A view from death row
US political prisoner MUMIA ABU-JAMAL was interviewed in January by JACK HEYMAN for the US International Longshore and Warehouse Union's journal, the Dispatcher. It has been abridged here. Abu-Jamal, a radical African-American journalist, was charged in 1981 for the murder of a Philadelphia cop. Despite gross inconsistencies in witnesses' evidence and other anomalies, Abu-Jamal was convicted and sentenced to death. There is a growing movement in the US and around the world to demand a new trial.
Question: West Coast maritime employers used cops and courts to intimidate labour activist picketers and the ILWU from demonstrating international solidarity [with the sacked Liverpool dockers] in the Neptune Jade case. We won by organising a broad united front of individuals concerned with the erosion of democratic and labour rights, mobilising maritime and other workers for action here and around the world. Do you think similar tactics could be applied in your defence?
I think a "broad united front" may prove effective in labour actions, human rights movements and on broader social issues. Can it be applied in my case? Yes. The efforts of the state are designed to isolate us, to construct barriers between us. All that we can do to demolish those walls is to the good.
Question: You joined the Black Panther Party (BPP) in the 1960s at the age of 15, and held the position of minister of information. Some 10 years later you were an activist in and elected president of the Association of Black Journalists in Philadelphia. As a working journalist, you exposed racism and police brutality. Do you think the police targeted you because of your work as a journalist?
There is no question that I was known and hated [by the police] for my work as much as for my history. Moreover, the district attorney fought frantically — and the clever judge denied him every time, because it might have resulted in reversal of the conviction on appeal — to introduce, at every phase of the trial, my BPP background to the predominantly white jury.
Question: Did the release from prison of former Black Panther leader Geronimo ji Jaga [Pratt] and the exposure of the FBI's counter-intelligence program of frame-ups and killing of black activists give you some hope for justice?
I have to admit that it did. It truly was a glorious breath of fresh air. Geronimo ji Jaga was imprisoned, in the words of state parole officials, because he was "still a revolutionary". If that's the case, is it logical to suggest that he was the only one? The MOVE 9 were encaged over 20 years ago because they were and remain revolutionaries. There are scores of ex-Panthers and others who remain encaged across the United States.
Question: Judge Sabo, who presided over your trial, was known as the "king of death row" for having handed down more death sentences than any other judge in this country. Since he has been forced into retirement, has this increased your chance for a fair trial?
Unfortunately, no. The state system allowed him to do his damage, and then retired him. As a life member of the FOP [Fraternal Order of Police], he was well placed to do their bidding. The courts have found that my membership in the BPP justified my death, but when Sabo was challenged by defence counsel about his membership in the FOP, his response was that he was only a member "for a few years". Well, I was only a member of the BPP for "a few years", but it was sufficient to form an unofficial aggravating circumstance to demand my death.
Question: In 1995, the scandal of the Philadelphia police department was front page news across the US — framing up of innocent people, corruption and police brutality were exposed. About 300 convictions were thrown out and many innocent victims were set free. This was followed by an exposé of routine jury rigging by the Philadelphia district attorney's office to exclude blacks. Tell us a few of the more egregious violations you suffered during your arrest, imprisonment and trial.
The police department and the DA's office has [dishonestly] said that neither I nor my brother were beaten. They then constructed a false "confession" after claiming they had forgotten I had made it for a few months. They rejected almost every potential black juror that came through the door. They assembled a jury composed of friends and families of cops, tried me before a member of the FOP and arranged an appeal before an appeals court where one "justice" — the same one who served as DA on my direct appeal — admitted at least five other judges had accepted FOP "support" in their election campaigns.
Question: San Francisco ILWU Local 10's constitution cops bars cops from becoming members of our union because of the murderous role they played in the 1934 west coast maritime strike, killing six workers. When a benefit was held for your defence in July 1995, at the Philadelphia Hospital and Health Care Workers Union Local 1199C, 300 armed cops besieged the union hall screaming for your execution. Do you think that police brutality, particularly against blacks, is part of a larger system of repression?
Police brutality against African-Americans has an historic component that can be traced to after the civil war. "Paddy-rollers" was the term fugitive slaves used to describe the vicious slave-catchers who dogged their trails. A century later, police wagons were called "paddy wagons": an allusion to their common history and role.
Police are agents of the ruling class, and, as such, soldiers who serve its interests. They exist, not to protect the people, but to protect capital.
What role do they perform when workers strike? What role do they perform when the people demonstrate against social injustice? What function did they perform when young brothers like Fred Hampton and Mark Clark were building the Chicago chapter of the Black Panther Party? What role were they playing when they bombed men, women and children in the MOVE House in south-west Philadelphia on May 13, 1985?
The job of the police is to wage war against the people, and to instill terror against anyone who resists the system.
Question: Twenty-five per cent of young black men are under the control of the so-called criminal justice system, either incarcerated, paroled or on trial. Is this phenomenon related to the polarisation of capitalist society with the rich getting richer, the poor poorer, increased joblessness, homelessness, the "war on drugs" — in short a social disenfranchisement of part of the working class?
When I read Frances Fox-Piven's The New Class War: Reagan's Attack on the Welfare State and its Consequences, I learned some important things about how the fate of the desperately poor folks barely surviving on welfare is closely linked with the fate of the workers.
She explains: "Income-maintenance benefits [welfare] support wage levels despite high unemployment. The reason is simple. If the desperation of the unemployed is moderated by the availability of various benefits, they will be less eager to take any job on any terms. In other words, an industrial reserve army of labour with unemployment benefits and food stamps is a less effective instrument with which to deflate wage and workplace demands."
The state understands that if it can divide labour against the poor, it can cut the legs off both groups. Attacks on welfare programs are really an attack on the working class, hidden under an attack on the poor. Many workers can't recognise that their interests are allied to those on welfare.
The "war on drugs" is also a justification for what really is a war on the poor. Most drugs are used by people of means — and for them there is the Betty Ford Clinic. For the poor, it's the prison cell. A grim, deadly end that punishes the poor for their flight from the horror of their daily existence at the bottom of the social order.
Question: Why is the US the only industrialised power remaining that uses capital punishment?
The US is distinct because of its distinct history. When one examines the history of say, Canada, one sees a prison system that is drastically different. Why is that? Canada's history differs in the crucial area of slavery. The US criminal (in)justice system is lineally descended from that horrific history. It taints the system, just like it taints consciousness.
Question: Where does your struggle go from here?
The struggle goes on, as must the struggle for freedom, for liberation, and for a people's justice that only the people can give.
For the latest news on the campaign to free Mumia Abu-Jamal, visit .