Death row inmate talks race, U.S. prisons

Mumia Abu-Jamal, an inmate on Pennsylvania’s death row, spoke on the phone with African-American studies and religion professor Cornel West GS '80 and sociology professor Patricia Fernandez-Kelly.

During the event, “Live from Death Row,” Abu-Jamal discussed the power of forgiveness, spoke about love and God, and read an excerpt from his latest book, “Jailhouse Lawyers.” Reading from the book, his sixth, Abu-Jamal described how prisoners come to realize the role racism plays in the justice system.

“Well, they may not be crazy when they get here, but after a few months of reading that shit, they go down to City Hall, and when they see that them folks down there in City Hall, in the System, don’t really go by that so-called law, well! — it plumb drives them dudes crazy!” he read.

Abu-Jamal’s own case began on Dec. 19, 1981, when he was working as a taxi driver in downtown Philadelphia. When a police officer pulled over Abu-Jamal’s brother, Abu-Jamal allegedly shot and killed the police officer and was also wounded himself.

He was convicted and sentenced to death in 1982, and has spent the last 28 years on death row at SCI Greene maximum security prison in Waynesburg, Pa. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied his appeal in 1989, and the U.S. Supreme Court denied his petition for a rehearing in 1991. Abu-Jamal’s lawyers are now seeking a civil rights investigation into Abu-Jamal’s trial from the Justice Department.

Abu-Jamal and West’s friendship was formed before Abu-Jamal’s conviction, when the two met as members of the Black Panthers.

The phone conversation, which was limited to 15 minutes by prison security regulations, ended with a few concluding remarks from Abu-Jamal. “I feel surrounded by love ... Thank you all. I love you all. And love is the most powerful thing in the world.”

After Abu-Jamal hung up, West and Fernandez-Kelly discussed racial bias within the prison system.

“The risk of imprisonment is not evenly distributed among the population,” Fernandez-Kelly said, noting that young black and Latino males are the most likely groups to go to jail. West said that, of incarcerated individuals, low-income women are the fastest-growing demographic.

“The prison-industrial complex has become an integral part of our society,” West added. He argued that public indifference to the large number of incarcerated African-Americans and Latinos has led their numbers to swell, citing this pattern as the main form of discrimination in the American prison system.

“Race has been the great drama of this country, and it has skewed and made it impossible for those central ideals of democratic justice to operate,” Fernandez-Kelly said, adding that “it is the American public that tolerates this situation.”

But West said that “keeping the pressure on the politicians and the courts makes a difference.” Protests organized by the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, he explained, have “saved his life twice” by delaying Abu-Jamal’s execution. The chairwoman of the group, Pam Africa, was also present at the talk.

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Over 25 cities have named Abu-Jamal as an honorary citizen, attempting to draw attention to his situation, and France has even named a street in Paris after him.

Johanna Fernandez, a professor at Baruch College who also spoke at the event, called the prison system “the face of racism today.”

“Mumia is an innocent man on death row ... because of what he stands for,” she said.