……this wonderful series. A funny, girl-centered, cultural and universal, view of 1970s Ivory Coast. Kudos to the author! (You can also get the collected edition.) Anxiously awaiting Vol. 4…..

Abu-Jamal moved into general prison

population for first time

by Frank Kummer
Philly.com Staff

Mumia Abu-Jamal has been moved into the general prison population for the first time since going on death row for the killing of Officer Daniel Faulkner.

Susan McNaughton, a spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, said Abu-Jamal was moved yesterday from the restricted housing unit at the SCI Mahanoy facility in Frackville, Schuylkill County.

In the restricted housing unit, Abu-Jamal had largely been in solitary confinement for up to 23 hours a day.

Abu-Jamal was convicted of the 1981 shooting death of Faulkner. His transfer into the general prison population comes after his original death sentence was overturned on appeal to the federal courts last year.

The federal appeals court ruled that the trial judge’s instructions to the jury were unfairly weighted toward execution.

That ruling in Philadelphia was affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in October.

As a result, Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams said in December that he would not re-seek a new death penalty hearing, and instead agreed to a life term.

Abu-Jamal had been on death row at SCI Greene, in Waynesburg until he was transferred to SCI Mahony, a medium-security institution, shortly after Williams’ decision.

Judith L. Ritter, a law professor and director of the Criminal Defense Clinic at Widener University, and who represented Abu-Jamal in recent appeals, said yesterday in a statement:

“This is a very important moment for him, his family and all of his supporters. We are all grateful for the roles played by so many in getting him off death row after so very long.”

Abu-Jamal supporters, through various websites and social networks, applauded his move into the general population, but still maintain he is innocent.

However, Faulkner’s widow, Maureen, and many others, steadfastly maintain that Abu-Jamal was her husband’s killer. She has denounced Abu-Jamal for “operating a cottage industry in prison.”

Posted: Sat, Jan. 28, 2012, 12:45 PM

UPDATE:

To: Litestar01@aol.com , nattyreb@gmail.com , pamafrica@gmail.com  Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2012 09:11:39 -0500

Subject: [Spam:8] Mumia’s Message to supporters Status: Normal

CC:  From: Litestar01@aol.com 

Reply-to: Litestar01@aol.com 

 Saturday, July 28, 7:30 PM

Message from Wadiya A Jamal, wife of Mumia Abu-Jamal [:]

I just received a call from my beloved husband who is now out of Administrative Custody and in general population at SCI Mahanoy. He is relieved after being in these solitary torture chambers for over 30 years. He can’t wait to face and embrace me, his wife, and his children and grandchildren. The next moment is for him to be released from the belly of the beast. He is surprised at how many men are in these prison cells–black, white, hispanic.   He said he’s been shown a lot of love, from the others in population. We need to bring Mumia, and all the other men, home!

Mumia said he wanted to see me as soon as possible, to come up tomorrow, Sunday, a visiting day. But the prison won’t let me visit until Monday.

Wadiya A Jamal, with BIG pride.

****************

Mumia’s Message to Supporters in call from General Population, SCI Mahanoy to his wife, Wadiya Jamal:

My dear friends, brothers and sisters — I want to thank you for your real hard work and support. I am no longer on death row, no longer in the hole, I’m in population. This is only part one and I thank you all for the work you’ve done. But the struggle is for freedom!

From Mumia and Wadiya, Ona Move. Long Live John Africa! =

*****************

JANUARY 31st UPDATE:

To:       Litestar01@aol.com , nattyreb@gmail.com , pamafrica@gmail.com     
Date:    Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:41:43 -0500
Subject:     [Spam:6]!! Mumia Has First Contact Visit With His Wife!! 
Status: Normal
CC:          
From:   Litestar01@aol.com
Reply-to:  Litestar01@aol.com

ONA MOVE, LONG LIVE JOHN AFRICA!!!  Mumia had his first contact visit in general population, yesterday Monday 1/30, with his wife, Wadiya.  The next step is to bring him home but we should celebrate the victories and use these victories to motivate us to keep working, keep pushing and NEVER GIVE IN.  We have done a great job—-LONG LIVE REVOLUTION—–Ramona

Dear White America: Letter To A New Minority.
City Lights Books.
190 pp. $14.95.

The South Carolina crowd jumped up, giving Newt Gingrich a standing ovation for beating down Juan Williams. On radio, it sounded like just a reporter being assertive, and an interview subject giving strong pushback in front of an audience. But in tone and in content, everyone knows it was more than that.

Tim Wise has been writing about issues like the above for at least a decade. He has made a career learning about what people of color know and understand about white supremacy, and sharing what he has learned to other whites.  (Since I’ve read James Baldwin”s “Stranger In The Village” and “The Fire Next Time,” I’ve never read—or, frankly, felt the need to read—any of Wise’s books.) In his latest, he cuts to the core of white fears, using his white authority and white privilege to tell other whites that yes, it’s time for you to deal with yourselves and the new American reality you now inhabit. It explains why white conservatives need the 1950s (because the 1960s changed everything), why the “public good” and “Big Government” are no longer good (because they now serve people of color, so working-class whites now feel like losers in the Great Recession) and why whites are so angry about multiculturalism (because the president and the dominant popular culture is Black, which means that, for the first time in America, whiteness to white eyes is now a color instead of being universal).

If you know some ignorant white folks who want to know why the Republicans are tripping over each other trying to be reactionary, this is the book to give them. Blacks, Latinos, Asians and Native Americans got this particular memo 160 years ago when Frederick Douglass broke down The Fourth of July.

Dumping below some stuff I turned in to BAR as possible sidebars to this article.

George Jackson

( © Copyright 1971 Bob Dylan)

I woke up this morning
There were tears in my bed
They killed a man I really loved
Shot him through the head

Lord, Lord, they cut George Jackson down
Lord, Lord, they laid him in the ground

Sent him off to prison
For a seventy dollar robbery
Closed the door behind him
And they threw away the key

Lord, Lord, they cut George Jackson down
Lord, Lord, they laid him in the ground
[ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsfreak.com/b/bob+dylan/george+jackson_20207841.html ]
He wouldn’t take shit from no one
He wouldn’t bow down or kneel
Authorities, they hated him
Because he was just too real

Lord, Lord, they cut George Jackson down
Lord, Lord, they laid him in the ground

Prison guards, they cursed him
As they watched him from above
But they were frightened of his power
They were scared of his love

Lord, Lord, so they cut George Jackson down
Lord, Lord, they laid him in the ground

Sometimes I think this whole world
Is one big prison yard
Some of us are prisoners
The rest of us are guards

Lord, Lord, they cut George Jackson down
Lord, Lord, they laid him in the ground

*******************************************

Mumia Abu-Jamal’s NEW Address:

Mumia Abu-Jamal

AM 8335

SCI Mahanoy

301 Morea Road

Frackville, PA 17932

Victory! (I think.)

As a so-called “professional content producer” and/or “artist,” I do understand how complex this could get.)

And here’s an important related story.

Rats!

Nothing more to be said.

Occupying Mumia’s Cell

(Copyright © 2011 by Alice Walker)

I Sing of Mumia
brilliant and strong
and of the captivity
that
few black men escape
if they are as free
as he has become.
 
What a teacher he is for all of us.
 
Nearly thirty years in solitary
and still,
Himself.
 
He will die himself.
A black man;
whom many consider to be
a Muslim, though this is not
how he narrows down
the  criss-crossing paths of
his soul’s journey.
Perhaps it is simpler
to call him
a lover of truth
who refuses
to be silenced.
Is anything more persecuted
in this land?
 
No boots will be allowed
of course
so he will not
die with them on;
but there will always be
boots
of the mind and spirit
and of the heart and soul.
 
His will be black and shining
(or maybe the color of rainbows)
and they will sprout wings.
 
Mumia
they have decided
finally
not to kill you
hoping no blood will
stain their hands
at the tribunal
of the people;
but to let you continue
to die slowly
creating and singing
your own songs
as you pace
alone,  sometimes terrorized,
for decades of long nights
in your small cage
of a cell.
 
We lament our impotence: that we have failed
to get you out of there.
 
Your regal mane may have thinned
as our locks too, those flags of  our self sovereignty, may even have
disappeared;
waiting out this unjust sentence,
until we, like you, have become old.
Still,
if you will: accept our gratitude
that you stand, even bootless,
on your feet.  We see
that few of those around us,
well shod and walking, even owning, the streets
are freed.
 
Somehow you have been.
 
Enough to remind us
of freedom’s devout
internal and
ineradicable seed.
 
What a magnificent Lion
you have been all these
disastrous years
and still are,
indeed.

It looks….as GREAT as the trilogy! Okay, one year away…..!

My department colleague, Dr. Baruti Kopano (starts at about 40:00; you MUST hear his pledge at 1:51:50!), was part of this recent event. Check it out!