Mumia Abu-Jamal

In the late 1970s, Abu-Jamal worked as a reporter for radio stations throughout the Delaware Valley. He was a staff reporter for WUHY (now WHYY), the NPR flagship station, and he filed nationally for All Things Considered and the Morning Report. Along with his team at Philadelphia’s WUHY, he won the prestigious Major Armstrong Award (1980) from Columbia University for excellence in broadcasting. In 1981, Abu-Jamal was elected president of the Association of Black Journalists’ Philadelphia chapter.

For the past 38 years, Abu-Jamal has lived in state prison. 28 of those years were spent in solitary confinement on death row. Currently, he’s serving life without parole at SCI Mahanoy in Frackville, PA. Abu-Jamal’s 1982 trial and its resultant first-degree murder conviction have been criticized as unconstitutionally corrupt by legal and activist groups for decades, including by Amnesty International and Nobel Laureates Nelson Mandela, Toni Morrison, and Desmond Tutu.

Abu-Jamal has earned overwhelming international support. His demand for a new trial and for freedom is supported by the European Parliament. He has been made an honorary citizen of Paris, France.

Abu-Jamal earned his BA at Goddard College in 1996; his MA from California State University, Dominguez Hills in 1999; and an honorary Doctorate of Law from the New College of California in 1996. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in the History of Consciousness at the University of California, Santa Cruz.