Fred Hampton Jr: Okay, this Chairman Fred, coming to you not from no TNT or no NBC, but live and direct from POCC [Prisoners of Conscience Committee]. On the Block Report. We’ll be doing a rapid one-on-one with brother, Mumia Abu-Jamal, former member of the Black Panther Party, a veteran who has stayed strong, who’s been held captive inside these concentration camps close to a quarter of a century. Hey, revolutionary love from a Panther cub!
Mumia Abu-Jamal: What’s happening, brother?
FHJ: What’s happening, my brother? (laughter)
MAJ: How you been man?
FHJ: Love, respect, veteran. Love and respect to you, man.
MAJ: Goes both ways.
FHJ: Yes, yes, yes. How your spirits, warrior?
MAJ: Oh, you know, rumbling.
FHJ: Ain’t no doubt about it, no surrender man. Yeah, you know, I guess, you know. We shakin’ up every nook and cranny in the community, man. Making sure, you know what I’m saying the word getting out, you know?
MAJ: How you doing?
FHJ: Ay, ay, ay, repression breeds resistance, you know what I’m saying?
MAJ: Yeah, how’s your mama?
FHJ: She good, she good, she good. Yeah, she send y’all, she send y’all love too, you know?
MAJ: How’s the POCC doing?
FHJ: Hey, we rocking it. We rocking it. You know what I’m sayin? Ain’t no safe subject, no marches. There’s nothing moving us this time to try with your case and others. You know what I’m sayin? Everybody else who held captive in them concentration camps, we putting it out there.
MAJ: All right, yeah, yeah. How’s Aaron doing?
FHJ: Hey, he went to court today, right? He got a continuance til Monday. Man, his spirits is strong. He always send his love to you. His spirits are strong, yeah, he keeping his head up, man, no doubt about it.
MAJ: I’m real impressed with that brother.
FHJ: Hey, he a soldier. He a soldier. Man, yes, indeed, yes indeed.
MAJ: That’s why they coming at him that way.
FHJ: Ain’t no doubt about it. Ain’t no doubt about it. I did a piece on the man, Jamil Al-Amin yesterday, man, he told me let you know, he send his revolutionary love to y’all, so.
MAJ: Straight, straight on.
FHJ: Yeah, yeah. Okay, I got a couple of things important in particular I want to touch on, seize the time with you.
MAJ: Sho’ nuff.
FHJ: For the benefit those who, just in case they don’t know, how long have you been held captive? And also, what’s the present status of the case?
MAJ: Well, we’re rumbling now in two courts, in the state court and in federal court. I mean, they say you ain’t supposed to do that, but, you know, the law is a tool. It’s really a tool for the wealthy and the powerful, but we trying to use it, you know. We ain’t got no money, and according to the system we’re powerless. We got the power, the love of the people. And we know that’s the most powerful force.
FHJ: No doubt about it.
MAJ: I’ve been in this hellhole since December of 1981.
FHJ: Damn.
MAJ: So, you know, do the math, quarter of a century.
FHJ: Yeah, no doubt about it man, no doubt about it. A lot of people talk about, like, you know, they say they talking about COINTELPRO or some, you know, like a nostalgia type of way, like, you know, back in the 60s, so on and so forth, you know. From you, who have been targeted, you know, I point out, like my father, Trustee Chairman Fred’s FBI file started, they say, when he’s 14 years old. In the case, in your case also, I think it was 14 or 13 years old.
MAJ: Absolutely, a lot of people think, because they haven’t done independent research, and they don’t know any better that, you know, our files, and I’m speaking now of your file, and — I mean my file. I ain’t speaking about your file, your file was written before you came to earth!
FHJ: Dig it. Dig it. (laughter)
MAJ: But uh, my file and your father’s file, it really preceded, you know, Black Panther Party, because, you know, Chairman Fred the first, and Bobby Rush were organizers for the NAACP.
FHJ: Dig it.
MAJ: And even though we may see that as a tame organization, a peaceful organization, you know, the state never looked at it as that. yeah I mean look how they played with Martin Luther King Jr. If you check the record, they didn’t just come after Martin Luther King Jr. They was coming after Martin Luther King Senior!
FHJ: Dig.
MAJ: Cause he was a prominent–even though he was a Republican and conser–he was a prominent preacher who had a powerful position, who was talking to Black people. And you know, what I, the point I try to make in my book is that the FBI is race police. Dig? They came after people like the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. You know, he wasn’t making no real trouble for these people. He was just speaking historical truth about our people’s history in North America. Man, they broke all kinds of laws against him, you know?
So, it doesn’t matter what organization you involved in, if you trying to organize Black people, they coming after you. That’s just straight up. And the other thing is, you know it, it didn’t end in 1975, in 1976, when they had those Church hearings in Congress. I mean, anybody that’s been in the FBI and came out and told you was what it’s about, would tell you that. The dude, the Black FBI agent Tyrone Powers, he breaks that down. A white FBI agent, Jay Wesley Swearingen, who wrote the affidavit for Geronimo in his case, he said, “Look, you know, it’s still rolling. They just changed the name, but they doing the same thing.” I mean, if they tell you that, why don’t you believe that? They know. So, and certainly, what’s been happening with you, what’s been happening with various movements, it proves that the same tactics are being used against people, to divide people, to destroy resistance movements, to destroy militant organizations. You dig? You better believe this still happens.
FHJ: No doubt about it. Well, just, you know, just cats in the general community, lot of times they get caught up with, you know, some impression that a good lawyer, you know, will get you and others from behind enemy lines, or voting in one criminal over another criminal, that’s what’s gonna save us, when the fact of the reality is ain’t nobody gonna save us, but us.
MAJ: That’s right.
FHJ: You know what I’m saying, cause you just break it down to the importance of the role that the people, you know what I’m saying. We don’t say this in an abstract, cliche type of way, but the real deal, but it’s gonna have to be the people have to play the role on, you know what I’m saying, getting you and others sent back out on the streets where y’all belong.
MAJ: What it’s about, all it’s ever really been about is the power of the people. I mean, think about what the slogan of the party was. They said, All Power to the People. Why is that a problem in a democracy?
FHJ: Dig.
MAJ: Why would anybody object to that unless they understand that power is not in the hands of the people. You know, the power is in the hands of the wealthy in this country, and they don’t want it in the hands of the people, never wanted it in the hands of the people, and fight against people who even talk about putting it in the hands of the people. And in terms of, you know; change happens when people make change happen, when people develop movements that create the power and the popular force that can make change happen. I mean, you know, you can trip all you want, that things would have been better if, you know, Kerry had been elected. I mean, it would have been like the same old thing, you know, because dude was talking about 40,000 more troops in Iraq, and this was a guy who was supposed to be the opposition. When they running for the system, they’re running for the system. They ain’t running for the people.
FHJ: Just recently, it’s been a lot of uproar. You’re talking about, like, even the conditions that’s going down in Abu Ghraib and Baghdad, and it’s been a lot of discussion about the Geneva Convention hearings. And I tell cats, I mean, if they have some Humane Society or some pet care convention rules that they could apply to lot of these concentration camps inside the States there would be a leap forward. And I point out to some cats; some of them exact same prison guard that was over in Abu Grhaib was, I mean, was prison guards in the same camp that you presently held captive in.
MAJ: Absolutely.
FHJ: You know what I’m saying? And so just, you know, just just to dismiss this whole facade of these camps as sort of humane places, whatever, just give us a breakdown on, you know what’s, you know, the conditions? You know what I’m saying, what’s, you know what’s going down with you and where you at? Where you held captive at?
MAJ: Well, this is SCI Greene in Western Pennsylvania, about 60 miles away from Pittsburgh. And the guard you referred to, his name was Charles Grainer. Grainer had worked here for about five or six years, and for about eight years he worked in the county. So, for almost 15 years he had been a prison guard, when he joined the Reserves and they sent him over to Iraq, and he working in Abu Ghraib prison. Well, here’s a guy who got more experience, you know, over a decade, really, as a prison guard. What does he do? He starts dogging people, treating them like dogs, sexually humiliating people, beating them up, hurting people. And when he went to trial it’s interesting what his defense was. He said, “Well–.” You remember the pyramid of men that were naked that was stacked up by him? He said, “Well, that’s just like, you know, girls playing halftime, playing just gymnastics.” That’s how dude was thinking, you know. And you know, he didn’t learn that when he went to Iraq. He learned that over the decades in the county and in the state, you know, in all these hellholes. All they did was transport what they did here against Black people and poor people and Hispanic people over to the Iraqis. They gave ’em a taste of American corrections.
FHJ: No doubt about it. No doubt about it. Also one of our main campaigns is, is everybody talking about this term “terrorism.” We got a thing we got called African Anti-Terrorism Bill.
MAJ: I’ve read about that.
FHJ: Okay, right on, in which we say, you know, political prisoners are definitely victims of terrorism.
MAJ: That’s right.
FHJ: And we designate your status, as well as others, as code red. We got code green, code black, and code red. You know what I’m saying? We talking about state of emergency in a real type of way. And we hitting every, again, every nook and cranny. We got a code of conduct, a code of culture, educational ethic, or we hitting, I mean, to win, everybody at some point is giving to the struggle by addressing these issues. What type of advice, ideas you get, that we should put out there, you know what I’m saying, to win. Cause we know everybody ain’t gonna be no front line freedom fighter, but just to win to some point of unity with the struggle.
MAJ: Sure. Well, you know, the fact of the matter is, everybody can do something, and when people learn to do better, they do better. When they learn more, they can do more. And you know, you gotta remember what our people is subjected to today is something that we didn’t really fall under back in the 60s and 70s, and that’s really this kind of cultural imperialism and cultural terrorism when they use, you know, this crazy music. And I’m not blaming them, but I’m saying that’s a part of the problem; to destroy our people’s minds into thinking that, you know, there ain’t no struggle that, you know, all we need to do is, you know, get our pockets fat with money and we free, you know, instead of the struggle for human dignity, for life, for liberty, for the things that they talk about that they don’t really live in this country. People really need to go back to old fashioned things like studying, you dig? Because you know life is serious, and how they rolling on people, you know, when you look at young brothers who come in these joints, when they in these joints with these crazy sentences, that’s some of the first times in their life that they read a book without being forced to read it.
FHJ: Yeah.
Facility Announcement: This call is from a correctional institution and is subject to monitoring and recording.
MAJ: If they can read. And you know when you see a brother’s, like, mind light up, his face light up, because he is learning about the history of his people. That’s a beautiful thing, but that’s something that our people should have learned, you know, in our younger years, certainly long before they came into these hellholes. But where they gonna learn it? You know, they’re not gonna learn it reading the newspaper. They’re not gonna learn it in history class in school. Schools are just another front of the war against Black life in this country. You dig? So, that reminds us of what was the importance back during the 60s and 70s of liberation schools. We need to teach our people from a very, very young age. I’m talking about children, what this thing is hidden for, what is, what’s really happening, what it’s all about. Because if we don’t teach them, they won’t get taught. And, you know, if you got two, three life bids, and you come in, you learn about it, that’s a good thing, but it is a little late, come on, now,
FHJ: Yeah, yeah. We gotta do like in the spirit of the Black Panthers in the 60s, they turned the communities into classrooms, you know?
MAJ: That’s right. That’s right.
FHJ: That’s what we gotta do, you know.
MAJ: You know, the party had PE classes. Not just for members of the party, it was for the community, usually one night a week, where they could come in and, you know, just people sat around discussing things, and people learned about things, you know. And I remember the sister Safia, from up New York. She was a young mother, you know, she was brought in to the breakfast program, but she really wasn’t trying to hear what people in the party was saying. And when she saw what the police were doing to try to destroy the breakfast program, whoa, she went into the PE [physical education] classes.
FHJ: Dig it.
MAJ: She became a strong, dedicated, committed revolutionary, you dig? So, you know, PE is important, and you know we need to learn some of the lessons of the past. Continue to teach our people and to help our people, you know, resist this monster.
FHJ: No doubt about it. The counterinsurgency attacked you, to snatch the son off the streets and you know what I’m saying, even in cases where you have literally kissed the casket, you know what I’m saying, you know what I mean, your spirit — the kiss of death via Lucasville all over, you know what I’m saying. You’ve been a fine example of resistance for us. Just, I mean, just lay out to us if you can comrade, how you keep your undying spirit?
MAJ: Well, I remember, you know, I remember. I mean, you know, I remember going to a memorial for your father
Facility Announcement: You have one minute left to talk.
MAJ: in Philadelphia, the Church of the Advocate. And I’ll never forget that. You know, I might have been maybe 15 or 16 at the time, but I’ll never forget. I remember walking through that house at 2337 Monroe, and putting my fingers in them holes in the wall. I can never forget that. So, you know, those are the lessons of our lives that we can’t– and so we have to pass it on.
FHJ: That’s right.
MAJ: That’s all I’m doing. Passing it on, brother.
FHJ: That’s right. We give you our word, you know, our commitment. You know what I’m saying. Hey, ain’t no peace in the streets, you know what I’m saying. Hey, Mumia and rest of them got to be free. No doubt about it.
MAJ: Beautiful, brother. I love to hear you, man. You remind me of your father so much, man, I know he would be very proud of you.
FHJ: Hey, Chairman Fred said, “You can kill the revolutionary but you can’t kill the revolution, cuz the beat goes on.” Again, revolutionary love, revolutionary love from a Panther cub, this is Block Report coming to you live from the streets. Love Chairman Fred, live and direct Mumia Abu-Jamal.
MAJ: That’s what I’m talking about. Love to you, Chairman Fred.
FHJ: Man, man. Revolutionary love and respect. I’m gone be in Philly coming up in the next couple of weeks. I’m out there on the streets organizing and politicizing.
These commentaries are recorded by Noelle Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
