IMPRISONED BLACK LIBERATION LEADER
MUMIA ABU-JAMAL EMBRACES LGBTQ LIBERATION
Provides exclusive, extended interview with queer radio program
(New York) Mumia Abu-Jamal, an imprisoned heterosexual Black liberation leader and author of 13 books and thousands of broadcast essays, has strongly endorsed LGBTQ liberation. Abu-Jamal recently (before the election) granted an exclusive phone interview from prison with journalist Bob Lederer of the queer progressive program Out-FM on listener-sponsored, noncommercial radio station WBAI in New York. The 70-year-old explained his decades-long evolution from a Black Panther using homophobic language in the 1970s to a queer/trans ally today. He has served 43 years of a life-without-parole sentence (after his death sentence was ruled unconstitutional) for the murder of a Philadelphia police officer. His conviction came in a trial that Amnesty International and numerous human rights groups said showed extensive evidence of prosecutorial, judicial, and police misconduct, and “effectively stripp[ed] Mumia Abu-Jamal of any meaningful legal representation,” all seriously violating international legal standards. Abu-Jamal has insisted on his innocence.
In the interview, Abu-Jamal commented on the 1970 statement by Black Panther Party (BPP) leader Huey Newton, just a year after Stonewall and pressure from queer liberationists, giving ground- breaking public support to the then-strong movements for women’s and gay liberation. Newton called for building an alliance with both movements and for stopping the then-common use among leftists of homophobic language as epithets for repressive government officials. At the time, Abu-Jamal was the 16-year-old Lieutenant of Information of the Philadelphia Chapter of the BPP. Abu-Jamal told Lederer:
When you think about what Huey said…about gay folks and lesbian and queer folks, I must be honest with you, it was not well received by members of the party….But as usual, this was Huey at his finest.
Abu-Jamal went on to praise Newton’s tactical brilliance in seeking to build larger coalitions to advance the BPP’s goals of Black freedom. He also labeled the women who were two-thirds of BPP members as “the glory of the Party, the hardest workers, the most disciplined.”
Abu-Jamal explained how his thinking on queer issues has evolved since 1991, when he thanked Queers United in Support of Political Prisoners (QUISP) for planning a lesbian/gay forum in New York to support him, while noting his belief that “Heterosexual Hookups [are] natural and inherently right.” His exchange of letters with QUISP started a long-term dialogue with LGBTQ activists nationwide that played a role in his later change of views. Speaking of his post-1991 evolution, Abu-Jamal commented:
What we learn when we study revolution is that all things change, and that means percep- tions, it means perspectives, it even means vision. We see and experience things differently.
Abu-Jamal reflected that new awareness in his widely-distributed commentaries in 2000 and 2019, decrying the murders of white gay men (including Matthew Shepard) and Black trans women, respectively, putting both in the context of a violent, racist society.
Abu-Jamal cited the emergence in the 2010s of the queer-led Black Lives Matter movement as a major spur for straight Black liberation leaders to embrace LGBTQ liberation:
Some of the most advanced sectors of the Black liberation movement began to think about it far more broadly and deeply than even when Huey made his call.
Abu-Jamal also spoke movingly of the lessons he has learned from gay and trans prisoners in the institutions where he has been incarcerated:
I’ve seen people – literally seen them – try to commit suicide by jumping off of a rail onto the floor….Prison, by its nature, breeds isolation in human beings and atomizes them to the extent that it further isolates and separates them. And for trans and gay men in prison, it’s a hell in a hell, you know? They get the worst of it.
In the radio documentary produced by Out-FM’s Lederer based on his interview with Abu-Jamal, he included an account of the prisoner’s evolution on queer issues by Noelle Hanrahan, a lesbian journalist who has recorded 3,000 of Abu-Jamal’s radio essays through the group she cofounded, prisonradio.org, which airs the voices of incarcerated people. Hanrahan is now an attorney and private investigator working with Abu-Jamal’s criminal defense and medical defense teams. She came out to him on her second recording visit in 1992 and began educating him on queer issues. Hanrahan commented, “Mumia Abu-Jamal’s instinctual curiosity and warm wonder, his lack of judgment or distance and harshness, kept me coming back.”
Abu-Jamal has again appealed his conviction based on new evidence discovered recently that had been illegally withheld from his defense attorneys for 41 years. (A legal update is here.)
For more information on a campaign seeking proper health care and nutrition for Abu-Jamal (who had open-heart surgery in 2021) and all incarcerated Pennsylvanians, and to contact Governor Josh Shapiro to support executive clemency for Abu-Jamal and all elderly prisoners, visit prisonradio.org.
For background on Abu-Jamal’s criminal case, see “Manufacturing Guilt – A Short Film About Mumia Abu-Jamal’s Case,” produced by Stephen Vittoria and Noelle Hanrahan, for Street Legal Cinema/Prison Radio.
Mumia Abu-Jamal Embraces LGBTQ Liberation
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In 1970, just a year after the Stonewall Rebellion, Black Panther Party leader Huey Newton gave groundbreaking public support to the then-strong movements for women’s and gay liberation. Here’s a short clip of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the brilliant Black revolutionary journalist unjustly serving life in prison without parole, speaking recently with Out-FM.
When you think about what Huey said at the Revolutionary People’s Constitutional Convention about gay folks and lesbian and queer folks, I must be honest with you, it was not well received by members of the Party. We were shocked in some ways, confused in other ways. But as usual, this was Huey at his finest. And he was a true revolutionary intellectual, who was usually ahead of his peers.
….And I thought about it in the same context as Dhoruba bin Wahad, who was one of the Panther 21, and he talked about gay liberation. So some of the most advanced sectors of the Black liberation movement began to think about it far more broadly and deeply than even when Huey made his call.
Welcome to Out-FM, a weekly intersectional, anti-racist program by and for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, two-spirit, gender non-conforming, intersex, queer, and questioning communities. Our program originates from listener-sponsored, noncommercial WBAI/Pacifica Radio in New York, 99.5 FM and wbai.org. It’s also heard on Pacifica station KPFK in Los Angeles, 90.7 FM and kpfk.org. Our programs are archived at outfm.org. You can also follow us on Facebook, X and Instagram. The song you heard is “Free Mumia,” by The HART-ical Crew.
I’m your host, Bob Lederer, part of the multiracial Out-FM collective. I’ve been a progressive journalist and anti-racist activist for decades, involved in the movement to free Mumia Abu-Jamal. Mumia is now 70 years old and struggling with grossly negligent health care for multiple health challenges, including congestive heart disease, liver damage, and a severe, debilitating chronic skin condition.
Welcome to our documentary, “Mumia Abu-Jamal Embraces LGBTQ Liberation.” Over the next hour, you’ll hear an exclusive interview with Mumia that I recently conducted by phone, representing what I believe is the first time in almost 43 years – 29 of them in solitary confinement on death row – that he has spoken at length in a public forum about LGBTQ issues. As you’ll hear, he explains his decades-long evolution to open solidarity with queer and trans liberation. He also gives us a detailed overall picture of the functioning and accomplishments of the Black Panther Party, of which he became a local leader at age 16, and he shares the views of Party members about queer issues, then and now. He also gives an eyewitness account of the horrendous oppression of incarcerated gay men and trans women. In addition, I’ll play two of Mumia’s audio commentaries over the years condemning anti-gay and anti-trans murders.
But first, some background on who Mumia is.
[Beginning of 1992 commentary: https://www.prisonradio.org/commentary/introduction/ ]
My name is Mumia Abu-Jamal. I’m a journalist, a husband, a father, a grandfather, and an African American. I live in the fastest-growing public housing tract in America. In 1981, I was a reporter for WUHY and president of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists. Currently, I’m a writer and a public radio commentator.
That’s a clip from Mumia introducing himself as a radio commentator in prison in 1992. In an intro to an essay by Mumia published this year in Beneath the Mountain: An Anti-Prison Reader, his co-editor Jennifer Black writes, “He currently resides in SCI Mahanoy in eastern Pennsylvania, where he continues to engage in the profession of journalism and organize revolutionary transformation. He’s the author of thirteen books and thousands of broadcast essays, all produced under the eye of the state.” I would add that while in prison, Mumia has earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees, and is now working on his PhD dissertation.
Next is a clip from “Manufacturing Guilt, A Short Film About Mumia Abu-Jamal’s Case,” produced by First Run Features in 2013. The first voice you’ll hear is that of former Philadelphia reporter and current Democracy Now cohost Juan Gonzalez, followed by film producer Stephen Vittoria.
[Clip: https://vimeo.com/71372627 – first four minutes]
In 1982 Philadelphia journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal was convicted of first-degree murder in the killing of police officer Daniel Faulkner. On the July 4th weekend, he was sentenced to death. In 2001 Federal Court Judge William Yohn overturned Abu-Jamal’s death sentence as illegally imposed and unconstitutional. Yet Abu-Jamal remained on death row for more than 10 years while the Philadelphia District Attorney continued to pursue his execution. In 2011 the DA’s office conceded defeat, and after 30 years on death row, Abu-Jamal was transferred from solitary confinement and joined the general prison population where he continues his appeals.
Mumia Abu-Jamal has said numerous times: “my only crime that night is that I survived.” In fact, the effort to legally execute Abu-Jamal has only recently ended, but the first attempt to kill him may have been made on that fateful night of December 9, 1981 Abu-Jamal was also critically wounded, shot through the chest, and found near the prone body of Daniel Faulkner and the evidence that convicted him for the murder. Well, it doesn’t exist.
And it’s been well established over the years that Abu-Jamal’s trial was patently unjust. For instance, the Philadelphia DA trained prosecutors to exclude Blacks from juries. In Abu-Jamal’s case, 11 out of the 15 peremptory strikes were made to bar Blacks from his jury. What this short film will document is how countless due process violations began just moments after the shooting of Daniel Faulkner and Mumia Abu-Jamal, when members of the Philadelphia Police Department began to manufacture Abu-Jamal’s guilt and, perhaps more importantly, conceal his innocence.
In the culture wars that have punted Mumia, the effigy, back and forth across ideological fields of politics, race and class, the attempt has been made to diminish the relevance of Abu-Jamal as a journalist in 1981. But this man, who was elected president of the Philadelphia chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists, was already well known throughout the city as a fiercely independent, up-and-coming journalist. In fact, by the age of 15, the FBI was tracking the young writer for the Black Panther Party through their draconian and illegal program known as COINTELPRO – not for violent behavior, but because of his “inclination to appear and speak at public gatherings.”
Also in 1981 he was well known to the Philadelphia Police Department as an outspoken journalist who reported on police corruption and brutality, in particular with regard to the Philly PD’s hostile relationship with the controversial MOVE organization, culminating in a yearlong police siege of the MOVE house that ended in 1978 with the shooting death of Police Officer James Ramp. Nine members of MOVE were charged with the murder, and during his coverage of the trial, Abu-Jamal strongly criticized the actions of the police and the prosecution, including the implication that the officer was most likely killed by police crossfire. The MOVE trial concluded just a year and a half before Abu-Jamal and Faulkner were found shot on that fateful night, and it was only four months from the federal trial of MOVE leader John Africa, whose acquittal on gun charges left the police and DA’s office infuriated.
Again, that was a clip from “Manufacturing Guilt.” Later in this program we’ll share what you can do to help win Mumia’s freedom.
Note that Mumia’s Pennsylvania prison only allows 15-minute phone calls, so this 21-minute conversation took place over two calls. I will interweave my actual interview with significant background information, context and other sound clips added later.
And now, my interview with Mumia Abu-Jamal.
[INTERVIEW:]
BOB: Brother Mumia, thanks so much for agreeing to this interview for Out-FM. It’s an honor to have this opportunity to speak with you, as you are a brilliant and empathic revolutionary analyst, and a role model for progressive journalists and for all people working for peace and justice. This is especially fitting as we celebrate the 100th birthday of the Black gay literary genius and Black liberation fighter James Baldwin.
MUMIA: Well put. You actually remind me that this morning, when I was walking in the yard, NPR did a piece on precisely that – James Baldwin’s 100th centennial of his birth, but also that one of his students – not of him, but a professor who taught him. The guest on NPR opened up a bookstore called Baldwin & Company, and the thing has lines around the block, and he’s getting orders every day. He said the most recent was from China, reading Baldwin stuff. So you know, as a writer, as a revolutionary, as a thinker and an organizer, it cannot be more praiseworthy for a writer to continue to have impact a century after his birth.
BOB: Brother Mumia, I want to turn now to your evolving views over the decades on the role of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in U.S. society. You have indeed shown a remarkable evolution, as have many in the overall society, in parallel with the growing organizing and strength of the diverse LGBTQ+ movements demanding our human rights.
For the listeners, let me provide some background: In 1970, at age 16, Mumia was Lieutenant of Information of the Philadelphia Chapter of the Black Panther Party. Progressive white gay historian Marc Stein has written about a July 1970 Black Panther article attacking Philadelphia’s then arch-racist police chief and later mayor, Frank Rizzo. Stein wrote, “local Panther Mumia described Rizzo as [someone] who ‘produced perversion,’ both in ‘the leniency shown to the murders on the Philly Pig Force’ and in his ‘homosexual son.’….Mumia also called George Fencl, the head of Rizzo’s civil disobedience unit, ‘Georgey boy faggot Fencl.’ Marc Stein concludes, “These kinds of comments made the position of lesbian and gay Panthers difficult and created obstacles to building alliances between the Panthers and non-Panther lesbian and gay radicals.”
In the 2012 book The Classroom and the Cell: Conversations on Black Life in America, the edited transcript of a dialogue between Mumia and Black liberation scholar Marc Lamont Hill, Mumia said: “…Huey P. Newton spoke out, back in 1970, about gay liberation. He didn’t just mention it. He said…‘We, the Black Panther Party, support gay liberation just as we support women’s liberation.’ He saw it as part of the struggle for human liberation.…It was the most forward position of any radical and revolutionary movement of the period, and reflected Huey’s keen thinking on issues before his time. So even in a movement perceived as ‘masculinist,’ there were these insights.”
And I would add one direct quote from Huey Newton’s statement, which listeners can read in full at outfm.org. He wrote: “The terms ‘faggot’ and ‘punk’ should be deleted from our vocabulary, and especially we should not attach names normally designed for homosexuals to men who are enemies of the people, such as Nixon or Mitchell [who was the Attorney General]. Homosexuals are not enemies of the people.” And that’s Huey Newton in 1970.
Now, returning to my interview.
[INTERVIEW:]
BOB: So Mumia, as you look back at your July 1970 statement in The Black Panther calling racist Philadelphia police officials “faggots” who engaged in “perversion,” and then look at Huey Newton’s August 1970 letter – just a month later – supporting the women’s liberation and gay liberation movements, can you tell us more about your viewpoint at that time, when you were 16, and more about how other straight men, as well as women, in the Party viewed the letter, and what impact it had?
MUMIA: Well, if you’re talking about my letter, I actually don’t have a memory of it, because this is like my 70th year of life. You’re talking about my 16th year of life. But when I read your note referring to that, my mind actually flashed to the Minister of Information at that time, Eldridge Cleaver, who wrote and spoke in similar ways. And as the lieutenant of information of the Philadelphia branch, and later at the national office and newspaper and someone working on the paper, I really adored Eldridge. He was very influential in my thinking, and so I was probably consciously imitating Eldridge and imitating his speech. When you think about what Huey said at the Revolutionary People’s Constitutional Convention about gay folks and lesbian and queer folk, I must be honest with you: It was not well received by members of the Party. We were shocked in some ways, confused in other ways. But as usual, this was Huey at his finest, and he was a true revolutionary intellectual who was usually ahead of his peers. And they were, let’s be honest, there were few peers of Huey Newton, which is a good thing and a bad thing, in a way. But what Huey was beginning to understand, I think, especially coming from his prison experience, is that any revolution, any real struggle, in the bastion of the Empire had to really involve all kinds of people in that struggle to be successful. Now to understand that intellectually is one thing, but to understand it empathically, right?, is another. But Huey was always ahead of the pack. That was just the nature of his really acute intelligence and his perception. But you know, 16 is not 70.
BOB: Indeed.
For listeners, in 1970, the time Mumia is discussing, Eldridge Cleaver was the Black Panther Party’s Minister of Communications, editor of the Party newspaper, and leader of the Party’s international office in Algeria. He had become famous for his book Soul on Ice, written in prison, describing his evolution from rapist to revolutionary, citing the key teachings of Malcolm X, and his insightful analysis of the racist history and psychology of the United States. The book also included such homophobic and sexist statements as “Homosexuality is a sickness, just as are baby-rape or wanting to become the head of General Motors,” as well as accusing James Baldwin of having a “racial death-wish…[to] become a white man in a black body,” and finally this quote, “If a lesbian is anything she is a frigid woman, a frozen [c-word, though he wrote it out].” Cleaver later went on to become a public spokesperson for right-wing evangelical Christianity.
In Mumia’s 2004 book, We Want Freedom: A Life in the Black Panther Party, he described the Panthers’ 1970 Revolutionary People’s Constitutional Convention, attended by 6,000 activists in Philadelphia. He called it “a way of developing a revolutionary superstructure that would be the groundwork for a new society” and noted the wide array of groups – of students, socialists, Native peoples, women, and gay and lesbian groups – invited to contribute. Workshops were held separately by gay men and lesbians, the former more multi-racial than the latter, and the gay men – but not the lesbians – were allowed to present to the larger convention. In Mumia’s book, he said the many diverse workshops “provided the basis for one of the most progressive Constitutions in the history of humankind,” citing calls for Black and Third World representation in governing institutions, national self-determination, “sexual self-determination for women and homosexuals,” and the universal rights to housing, health care and day care. But as Mumia also noted, the process of writing a revolutionary constitution stalled after that huge Philadelphia conclave. Mumia wrote, “While the Party dared greatly, it was not, in truth, a failure of the Party so much as it was a failure of the movement entire….[The Party] could not appreciate the deep levels of white supremacy…subsumed within much of the white left.”
We now return to my recent interview with revolutionary journalist and political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal.
[INTERVIEW]
BOB: Mumia, in terms of the 1970 Panther-led Revolutionary People’s Constitutional Convention, which you mentioned a minute ago, can you talk about the two sides of this historic coin:
- the leadership of the Black Panther Party in gathering such diverse movements to grapple with a reimagined United States and
2) the failure of that process to advance – in particular, the role of white supremacy within the Left, then and now?
MUMIA: You sound like you read my book, We Want Freedom: A Life in the Black Panther Party.
BOB: I have.
MUMIA: I should have known! I was remarking earlier about how Huey was really ahead of the times. In retrospect, when I think about it, and I think about the many positions that the Party had, the Party was ahead of its times. And sometimes, when you’re in that structure and you make a call, you expect people to respond to the call, or sometimes some people aren’t ready for the call that you’re making. So that you know you need to develop it further and even explain things.
I mean, think about this: In 1966, October 15th, the Party began with Huey P. Newton and Bobby G. Seale, two college students who were reading stuff, who were reading primarily The Wretched of the Earth by Franz Fanon, which deeply influenced how we saw the world. But this Party really grew by leaps and bounds, so that two or three years later it had 44 chapters and branches all across the United States and some offices overseas, right? And we’re talking to – by intention – ghetto folks who we called the lumpen, but people who had difficulty reading stuff about other countries, ideas that – This call is from a Pennsylvania State Correctional Institution, Mahanoy, this call is subject to data monitoring – ideas that were coming from other parts of the world because we were involved in really a world revolution. It was natural for us. But that doesn’t mean it was natural for people that we were speaking to or writing to.
And to the Party’s credit, some branches organized really community schools, right? Or areas where members could really, you know, sit down and rap with people and answer questions and explain things. All chapters didn’t have that, though they had it for members but they didn’t have it for the community. Some chapters weren’t big enough. Some chapters weren’t sophisticated enough. But I mean, that’s your most important work, right? Your most important work isn’t selling newspapers, even though that’s important by putting out information via the newspaper, but your most important work is really communicating with people, answering their questions, letting them know how you see the world, and then bringing them into that construct. That didn’t happen in many ways, because we were so far advanced. The RPCC could have been a different kind of thing, if we had projected out to our various audiences that this is the work of the RPCC or the Revolutionary People’s Communications Committee and Network, instead of kind of springing it on people when they gathered at Temple University. So, I mean – This call is from a Pennsylvania State Correctional Institution, Mahanoy, this call is subject to data monitoring – think long and hard about how to organize, how to talk to people and listen to people, because you know, they have their ideas as well!
[Play Free Mumia Suite (instrumental) – by Fred Ho & the Afro-Asian Ensemble ]
You’re listening to the Out-FM documentary “Mumia Abu-Jamal Embraces LGBTQ Liberation,” originating from Pacifica station WBAI in New York. I’m Bob Lederer, part of the Out-FM Collective. The last song was “The Free Mumia Suite” by the late, great Fred Ho and the Afro-Asian Ensemble. Now back to the program.
In Mumia’s book We Want Freedom: A Life in the Black Panther Party, he wrote that “much of the movement was…deeply macho in orientation and treated women in many of these groups in a distinctly secondary and disrespectful fashion.” But he also noted that “women were far more than mere appendages of male ego and power, they were valued and respected comrades.”
I asked Mumia about two women Panther leaders, Afeni Shakur and Ericka Huggins. Some background: Afeni was one of the Panther 21, key members of the New York Black Panther Party indicted on false federal conspiracy charges under the FBI’s COINTELPRO program, aimed at destroying Left and particularly Black liberation organizations. The 21 faced 186 counts of attempted arson, attempted murder, and conspiracy to blow up police precincts, department stores, and more. Following the state’s longest trial til that time, and after just one hour of deliberation, a jury acquitted them of all charges.
Similarly, Ericka Huggins was key in defeating frameup murder conspiracy charges in New Haven against herself, Panther leader Bobby Seale, and others, for which she spent two years in pretrial detention just after the FBI-instigated assassination of her Panther husband John Huggins and Bunchy Carter.
Now back to my interview.
[INTERVIEW:]
BOB: Mumia, I want to ask you about your conclusions about the roles of both women and sexism in the Black Panther Party and the broader Black liberation movement. Can you share your assessment of the Party’s gender relationships in the context of a patriarchal society, and what you learned from the women whom you met while in the Party and then recontacted in writing your book We Want Freedom? Can you also comment on the little-remembered FBI-directed repression faced by Panther women, and their brilliance in DEFEATING frame-ups, like Afeni Shakur and Ericka Huggins. Incidentally, Ericka is now a self-identified queer woman and a wonderful community activist, change-maker, and healer in Oakland whom we’ve interviewed several times on Out-FM.
MUMIA: Well, I’ve spoken about it. I don’t know if I say that in We Want Freedom, but I hear a lot of comments about the chapter I wrote about women. The women really were the glory of the Party. And I mean, they were the Party’s hardest workers, the most disciplined members and leaders. And you know, a lot of times when a brother would go around the corner, and even though it’s against orders, as he would smoke a joint or have a drink, the sisters were there early every morning to open the office or to open the Free Breakfast Program and make sure that the people got served first. They were the first to open and the last to leave. They were the glory of the Party.
And you talk about Afeni. I quoted from her closing argument to the jury in the Panther 21 trial. It’s difficult, even all of these years later, for me to read that without weeping, because she was brilliant. She was the best lawyer, because she understood how to talk to people and to reach them and to, you know, unwrap their fear and to open their hearts. And that was hard work back then. She did it effortlessly. She was brilliant.
And, you know, Ericka: Most people knew of Ericka by reading her poems, right? Her poems just touch the heart and move people in ways that a hard, didactic, analytical, theoretical article could not. She knew how to reach people right, and especially with the tragedy of the loss of her husband, John.
The sisters were the glory of the Party, and in many ways, they remained so even after they left the Party, because they still organized in the community. They still – I mean, there’s no Black Panther Party formally right now, but they do the work that they were trained to do when they were young sisters, and they’re still active in the world, explaining changes in the world, helping the community cope with its many, many challenges. And they were glorious. They were and are glorious sisters.
Moving forward in time, in 1991 I was part of a New York group of white activists called Queers United in Support of Political Prisoners or QUISP that organized an event to educate and mobilize the queer community to write letters opposing Mumia’s execution. We wrote to Mumia to see if he was OK with this. He wrote that he appreciated and encouraged our event, but needed to inform us that “As a MOVE person, we see Heterosexual Hookups as natural and inherently right.” He also wrote that he hoped we didn’t feel disrespected. We went ahead with the event, urging the community to fight Mumia’s unjust conviction and death sentence. This started a long-term dialogue with Mumia by LGBTQ activists nationwide that played a role in his later evolution.
Our keynote speaker at that 1991 QUISP event was Dhoruba bin Wahad, the former Black Panther and member of the clandestine Black Liberation Army, fresh from his release after 19 years of FBI-orchestrated false imprisonment. Dhoruba, a heterosexual Black Muslim, gave an amazing speech – replayed on Pacifica radio stations – calling for the lesbian and gay movement to support the freedom of Mumia and all U.S. political prisoners. Dhoruba included these powerful observations and credited his raised consciousness on sexism and homophobia to his then-partner Tanaquil Jones:
[From Dhoruba’s speech:]
It has been a struggle for me, since my release, to arrive at a principled position around the issue of homophobia and sexism. It is an ongoing struggle on my part. I’m still learning. I feel that it is very important, if we are to build a movement, to deal concretely and in a principled way with the issues of sexism and homophobia…..
As a Black revolutionary who has struggled and continues to struggle on the core issues of Black liberation, I cannot but conclude that if we are to be successful, we have to deal with sexism head on. It is not something that can be swept under the rug. It is not something that we can postpone until tomorrow, pending revolutionary victory….
After long and arduous struggle with Tanaquil, I could only conclude that the issue of misogyny and the issue of homophobia are very much interwoven. Therefore, it is impossible to struggle against sexism – against Black women or white women, or in society at large – without simultaneously struggling against homophobia. I now find myself constantly struggling with brothers in the Black movement in this respect. Very few of them see the issue of homophobia as being an issue that has to be addressed with principle. Surely we cannot build a new society if we premise that society on the oppression of other people.
Later you will hear Mumia refer back to Dhoruba’s support for lesbian and gay liberation.
Now returning to the interview.
[INTERVIEW]
BOB: Mumia, can you reflect back on your views – now I’m asking you about 33 years ago – in 1991 when you told QUISP about your belief that “heterosexual hookups” were the only natural ones? So three questions about that:
a. What was the basis of your views at the time?
b. How have your views evolved in the 33 years since then, and who and what influenced your evolution?
c. Where do you situate the liberation of queers and trans people in the larger context of human liberation?
MUMIA: When I was writing to QUISP, I was writing from the perspective of a MOVE supporter and someone who was following the teachings of John Africa, and really what was a naturalist revolutionary movement, as opposed to a nationalist one. But what we learned, right, when we study revolution, is that all things change, and that means perceptions, it means perspectives, it means even vision. Like, you know, we see and experience things differently.
One of the things that I don’t believe you have read, even though you’ve done extensive research of course, is one of the last statements of Delbert Africa. I believe I put it in a commentary that I did, shortly before he came out of prison. And this is like, you know, one of the elder brothers of the movement, one of the really clearest thinkers, best speakers and best known of MOVE people, and he made a clarion call to LGBT people. It surprised me to read that, but he was doing that in the context of what? [With] the Black Lives Matter movement that was surging several years ago, we began to understand that the leaders of that movement tended to be gay men and lesbian women. And they were doing some real hellified organizing about the matter of Black life under the threat of police terror. And we hadn’t seen any kind of organizing like that in years, in decades. So, you give credit where credit is due, and they were due, and they continue to be due, tremendous credit for their organizing around the simple principle of black life, and it took courage –
At that point, the prison phone system automatically cut off at the 15-minute limit. Fortunately, Mumia was able to call back later.
Some context on Delbert Africa, whose support for lesbians and gay men Mumia mentioned. Delbert was a highly respected leading member of the MOVE organization who had previously been close to the Black Panthers in Chicago. MOVE is a Philadelphia naturalist group that embraces environmentalism, anti-capitalism, and liberation of oppressed peoples while it campaigns against government injustice and supports armed self-defense. In 1978, Delbert became one of the MOVE 9, railroaded to life in prison for murder after the Philadelphia police fired hundreds of rounds into MOVE’s house, ending with the killing of a police officer, likely due to so-called “friendly fire.” They were convicted in a grossly prejudicial trial, similar to Mumia’s two years later. After Delbert’s arrest, three police officers savagely beat and kicked him, leaving him seriously injured. The video of that attack became famous worldwide. Police attacks on MOVE continued, and in 1985 MOVE’s house was subjected to an FBI-supported aerial bombing, killing 11 members, five of them children, including Delbert’s 13-year-old daughter Delisha.
After decades of campaigning, 7 of the MOVE 9 were granted parole one by one – in Delbert’s case in 2020 after 42 years in prison – but Merle Africa and Phil Africa both died in prison at ages 47 and 59, under circumstances MOVE described as “beyond suspicious.” Delbert died of cancer at age 74, five months after his release.
In the years after that 1991 QUISP event, Mumia expressed growing clarity about issues of queer oppression. Meanwhile in the late ‘70s, several MOVE women doing jail time for feisty protest activities, including Pam Africa, one of the MOVE leaders, spoke out against the abuse of jailed lesbians and trans women. In the ‘90s, Pam Africa defended lesbian and gay supporters of Mumia from exclusionary behavior by other activists. Similarly, Mumia’s direct interactions with gay and trans prisoners have sharpened his awareness of anti-queer and anti-trans oppression.
[INTERVIEW:]
Finally, Mumia, I’d like to ask you about homophobia and transphobia within the prisons where you’ve been held, both from the staff and the other incarcerated men. Can you share any observations or conversations you’ve had over your 42 years in prison with gay men or trans women that have nourished your understanding of what they’re subjected to and their overall situation in prison?
MUMIA: Well, you know, being in many ways, a blockhead and a nerd, I used to think that for a gay or even a trans man in prison would be a touch of heaven. It’s quite the reverse. They catch hell from prisoners and staff alike. So think about the alienation in isolation that breathes in such a person. I’ve seen people – literally seen them – try to commit suicide by jumping off of a rail onto the floor. If you hit your head or your neck, you can kill yourself, and I’ve seen that several times, in several places, in several prisons. Prison, by its nature, breeds isolation in human beings and atomizes them to the extent that it further isolates and separates them. And for trans and gay men in prison, it’s a hell in a hell, you know? They get the worst of it.
And I think the only people who really get worse – the worst treatment in prison – are jailhouse lawyers, because they tend to challenge the system and try to transform how prisons function. But it’s not a good place. It can never be a good place. It’s not designed to be a good place, and everything about it really works through the destruction of human and social relationships.
BOB: Wow. Any last words as we wrap up?
MUMIA: I want to thank you for your long support and your correspondence, and I applaud you as well.
BOB: Thank you so much. Be well, and let’s free Mumia right away!
MUMIA: Thank you, thank you.
Again, I’m Bob Lederer and you’ve been listening to my recent phone interview with political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal.
In recent years, Mumia has become increasingly outspoken about queer and trans issues. In 2000, he wrote an insightful and moving commentary denouncing the recent brutal murders of three white gay men: Matthew Shepard in Wyoming in 1998, Billy Jack Gaither in Alabama and Eddie Northington in Virginia, both in 1999. He was responding to an LGBT campaign in support of his freedom called Rainbow Flags for Mumia.
Here’s Mumia reading for Out-FM his statement from 24 years earlier.
[play Mumia commentary – from: https://www.workers.org/2022/06/64531/ ]
You’re listening to the text of a letter I wrote to the newspaper called Workers World while I was on death row.
The sickening attacks on gay people in cities across the nation recently is a reflection of the sickness that simmers at the core of the American soul. It is here that a truly perverse hatred is bred, and from here that all attacks are launched against all who are seen as Other.
This violence, which seems psychosexual in nature, is an attack on the self, that seeks to destroy a part of the self that threatens the self. From Matthew Shepard, to Alabama, to that bloody American ground that was once the seat of the Confederacy, Richmond, violence, spawned by the dark pit of hatred and fear, is unleashed by men who claim a false and twisted “purity.”
More often than not, those who find themselves attacking gay folks violently are replaying a violence that they grew up with, or that they continue to act out of, against their family or children.
Is it a coincidence that Richmond, the city where a Black man was burned to death and decapitated, is followed several months later with the decapitation and torture of a gay man? I think not.
This cruel and savage violence must be stopped — but it won’t be the cops that stop it, for they are the agents of legalized state violence. The brutality that occurs in their own homes daily, the recent spate of cops who kill their wives and kids, more than proves it.
The people are the solution! So my thanks to the Rainbow! Ona Move! To Freedom! Free the Move 9!
In 2019, Mumia released a commentary denouncing a wave of murders of Black trans women.
[play Mumia commentary] https://www.prisonradio.org/commentary/when-trans-women-die/
In recent weeks, we have seen naked violence unleashed against trans women, directed against them by the state in the form of police beating and by rightist forces in this emerging fascist movement in America.
What does this mean? Why now? I believe it comes now for a specific strategic purpose, for trans women stand on the periphery of the gay rights movement, not its nucleus. This means they are isolated and as such targeted by rightist forces to isolate them further.
We must not forget that they are, after all, Black folks in the land and at an era where and when black life remains cheap. Now add Black, gay, and transgender. See where the analysis goes? And if it’s Black trans women today, it’ll be Black straight women tomorrow and Black children soon thereafter.
That’s the nature of the fascist beast: attack those who seem weak, isolate them, destroy them. Since Charlottesville, we’ve seen the emergence of rightist racist forces that are committed to destroying Black life and to proving that Black lives don’t matter.
The lines of Black people are the literal foundation not just of America but all of us. We need to build a radical movement that protects all of us, for all of us can consign such racist violence to the trash heaps of history.
From Imprisoned Nation, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.
These commentaries are recorded by Noelle Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
Clearly, Mumia’s views on LGBTQ people have dramatically evolved over the past fifty years. One of those who has dialogued with him since the 1990s about queer issues has been Noelle Hanrahan, a white anti-imperialist activist who cofounded Prison Radio, prisonradio.org, a group working to include the voices of incarcerated people in the public debate. Prison Radio has recorded over 3,000 of Mumia’s radio essays and published his latest trilogy, Murder Inc. Hanrahan is an attorney and private investigator and works with Mumia’s criminal defense and medical defense teams.
[Noelle’s commentary, created and recorded for this show:]
My name is Noel Hanrahan. I am gay. A lesbian. Butch. Old. I was always a lesbian. But I was not always old. You know, short cropped white hair, nearly invisible, chubby private eye/lawyer. Back in the day, as a radio reporter, I just showed up. Unrepentant, and actually quite proud. I was a product of my wildly radical San Francisco community, Out of Control–Lesbian Committee to Support Women Political Prisoners and Women Against Imperialism. In the 80’s, it was dangerous to be queer. Today to be LGBTQ or non-binary is still risky.
You might know me as the person who cofounded Prison Radio and who liberated Mumia Abu-Jamal’s voice from prison. I was 25 when I brought my tape recorder to death row SCI Huntingdon. Jennifer Beach was the photographer on that trip. Jennifer and I were comrades and mothers to our daughter Miranda, born in the lesbian baby boom.
I “came out to Mumia” on my second recording trip in 1992. Sitting across from him, I said you know the committee in San Francisco that is your defense committee has 10 women on it. 7 are lesbians. He was shocked, yet open. I told him Alice Walker was bi, Angela Davis was a lesbian, Bayard Rustin, James Baldwin were gay.
He was profoundly curious. Warm. He asked “Why?” I said, “we’re deeply oppressed by this society and those of us who are revolutionaries see our liberation bound intrinsically with yours.”
Mumia, while complicated, is one of the warmest persons I have ever met. Mumia Abu-Jamal’s instinctual curiosity and warm wonder, his lack of judgment or distance and harshness, kept me coming back. I see him 3-4 times a month, strategizing about his freedom, because when we love we win, when we survive we win, when we fight we win.
Again, that was Noelle Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
As we end this program, here are two important ways you can join the demand for Mumia to get proper health care and nutrition — and especially to grant him freedom.
First, write and call officials of the Pennsylvania prison system, demanding that Mumia – who had open-heart surgery three years ago – be given his prescribed diet and exercise, as should all prisoners.
Second, demand that Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro grant clemency to 70-year-old Mumia and all elderly prisoners in the state. For contact info and more details, visit https://outfm.org/liberation/ or bit.ly/MAJUpdates.
And that’s the end of our special program on Mumia Abu-Jamal and LGBTQ liberation.
I want to first thank the amazing Mumia Abu-Jamal for two wonderful interviews. Special thanks to two dedicated Free Mumia activists, Dr. Suzanne Ross of International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia, and Noelle Hanrahan of PrisonRadio.org, for conceptual input and for arranging the interviews and recordings of Mumia’s commentaries. Also thanks to Noelle and Johanna Fernandez of the Campaign to Bring Mumia Home for recording special messages for this program, to Pam Africa and Dawn Reel for background information, and to Nathaniel Moore and Claude Marks of the Freedom Archives for providing the audio of Dhoruba Bin Wahad. And thanks to my Out-FM colleague and husband John Riley for recording the interview and providing expert technical and production support, as well as to my two collectives, Out-FM and Resistance in Brooklyn, for advice, and to Betsy Mickel for copy-editing. And thanks to WBAI studio engineer Max Schmid. Our closing music will be “Never a Prisoner! Free Mumia,” by Rebel Diaz. I’m Bob Lederer. Thanks for listening to Out-FM. This show is archived, with more information and links, at outfm.org. That’s outfm.org. Thanks for listening. [Also thanks to Noelle Hanrahan and Tyus Patterson for help with transcribing Mumia’s responses to the questions.]
[Closing music: Never a Prisoner! (Free Mumia), by Rebel Diaz]
https://rebeldiaz.bandcamp.com/track/never-a-prisoner-free-mumia
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