I knew, with chilling certainty, that no matter the 'strategy', it would hardly be 'new.' I knew that more didn't mean new -- just more. And I knew that this president was incapable of little more, than more of the same. More troops -- more war -- more death -- more disaster. There may be a new phrase -- but after "Bring 'em on!", "We're winnin'!", or "War Against Terror", what ...
In Praise of Princes and Presidents -- Ford
January 05, 2007 17:57 - 3 minutes - 1.72 MBI have struggled to not write about the passing of U.S. President Gerald Ford. I sought to not do so for days. Yet, the imperial fashion adopted by most of the American press, which praised his administration almost unanimously as "his salvation of the republic," forced me to put pen to paper. Much of the reporting that we have seen has simply been dishonest, historically inaccurate, and a national amnesiac. What I found particularly perturbing was the virtually unanimous official opinion...
Saddam on the Gallows
December 31, 2006 22:02 - 2 minutes - 1.19 MBSaddam Hussein is gone. The President of Iraq, who fell out with his imperial paymasters in Washington, was hanged for his hubris, amidst taunts by hooded supporters of Muqtada Al-Sadr, head of the Shi'a Mahdi Army. His crime? Surely not the killing of his Shi'a opponents, nor his torture of Iraqis; for in the grim aftermath of these events, US envoys continued to skin and grin with him, shaking his hand (as did the then-Reagan Administration's Donald Rumsfeld), and sending him more tools ...
The Urge to Surge
December 24, 2006 22:18 - 1 minute - 885 KBWithin days the Bush regime is expected to announce its so-called "new strategy" in Iraq -- the most talked-about plan being a surge in U.S. forces in Iraq. By 'surge' is meant the significant increase in troop size in that beleaguered country, a plan meant to address the obvious failures in Iraq. In light of the rumored 'surge', one wonders, what does it take for the administration to listen to the voices of the People? In February and March, 2003, the U.S. and much of the world spoke, wi...
When War Crimes Ain't War Crimes
December 18, 2006 03:22 - 3 minutes - 1.63 MBIn the last few years, we've all seen nothing but mass violations of virtually every international human rights treaty. Torture, secret prisons, extraordinary rendition, violence against civilians, orders to ignore the Geneva Conventions .... The list goes on and on. How has the American government dealt with this state of affairs? It has virtually ignored it. There have been a handful of military prosecutions against relatively low level people, but there is a steel ceiling, above which ...
Other People's Congress
December 15, 2006 02:10 - 12 minutes - 5.85 MBIt actually may be too early to tell, but are you getting the vibe that Congress is going to betray you -- again? The Congress -- both the House and the Senate -- are seen as honest and trustworthy by an astonishingly low 14-and-16%, respectively, by most Americans according to a recent poll. The converse of this, of course, is that 84-86% of most Americans don't trust their Congress. A term like that just ended at least partially explains that gap; for Congress routinely sells its collect...
Interview with Mumia on 25 years as a political prisoner
December 06, 2006 19:51 - 14 minutes - 6.42 MB(Mumia interviewed by Fred Hampton Jr and Jr Valrey) December 9th marked the anniversary of Black Panther revolutionary journalist and death-row political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal's abduction from the community and his family for political reasons. He is one of thousands if not millions of Black people who are in this situation, either as a political prisoner or as a political victim of Amerikkka's war crimes on the Black community. Mumia sits on death-row for killing a police officer, altho...
No Safe Age re shooting of Shawn Bell
December 02, 2006 20:10 - 2 minutes - 1.07 MBIt'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" sho...
French Message For Press Conference
November 30, 2006 21:37 - 45 seconds - 358 KBNovember 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...
Some Who Feel no Reason for Thanksgiving
November 22, 2006 04:31 - 4 minutes - 2.09 MBTo 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'' t...
The Taming of the Democrats
November 20, 2006 04:24 - 4 minutes - 2.19 MBSince 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 n...
The Road From Oaxaca
November 11, 2006 02:59 - 4 minutes - 1.94 MBSeveral 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, marchi...
Thomas Merton Award honors Angela Y. Davis
November 10, 2006 23:29 - 4 minutes - 2.02 MBThomas 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
Saddam's Sentence
November 04, 2006 02:41 - 3 minutes - 1.7 MBWith 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...
Of Radicals and Extremists
October 18, 2006 22:42 - 4 minutes - 2.23 MBIf 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"; "Islamofas...
Wages of War - Civilian Casualties
October 18, 2006 22:37 - 3 minutes - 1.74 MBThe 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, blit...
Lynne Stewart and the Law 2
October 16, 2006 14:36 - 4 minutes - 1.88 MBONA 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 peopl...
Message to 1st Annual Central NY Locks Conference 2006
October 06, 2006 16:45 - 2 minutes - 1.23 MBFIRST ANNUAL CENTRAL NEW YORK LOCKS CONFERENCE Saturday, October 21, 2006 Tompkins County Public Library 101 East Green Street Ithaca, New York 11 AM - 4 PM FREE The First Annual Central New York Locks Conference will embrace the beauty of natural hair throughout the African diaspora, while also focusing on the history and contemporary impact of "dreadlocks" or locked hair. The theme of the this year's conference is the effect of mass incarceration on communities given that certai...
Message for 40th Anniversary of the Black Panther Party
October 01, 2006 16:48 - 3 minutes - 1.67 MB-undefined-
The War That Won't Stop
September 30, 2006 01:50 - 4 minutes - 2.03 MBTHE WAR THAT WON'T STOP [Col. Writ. 9/29/06] Copyright '06 Mumia Abu-Jamal There has been a blizzard of books released about the ill-fated Iraq War. Some have been penned by Bush insiders; others by outsiders. Such is the blizzard that the net result is often confusion, for each is written from the perspective of the writer, and to project or protect one side or the other. Well, here's another one for ya. Now comes Greg Palast, the irascible author of The Best Democracy Money Can Buy (2...
With Allies Like These
September 27, 2006 20:43 - 3 minutes - 1.74 MBThe recent U.S. and New York performance of Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, has led to conniption fits by the chattering classes, sending some right-wing stations into overdrive. I am always amused at times like these, for, because I have some limited knowledge of U.S.-Latin American history, I sense where Chavez is coming from, and can honestly say, if I were looking at the world from a Latin American perspective, I'd feel pretty damn strongly that norte americanos behaved toward their ...
Why There is No Iran War on the Horizon
September 18, 2006 20:17 - 3 minutes - 1.76 MBIf we listen to the speech of Bush administration officials, or of vocal senators, it seems unavoidable that the Bush regime will unleash yet another military disaster against the Imamate in power in Tehran. Readers of our work in the past certainly have read my earlier commentaries which suggested such an attack was all but imminent. I am now of another opinion. Iraq has so shattered the U.S. military capability, and so undermined its credibility in the Middle East, that it seems unlikel...
9/8/06 Mumia's Message to the Power to the Peaceful Festival
September 10, 2006 15:14 - 2 minutes - 1.31 MBThe Power to the Peaceful Festival began humbly in 1999 as an international day of art and culture in support of political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal. The name and date “911? were chosen to call attention to the emergency status of Mumia’s impending execution and drew roughly 6,000 people to the Mission’s Dolores Park. In 2000, PTTP expanded; showing support for all prisoners on death row, and speaking out against the exponential growth of the prison industrial complex. When the attacks of Se...