Kalonji Changa. So, we are live today with good brother Mumia Abu-Jamal who has been fightin’ the good fight before many of us was born. How you feelin’ today comrade? How’s everything going’ with you?
Mumia Abu-Jamal. I am well. I am well. As I say every day, it is a new day and a new beginning, so let us begin this one well.
Kalonji Changa: Right on. Right on. Right on. Hey man, we know that there’s so much stuff that we would like to rap about and so little time, but I know that just getting to the meat of it: we know that you’ve been fighting this whole health situation for a minute, you know. Tell us how that’s going right now. I know that you recently had surgery back a few months ago. How’s your health right now? Is it pretty strong, or?
Mumia Abu-Jamal: It is. It really is. My heaIth is – I mean I’m a biased observer.
Kalonji Changa: Right on.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: My health is excellent though. And you know, I just keep moving every day. I have a walk for about an hour when we’re in the yard. And if we’re not in the yard, if the weather is inclement, we walk on the block. I just keep on walking. That’s one of the good pieces of advice that the good doctors told me about, which is to walk, and it’s a perfect exercise and I just walk, so.
Kalonji Changa: Right on.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: Still walking.
Kalonji Changa: Right on. Right on, Mu. Well, keep on walking as the song goes. You know that this December marks 40 years since you were railroaded. You spent 30 on death row in solitary confinement, ten of those was after a federal judge ordered the death sentence overturned. You know, I mean, your strength has just been impeccable. Along with that, you recently dropped a commentary called “Movement Pains.” And in it you spoke about the oppressed and abuse of power within the movement. Can you speak to that because of the fact that’s prevalent right now, and we know it’s always been.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: Well, you know, I think about things from different perspectives, so when I write I try to be original in my thinking and not just additive of what others are saying, so, if I’m not bringing anything original to the table, I’m not talking.
Kalonji Changa: Right.
umia Abu-Jamal: You know. I’m just an echo and you know, echo can create reverb and in radio that ain’t cool. You dig me?
Kalonji Changa: Yessir.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: So, I want to bring something new to the table. So, that means you have to kind of think things through and just bring it when it’s there, when it’s timely.
Kalonji Changa: Right on.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: When the time is right. You know the movement has shifted as life has shifted. But on the whole, I think this is really a wonderful period, right, to be alive, because people are awake. I was gonna say awakened, and I was tempted to say woke, but people have really awakened to the, really, the poisons of the system in ways they haven’t been for decades. You know, there are a lot of people who never lived during the 60s. That was one of the freest moments, I know in my own kind of personal life, as being part of a group of revolutionaries known as the Black Panther Party, but –
Kalonji Changa: Right on.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: – those periods repeat themselves, right, in cycles throughout history. Right? And given the technology that brings people face to face with the George Floyd situation and similar situations around the country, many, many people have awakened to the nature of this beast because they couldn’t turn away from it. They were looking, literally live, right, in real time –
Kalonji Changa: Sure.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: – at a modern day legal lynching. [Facility announcement] And it, you know, it freaked them, it freaked them out.
Kalonji Changa: Right.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: Right, like they couldn’t believe it. They was like, you know, “This ain’t a TV show.”
Kalonji Changa: That’s right.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: It’s a reality. You dig?
Kalonji Changa: Right.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: And the real truth behind that is that it happens damn near every day.
Kalonji Changa: That’s right.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: But people don’t see it. They don’t feel it. But you looking at a man in his 40’s crying for his mama because he knows that he has moments left to live because as he explained, “Can’t breathe,” right? Then that’s an awakening moment. And so, you take advantage of that moment, and you build on it, right. You teach people about the history of the United States, the history of white supremacy, the history of colonialism and imperialism. And then you build, and you build and you build. This is a time for movement building all around the world.
And think about this. When George Floyd happened, it wasn’t a national thing. It was a global thing. You know people demonstrated in like, Korea, Japan, Indonesia, England, France, Germany, literally all across the world because what they felt, what they saw, what they experienced, was a human being killed by the State with cold complicity. Right? And it’s stuff like that that builds movements, and creates struggles that carry us through the next dark time.
Kalonji Changa: Right on. And the beauty of you is the fact that you’ve always had your finger to the pulse of the streets. I remember, we reached out to you when Troy Davis was on death row. I reached out to Pam and Noelle Hanrahan. And they said, “Yeah, you know Mumia said he’s gonna support the Troy Davis situation.” There you were, fresh off of death row yourself, and you were pushing for others. Your strength, like I said, is impeccable. I want to ask you real quick, because I know we´re pressed for time, but what is the role, or what should be the role in journalism, or with journalists these days, because of the fact we know that part of your sacrifice was your reporting on MOVE and other atrocities that were going on in Philadelphia. Can you speak to that?
Mumia Abu-Jamal: The role of a journalist is to be, in a revolutionary perspective, I should say a revolutionary journalist as opposed to a corporate journalist, but the role of a journalist, is in my mind, is to be a tribune of the people. To, as you suggested, to touch the pulse of the people, to feel what they feel –
Facility recording: You have one minute left.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: – and to reflect that which they do not, so that we can, again, build movements that are moving at a higher frequency and a higher vibration, to pull people together and to inspire them to do that which we know is possible because it has happened in the past. Anything that has happened in the human past is possible in the human future. That’s both negative, but it’s also positive, so we can build, we can grow. And we have to think along those terms because as a man thinketh and as a women thinketh, so it is. So, let us come together as George Jackson reminded us, to stop our squabbles and join together and fight against this monster before it takes…
Facility recording: Thank you for using Securis.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: ….more of us. Love you all.
Kalonji Changa: Love you as well, brother. Yes, yes, yes. We’ve been listening to Mumia Abu-Jamal. He had the opportunity to call in fresh this morning, and you know, it is so much we wanted to speak to him on. But, you know we were pressed for time, so hopefully we will get him back on the line soon. Check our Riot Starter TV and make sure that you stay in tune with, not only Mumia Abu-Jamal, but all political prisoners. The call is Free Them All!
These commentary was recorded by Black Power Media.