Dave Zirin, June 17, 2025
After 44 Years Behind Bars, Mumia Abu-Jamal Is Seeing This Country Become What Pundits Are Afraid To Admit
“The truth of the matter is that there has always been rhetoric about due process, the right to a jury of one’s peers, and other protections offered by the constitution. But it doesn’t matter what the constitution says, what matters is what it does. There is rhetoric and there is reality, and those two rivers rarely meet. When I hear about due process, my mind automatically goes not to me and my case but to Fred Hampton, the former chairman of the Chicago chapter of the Black Panther Party, who was killed in his bed by the government for being a Black Panther… I was one of four Panthers from Philadelphia who traveled to Chicago immediately after hearing of his assassination and we stood within two feet of his blood-soaked mattress, and not far from the door that looked like Swiss cheese because automatic weapon fire had ripped through it in the early hours of the morning. Due process, my ass.”
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Hello folks. Here’s the interview I did with Mumia Abu-Jamal, after spending three hours with him at Mahanoy state prison in Frackville, Pennsylvania. We don’t talk about his case. Instead Mumia, now 71, answers questions about the disaster that is this country and the continuity that got us here.
The interview is in Rolling Stone, which matters because it means a broader audience beyond the committed left will hear what he has to say. I really want to thank The Nation Magazine for seeing that getting Mumia’s words in Rolling Stone mattered and gave me the clearance to pitch to them. I also really want to thank Rolling Stone and editor Elisabeth Garber-Paul because even though they rightly had edit down my hot-headed, interventionist intro, not one word, not one point of Mumia’s was softened. And most importantly two people: attorney Noelle Hanrahan and the Abolitionist Law Project. And of course, thank you to Mumia Abu-Jamal for the trust.
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