Prison Radio
Mumia Abu-Jamal

“Moving Toward Justice.”

We are right. For the first time in years, our forces are building again, cohering again, marching again. In California, an all-star roster of activists, writers, and revolutionaries are coming together, marking a new period: a time of freedom.

We’re not saying nor suggesting that the movement has been quiescent, no, for it hasn’t been. It has fought the good fight for life and health that has had national impact in prison systems literally across the country.

I’m speaking here of the state’s attempt to deny treatment for Hepatitis C, an affliction that touches the lives of at least some 700,000 men and women in America’s crowded prisons. Our people filled courtrooms and hit the streets to demand change and antiviral treatment for Hep C suffers like me. They demanded change, and made change that continues to radiate across America.

A black doctor, an internist from New York, Dr. Joseph Harris, took the stand and taught the world about Hep C. This passion-informed analysis of Hep C demolished the DOC’s obstruction to treatment and opened the door to new precedents for Hep C sufferers.

With the help of our lawyers, Brett Grote and Robert Boyle, established a new legal precedent that has helped thousands of imprisoned Hep C sufferers all across America live longer and healthier lives.

Your support made it possible. Now in California, we are continuing the march towards freedom, for soon, you will hear from some friends of our movement on the steps to come.

People like Angela Davis, who herself years ago faced multiple death penalty charges until she was freed. Groundbreaking she is: an abolitionist and an anti-incarceration scholar and founder of Critical Resistance, a group that continues to fight against the prison-industrial complex.

Alice Walker, a literary lion and womanist feminist activist and icon.

Judith Ritter, Widener University Law School professor and author of several law review articles on criminal justice.

Pam Africa, MOVE’s Minister of Confrontation and founder of the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Jeff Mackler, editor of Socialist Action Newspaper and radical activist who has worked life-long on behalf of people’s movements and struggles from anti-imperial war and to the historic Lynne Stewart fight for freedom to our own.

Professor Ula Taylor, African-American Studies professor at UC Santa Barbara, who has taught prisoners at Lompoc.

And Stephen Bingham. Remember the young dude who the cop said some of old, a weapon and to George Jackson when he was in Soledad? That that’s the dude! He spent 13 years in France before he came back, went to trial, and was acquitted. Attorney, recently retired, Stephen Bingham.

Voices of resistance, of rebellion, of new life, and of freedom. We are rising. The scent of freedom is in the air. This is our time to mobilize, to build, to create social change. This is the time, and we are that change. Won’t you join us?

From imprisoned nation, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.

These commentaries are recorded by Noelle Hanrahan of Prison Radio.