"A rare and courageous voice speaking from a place we fear to know: Mumia Abu-Jamal must be heard." -- Alice Walker
"A tough, true, timely book. You cannot read it and remain unmoved." -- E.L. Doctorow
"Everyone interested in justice should read the words of this innocent man." -- William M. Kunstler
Mumia is served with a Misconduct Report by prison authorities for writing Live from Death Row !
Mumia Abu-Jamal may be the most celebrated death row inmate in America. In 1982 he was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of Philadelphia police office Daniel Faulkner. Since then, from his cell on Pennsylvania's death row, he has been on the forefront of the crusade against racism and political bias in the American judicial system. Last year his scheduled commentaries for National Public Radio's All Things Considered caused such controversy -- many believed that NPR was giving a monster a soapbox -- that they were abruptly canceled. NPR's decision generated outrage and sparked nationwide debates about censorship, capital punishment, and Abu-Jamal's right to speak out.
Here for the first time are the prison writings of Abu-Jamal, including the unreleased NPR commentaries. Live from Death Row is an unflinching account of the brutalities, humiliations, and atrocities of prison life -- the full body-cavity searches before each visit, the smell of charred flesh from a fellow inmate who can take no more of "the hole" and burns himself to death, the outrage of a young daughter who, because of enforced separation by glass during visits, has not touched her father in twelve years. It is also an eloquent examination of the death penalty and a powerful call for justice by a man - unlike any of the others who have written on the subject - who has the most to lose.
Marking the first time that the American public hears from the other side of death row's wall, Abu-Jamal's raw and impassioned writing is certain to fuel the controversy surrounding the death penalty and freedom of speech.
Before his conviction, Mumia Abu-Jamal covered community development and culture as a radio reporter in Philadelphia and was president of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists. His writings have been published in The Nation and the Yale Law Review. He is a former Black Panther and supporter of the radical group MOVE.
Published 1995 by Addison-Wesley Publishing Company. ISBN 0-201-48319-X
$20 US, $25 Canada. Available in bookstores now.
[posted summer 1995]
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