BLACK PRISON WRITING

PROUDFLESH: A New Afrikan Journal of Culture, Politics & Consciousness

ISSN: 1543-0855

Issue 5 (2007)

Mumia Abu-Jamal

[NOTE: A recent university course offered by the editor of PROUD FLESH offered at the graduate and undergraduate level, “Black Prison Writing” would contact and correspond with Mumia Abu-Jamal in Spring 2005. En route to our reading of his We Want Freedom: A Life in the Black Panther Party (South End Press, 2004), five questions were sent by the instructor to him—via an activist acquaintance in France; and he responded with tha goodnuss. Afterwards, many students chose an assignment for which they were to write him personally, about We Want Freedom, on his birthday. Amazing us, he wrote to us again as a collective unit and, later, even individually. The two letters that he wrote “Black Prison Writing” as a whole are reproduced here with his permission. Thank you, again, Mumia Abu-Jamal!!!]

——

LLJA!

3/15/05

Prof. Greg Thomas
Dept. of English
408 Hall of Languages
Syracuse University
Syracuse, NY 13244

Dear Prof. Thomas: Ona Move!

I thank you for inviting me, through Diaphara, to answer these questions about some of my work. As my answers may suggest, I’d be delighted to answer your queries. First, however, let me thank you for utilizing my latest work, WE WANT FREEDOM, in your upcoming undergraduate and graduate courses. May it move and enlighten your students! And now;

Answers

1) The significance of George Jackson today, in an era of exploding prison populations.

I would like to suggest that George Jackson’s thinking is alive and well in the minds and hearts of many (especially African-American) prisoners. However, this is simply not so. While George undeniably remains a powerful presence in my mind, and in the collective consciousness of men who are 40+ years old, the same cannot be said about younger men, especially those who can be called aficionados of hip hop/rap. Indeed, they may be more down with Michael Jackson than George Jackson—or even Freddie Jackson! That’s because younger Black brothers grow up in a hideous deficit of Black Revolutionary history, and George, the baddest brother of them all, remains sequestered in the realm of hidden, as in forbidden, knowledge. I believe he will re-emerge, à la Malcolm (circa the ’80s), but it will take work to make it “real” to them. I will discuss and example my thesis further in a later answer.

2) As a prolific writer, what’s your motivation?

It’s simple, to me. A writer writes. From the time I was a teenager, working on The Black Panther newspaper, I got a thrill from reading (especially Eldridge’s stuff!), and, like my hero, I wanted to write. Years later, as I was actually re-reading Eldridge—after decades!—I recognized the profound debt I owed to Eldridge for my style, “my” voice. . . . Truth be told, it is “our” voice; a voice I honed as a youngster being swept by the passion and grandiloquence of the Minister of Information. He used words like a weapon of holy war! (Altho’ I’d doubt he’d admit, at least until his last years, I’m fairly certain that his influence was James Baldwin—hmmmmmmm.)

My motivation, however, is to break through the walls . . . to reach beyond; to touch; to share; to be, in defiance of the State, which says, “not to be.” This is, in a way, a form of freedom; one which was expressly forbidden to my ancestors; and, specifically, to me as well, until I won a suit against the prison.

Further, the essays in Live from Death Row were, for the most part, pieces written for small, revolutionary or regional publications. To put them in a book would be to give them a new, and more extended, life!

Two of my books (Faith of Our Fathers and WE WANT FREEDOM) were born in a school; as coursework that, once graded, grew into broader, deeper, and more developed works. My motivation for WE WANT FREEDOM, however, hearkens back to my earlier answer (and, indeed, this was the original introduction to WE WANT FREEDOM, until the publishers got the intro written by Kathleen!) . . .

A young brotha, straight from the hells of North Philly, came up to Huntington’s Death Row. He strolled up to me, and the following exchange took place:

Y.D.: [for “Young Dude”]: Yo! Hey, Oldhead! Lemme holla atcha!

O.D.: [for “Old Dude” (me)]: Huh? You talkin’ to me?

Y.D.: Yeah, Oldhead—I heard you was wit’ dem dudes, the Black Panthers—rite?

O.D.: Yeah—so?

Y.D.: So—what was y’all into? What was y’all doin’? Sellin’ drugs? Killin’ cops? What?

O.D.: Whoa, dude? Who are you? [eyeing suspiciously]

Y.D.: They call me Ron-Ron—so, what’s up?

O.D.: And who told you to get wit’ me?

Y.D.: My bitch’s mama: she said you new her back then!

O.D.: Your—? What’s your woman’s mama’s name?

Y.D.: Her name Linda; she said you’d know her as “Kamilah” . . . so, what’s up?

O.D.: Well, I’m sure she put you down. What did she tell you?

Y.D.: I ain’t tryna hear what no bitches say! That’s why I’m gettin’ wit’ you! Now, what’s up?

O.D.: Well—can you read?

Y.D.: Shit, yeah, nigga! I can read! I ain’t no retard! Whatchu think I’m stupid or somethin’? I can probably read better than you!

O.D.: Hey, young man; I don’t know you; there’s a lotta dudes up here who can’t read. I was just checkin’ ’cause I wanted you to check out some books. If you got any questions after you read them, get wit’ me, solid?

I gave him a copy of Huey’s Revolutionary Suicide. Not because I thought he would read it, but as a test of whether he would not. When he saw me in the yard a few days later, his whole mood had changed; from haughty 20-something arrogance, to something approaching reverence for the people who built and struggled in the Party:

Y.D.: Damn, Oldhead! God Damn! Y’all was rollin’ like that? Way back then? Damn! I had no idea! Y’all was rollin’strong!

His appetite was (and remains) insatiable for the history of our people’s resistance and struggle. He grew up in the heart of North Philly, perhaps 2 miles away from what was the state headquarters of the BPP; and didn’t know a thing. And, as he suggested, he wasn’t stupid, just uninformed. He came from a generation that thought drug-dealing and hustling were radical. He despised women. He was a student of Central High (among Philly’s best), Community College, and Temple University; yet, he hadn’t the slightest idea that just blocks away, when his mom and pop were youngsters, the Black Panthers were rollin’. It is with him, and his generation, in mind that I wrote WE WANT FREEDOM. For, if we don’t teach ’em, how will they know?

3) What are the logistics of your work?

Each work was done differently. Live from Death Row was, quite literally, by hand, with a “flex pen,” or the inner tube of a Bic-type pen (tho’ shorter), with a flexible outer tube. It was like writin’ with spaghetti. (We used to get tape, and a postcard, or magazine covers, and tape them around the barrel, to make it firm enough to write.) For Faith of Our Fathers, I wrote out the text by hand, and then sent it to several women who were friends, to type it out (and proofread it) for me. By the time WE WANT FREEDOM was born, the jail allowed typewriters in; and I typed out the drafts myself. I am a determined and consistent note-taker. I take extensive notes from my readings, and keep them within arm’s length.

There is, as you suspect, a method to my madness. As a political person, who understands the class (and racist) nature of the prison, it is necessary to organize, to the extent possible, even (especially) in the dungeons. Writing, especially the truth about the nature of those joints, is an important tool to organizing. That’s why the State, thru their prison minions, and the FOP [Fraternal Order of Police], tried so desperately to kill Live from Death Row. It is still opening eyes and minds, ten years later!

Prison, even Death Row, is, ultimately, just a place; another place to struggle. Malcolm wasn’t on Death Row; and yet he was. Huey wasn’t on Death Row; and yet he was. As Huey wrote, “we are all mortally ill; the question is not how we shall die; but how we shall live!” The question is not “how can I write from Death Row” It is: How can I not?

4) Why remember Safiya?

Safiya, who, as Sister Bernice, was my boss when I was at the Ministry of Information in the Bronx, was a sho’ nuff, “no limit” soldier. And, as the bourgeoisie media wanted to do pieces on our “lighter-complected” sistas of the BPP, nobody gave Safiya her props, when she did it all—often above and beyond what most brothers were willing to do.

I knew I would write about sistas, and I knew that her example touched me the deepest, and as I “sampled” her writings in much of it, I returned her special voice to the prominence in our movement that it deserved. I actually thought a good reception to WE WANT FREEDOM would create the conditions for all of her writings to be published. I knew she’d been tryin’ for almost a decade to get it out, but to no avail. Nice, safe liberals don’t wanna hear ’bout no BLA [Black Liberation Army]—led by sistas! She should be remembered as a tough, determined, disciplined revolutionary. As she would say: “A revolutionary has no gender.” She didn’t speak that truth; she lived that truth. I thought more folks should know, and celebrate, her remarkable contribution.

5) What’s up with international organizing of African folks?

This is an urgent necessity, cuz (to quote an old reggae riddim) “who feels it knows it.” To be Black on this earth, whether we are in Georgetown or Johannesburg is a hell that only Black folks really know. That kind of gross, globalized hatred and racism, born in white supremacy (organized as capitalism) gives us a powerful incentive to organize ourselves, and to work for a New World where Black folks are truly free. That work is ahead of us.

If we are the world’s most oppressed people (and I have little doubt that we are), we should be mightily motivated to transform that grim reality. Only we can do it. It’s as simple as that. We can, and should, have allies; but, if history has taught us anything, it is that allies have their interests; and Africans have theirs too; and sometimes they don’t merge, bruh!

Just one final word/illustration; I gotta letta last week from a young white boy who was reading Min. Louis Farrakhan, Malcolm X, Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, and myself; and he was really moved by this stuff. So he puts together a class presentation about what he learned, and his teacher called him a “racist!” Ain’t that a blip? In a white supremacist state, to speak of, and point to, racism is racist. Go figure.

It has been my pleasure, man. Again, my thanx for you and your classes’ extremely good taste.

Alla Best! Ona Move!

Mumia Abu-Jamal
#AM-8335
175 Progress Dr.
Waynesburg, PA 15370

——

LLJA!

3/15/05

Prof. Greg Thomas
Dept. of English
408 Hall of Languages
Syracuse University
Syracuse, NY 13244

Ona Move, Greg;

How are ya, man?

I can’t say I wasn’t totally blown away by the package from your students (rec’d today). I was blown away! I thank you for sharing their letters with me. I hadda ball reading them, and my only regret is that I simply can’t write everybody back, a nice 5-pp. letta, fulla book notes, and citations to stuff that I want ’em to read! (I’m workin’ ona new book, and it’s got me gripped up, mentally, and time-wise.)

That said, please be so kind as to extend my thanx. . . . What beautiful-sounding names—I swear, Black folks in the U.S. are creative when we name our kids! I think it’s an attempt to communicate to kids their specialness; their uniqueness; and the fact that, as poor folks, mostly, we have little more to give but names; but we give them! . . .

My dear Ones; Thank you for taking the time and real mind-space to not just write to me, but to share your deep thoughts about what WE WANT FREEDOM awakened in many of you. I can truly say that I was touched by many of the responses evoked by the work. (Ona ’notha note, I’d appreciate it if y’all shared ya thoughts with South End Press, which published it; I sincerely doubt that many publishers get lettas like these!) I am—blown away. I’ve also been moved by many of the questions which arose from quite a few lettas. For the sake of “temporal economy” (I just made that up, y’all. ), lemme try to synthesize my responses to reach at least some of the most often asked questions:

Q: Damn, Oldhead—I didn’t know that kinda stuff was happnin’ right here in the good ole US of A! I feel some kinda way about that! I feel cheated—why didn’t I know about that before I went so far in school? Why I gotta learn it in [grad. school] [college] [English]?

A: There was a special reason why Malcolm X said that “of all ourstudies, history best rewards our research.” He understoodthe power of history in his own life, in his own psyche; in opening up his head about the real nature of America. Many of you have felt, in your hearts, in your guts, in your psyches, the very same thing that Malcolm felt. There’s not just a lesson in this: there is also opportunity! Now, what is meant by that? You, all of you, were turned on, not because of how much you knew, but how much you didn’t know. You didn’t learn this because you were simply in college—you learned it because Prof. Thomas, Greg (or as one sista said, “G”) put you down. Believe me, my writings aren’t featured in most English/African Lit./Writing courses. The opportunity is therefore open to others—to non-grad students—to non-college students—to non-Black folks. It’s out there. And it’s written in regular non-academese, regular language that any person can read, if they can read. That leads me to your next question. . . .

Q: Damn, Oldhead—you sound like you know what I wanna ask you! How do you put people down about this revolutionary stuff? How can I, as one person, pass it on to so many folks, especially young folks (and, yes, let’s face it, so many Black folks) who need to really know this deep history of what’s really been happenin’ in America?

A: In the Party, we used to have a saying: “Each one, teach one.” That meant folks taught each other everything they learned, so that they could pass it on to others. That’s revolution. Not just that . . . but for some of you, who sound really motivated, really turned on; on fire (like a young convict named Malcolm Little was!), the solution may be to join, or even start, an organization. (Uh-oh! What’s that I’m hearin’? Sphincters closin’ up? Fear? . . . of what?)

What is an organization? Did I tell y’all about my revolutionary historian hero, C. L. R. James? He said, in Every Cook Can Govern, that it takes 2 people to form an organization. Just 2. Who have come together with commitment and purpose. Huey P. Newton & Bobby Seale did just that, in October 1966, and rocked the country! If this hidden history turned you on, won’t it do the same thing to young brothas and sistas in the high schools? To young moms on welfare? To young dudes who think their highest aspiration is hold up some crumbling corner for a weak-ass “hustle”? All revolutions draw on “dangerous” memories—hidden histories, which give light on the present.

Iranian scholar Farideh Farhi, in States and Urban-Based Revolutions: Iran and Nicaragua (Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1990), noted:

Concrete historical forces of ideological mobilization have given us clues about several sources the revolutionary can draw on to mobilize. The most important source seems to be the “dangerous” memory of conflict and exclusion. This memory has two dimensions: suffering as well as resistance and hope. The former draws from concrete memories of specific histories of oppression and suffering. “It declares that such suffering matters; the oppression of the people is of ultimate concern” [from S. H. Welsh, Communities of Resistance and Solidarity: A Feminist Theology of Liberation (NY: Orbis, 1985), p. 36].

Past suffering hence becomes an indictment of existing economic and political systems. Memory of resistance and hope, on the other hand, chronicles actual or imagined instances of resistance and liberation. These accounts are a declaration of the possibility of change, and they are examined continuously in an attempt to understand what enables resistance in specific, historical situations. They are also generally reenacted in symbolic fashion through plays, sermons, religious ceremonies, and the like to sustain the revolutionary fervor. The ultimate result is the creation and sustenance of “the memory of a community in which people were freed to claim an identity different from that imposed on them. It is both a memory of past liberation and a motivation for further liberation. It is a memory of resistance and a hope for further resistances [ibid., p. 42].

I said all that to say that some of you will become teachers, like Greg, but not of college students, but of youth in high and junior high schools; and you will set young brains afire with truth. To quote Assata: “Pass it on!”

Q: Well,—hey, Oldhead! Damn—can a white dude call you Oldhead?

A: Long as it’s done with love, it’s cool . . . go head, dude . . . ;

Q: Well, uhh, how can I be down? I read in WE WANT FREEDOM where you talked about white supremacy and stuff, and I can see that, but—how can I say this?—what can I do?

A: Interesting question, youngin’—but check this out? Why should there be a different answer for you? What I’ve studied and written about in WE WANT FREEDOM was as much Euro-American history, as it was African-American history. Indeed, it was American history. Just like young brothas and sistas gotta be down, young white kids gotta be down too, so that they don’t grow up with that Lie of White Supremacy in their heads.

The very notion that you need a “special teachin’” is but proof that White Supremacy is till eatin’ up your brain, which is why you want somethin’ “special.” Dig me? It’s special to everybody—cuz it’s hidden from everybody. It’s special, cuz it’s dangerous; and it’s dangerous cuz it’s TRUE. Now, if your brain is on fire, I’ma try to recommend a few chumpies for you to get down with:

a) Gilbert, David. No Surrender: Writings from an Anti-Imperialist Political Prisoner (Montreal/Toronto: Abraham Guillen/Arm the Spirit, 2004) [Book by an SDS/Weather Underground person; writes about the impact of white supremacy on the Movement].

b) Frederickson, George M. White Supremacy: A Comparative Study in American and South African History (NY: Oxford U. Press, 1981) [This guy breaks down how eerily similar both societies were/are].

c) Lopez, Ian F. Haney. White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race (NY: NYU Press, 1996). (That’ll hold ya!)

Q: One last question, Oldhead? Damn, what can I (we) do? Know what I mean?

A: Didn’t I answer that? You young whipper-snappers ain’t gotta a lick of memory in ya! I declare! (Or is it my Alzheimer’s actin’ up again?)—Uhhh—Erra.—Oh! I know what I wanted to say!

A wise old Black man, Elijah Muhammad used to say, “When you know better, you do better.” I think there’s real truth in that. When you are turned on—when you are Aware, you can’t become Un-aware. The Revolutionary John Africa says, “You can only be misled when you don’t know the route they are takin’.”

If you know—TEACH. That don’t mean formally. It means writing a review for a neighborhood paper. It means calling up a talk show, and tellin’ folks what you’ve learned. It means talkin’ to one other person. Talkin’ till you reach her. Then askin’ her to ‘pass it on.’ Mao used to say that “a single spark can start a prairie fire.” Be that fire.

Thanks, Greg, for sharin’ WE WANT FREEDOM (a piece of my soul) with these extraordinary young people. Whatta birthday present!

Ona Move! Long Live John Africa!

Alla best!

Mumia.

Citation Format:

Mumia Abu-Jamal. “Black Prison Writing,” PROUDFLESH: A New Afrikan Journal of Culture, Politics & Consciousness: Issue 5, 2007