Prison Radio
Mumia Abu-Jamal

Kalonji Changa
First of all, we happy to hear you on deck. How’s everything going out there?

Mumia Abu-Jamal
Haha, as well as can be expected. I mean, you know, it’s like, “How are you in what department of hell? Is it as hot as it is everywhere?” Prison is hell, but other than that, we’re still struggling, and I’m doing pretty well for occasion.

Kalonji Changa
You the coolest geezer we know. We’re here live on Black Power Media. We have Mark Taylor, Julia Wright, Dr. Jared Ball, and of course Johanna, and this is Kalonji, and we’re absolutely happy to have you on with us today. We were talking about the archives over at Brown, and we wanted to know- how do you feel about it?

Mumia Abu-Jamal
It was a surprise, and once I heard about it, I was like, cool with it. They expressed their desire for that. I didn’t like, crack on them. And point of fact, Johanna, who was an undergraduate at Brown, as the story goes, was very active in her undergraduate years, protesting against the university, and she wanted more inclusion with black and Latino students and other issues, and they contacted her and said they wanted her papers from the protests there. She was flying to them and turn them over, and then she said, “I have something you might be interested in.” And when she explained that she had over 40 boxes of my property, I’m told that the person she was talking almost fell off of her chair, and she was like, “What?” She explained what it was. She said, “We’re interested.” So the rest is history, so to speak. It is what it is.

I am told that this is the beginning of their mass incarceration collection. Given the brinks and stage of mass incarceration at the beginning of the middle of the 21st century, that should be one hell of a collection. There are millions in prisons in America, more than anywhere else in the country, so there’s a lot of room and a lot of data to be archived, and I’m glad to be a part of the process.

Kalonji Changa
Right on. Alright, well, we’re glad to have you on deck. We have a few other hosts. I don’t know if they want to ask you anything or say anything. I think everyone’s all happy and astonished and grateful to hear your voice this morning.

Mumia Abu-Jamal
I like surprising people sometimes. Some people were surprised by the story.

Johanna Fernandez
Well, I’m reading all of these messages that you’re getting from the audience.

Kalonji Changa
Yeah, this is Dr. Johanna, said she’s reading all the messages that you’re getting from the audience, and she’s happy to hear. She’s just getting the echo, I believe, but yeah. Right on. Right on. Right on. Anyone else, any the comments?

Mark Taylor
Yeah, I just want to emphasize: from the chat room, we get these chat lines that come across the bottom of our screen.

Mumia Abu-Jamal
I want to greet Julia Wright who’s been with me for longer than we both want to admit, but I have not heard her voice or seen her joyous face in too long. We’re old friends and come from old good families. I greet her. Mark, I usually contact and communicate with him at least weekly. I think we’ve grown grayer in this movement.

Thank you for your questions, comments, and contributions.

Kalonji Changa
Right on. We love you brother. What can we do for you to assist in your plight at this moment?

Mumia Abu-Jamal
What you can do for me, every, especially in prison, but even not in prison, black writer wants: read my stuff. It’s written for readers. It ain’t written for me. I had fun writing it, and I just hope people have fun reading it.

Kalonji Changa
Oh yeah. Definitely. Absolutely. We gon’ definitely post more your material on our platform and make sure that, as far as the book club, you the next up. How about that?

Mumia Abu-Jamal
That sounds like a plan. Thank you.

Kalonji Changa
Right on. We appreciate you for sure. Johanna, anyone else want to say anything?

Jared Ball
Greetings from from one of his biographers. Todd Stephen Burrows is in the building, sending his greetings. I, of course, in my own, and apologize to you publicly, Mumia, for only writing a handful of times over the years, but it’s an honor to hear from you always, so thank you very much and continued good health.

Mumia Abu-Jamal
I couldn’t hear anything, but can you translate that for me?

Jared Ball
Pass on some of that, please.

Kalonji Changa
I’ll translate. Dr. Ball said Dr. Todd Burrow Stephens, one of your biographers, is in the audience. He wanted to shout you out, and also he wanted to thank you for all his work, all your work, throughout the years, and he apologizes, Dr. Ball, for not writing you more often. And I just did a hell of a translation piece, so you know, summary.

Mumia Abu-Jamal
I give my greetings to brother and Dr. Burrows. Keep up the good work.

Kalonji Changa
Dr. Fernandez, you said something?

Johanna Fernandez
No, I’m just reading- the messages that people are sending me are just beautiful. Someone said, “Hold your head, hero.” Then we have someone here saying, “Read Mumia today, tomorrow, and every day.” I just think you guys should read these these beautiful messages.

Kalonji Changa
Right on. Right on. Right on. Could you- did you hear Dr. Fernandez?

Mumia Abu-Jamal
No, I did not.

Kalonji Changa
Okay. She was telling us there are people in the chat right now that is saying, “Hold your head up,” “We love you Mumia,” “Your freedom is our freedom.” They said, “Read Mumia today and tomorrow and every day.” It’s about 200 something people in the chat right now, and different folks come in expressing their love and gratitude for you. So on behalf of them, I just want to say, man, it’s a wonderful day, and we look forward to seeing you walk from behind those gates.

Mumia Abu-Jamal
Thank you for those comments. I hope you hear me clearly as I can make this. I believe and I know that love is the most powerful force in our universe. It is energy that is raw, that touches everything. I know it, I’ve felt it. if I could say this to our greater black community: just keep loving each other. Love keeps us in this creation. Keep on loving everything else will fall into its place.

Kalonji Changa
Right on. Right on. Right on. Definitely. Again, we appreciate your words. I’m gonna try to- I realize that these headphones on. Can you all hear?

Jared Ball
Yeah, we can hear him fine.

Kalonji Changa
Can you try to say something now, anyone out there? I don’t know if Mumia can hear you.

Julia Wright
Could you could you tell Mumia that …

Mumia Abu-Jamal
So this is, I think, a tremendous opportunity. If you were surprised, then welcome to the party, because so was I. I thank Johanna for offering it. It gives me a stretch beyond this institution to another institution. One is life-taking institution. The other is a life-expanding institution.

Guess which one I prefer. Libraries and archives are places where our ancestors rest between arms of leather and are immortalized in these archives and in these libraries. We can go and we can read James Baldwin, we can read Eldridge Cleaver, and I’m glad to join this library of elders.

Kalonji Changa
Right on. Right on. Man. You know, I’m gonna keep it honest with you Mumia. I’m sitting here, and I’m on nervous asking you questions. I’m telling, I’m looking at folks like, “Jump in!” because, as I mentioned earlier, if I was to give anybody credit for my work on getting involved, it was due to a poster for a rally that I saw about your case back in 86, 87. And I grew up in movement, but that right there really pushed it over along with, like I said, the Assata wanted posters, the [inaudible] posters I saw in Bridgeport, CT, but seeing that poster of you, about a rally in in New York, that I knew I had to go to, I was like, 15, 16 years old. That really pushed it over the thing, and I wanted to say that to you, because I’ve had several convos with you, but I don’t think I’ve expressed that, and I’m very grateful, and I feel like I need you to know that you are a hero to many of us, and we’re very grateful.

Mumia Abu-Jamal
I just wanted to say this. You have to think about the power of a poster. We don’t think about that, especially now in this multimedia age and the synthetic news that we have that’s flashing through the air, but a poster is a piece of art that projects a revolutionary idea that is received by a 15 year old, and it changes the trajectory of one’s life. I say that because there was a time I was a 15 year old. A sister named Andrea gave me a copy of the Black Panther newspaper, and another sister gave me a copy of Ramparts Magazine, and my mind was probably blown. When I saw those brothers and sisters in Cali, I knew that I had found home, and I joined the Black Panther Party, and even though we didn’t have one in Philly, we built one in Philly.

That’s the- so the power of a poster, the power of a newspaper, the power of a magazine, the power of communication, to communicate transformative ideas to people and change the trajectory of their lives, hopefully for the better, so we’re doing that right now, and I thank you all for being there, and it’s just another form of communication between hearts, souls, and minds. I thank you all. I wish I could hug and kiss your whole panel and the people in the audience. I thank you all. I love you all. On the move. Long live revolution.

Watch the full video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YulrpOkhQp4