'On a Move: The Story of Mumia Abu-Jamal'
BOOK REVIEW
"On a Move: The Story of Mumia
Abu-Jamal" by Terry Bisson, Plough Publishing, 240 pages,
$12.
By Monica Moorehead
'Mumia's story is an American tragedy--not just for him,
but all across the board. It is the story of other
revolutionaries tucked away behind prison walls, of the
powder-kegged ground we stand on, and the robotic-minded time
we live in, when human beings are often treated with less
respect than diamond-studded watches or cars.
"It reminds us that we cannot keep our heads 'wide shut'
forever, that we can no longer deny the fact that the
structures around us and beneath us are rotten from the core
and crumbling fast.
"Finally, it reminds us that though actions speak louder
than words, words in the right place speak louder than
bombs."
These words are part of an inspiring foreword written by
Chuck D for a newly released book on the life of African
American political prisoner and award-winning journalist
Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Chuck D, an original member of the progressive rap group
Public Enemy, visited Abu-Jamal in September on death row at
the remote SCI Greene Unit located on the Pennsylvania and
West Virginia border.
This new biography, "On a Move," was written by Terry
Bisson, a progressive white author of short stories,
science-fiction novels and a biography of Nat Turner, the
martyred African American slave who lead a heroic rebellion
in Northampton, Va., against slavery in 1831. Abu-Jamal asked
the author to write a biography of his life after he read a
Village Voice article by Bisson on Michael Stewart, a Black
graffiti artist murdered by New York cops in the early
1980s.
A popular, easy-to-read book
"On a Move" is a must-read, especially for people who are
not day-by-day political activists. So many people have heard
or seen Abu-Jamal's name associated with being a "cop killer"
in the mainstream media. "On a Move" is a book that can help
the people get to know who the real Abu-Jamal is in a
popular, down-to-earth manner.
"On a Move" also explains how resistance to racist
repression helped to shape the remarkable life of this
dedicated revolutionary. The language that Bisson uses is
very powerful because the words are punchy and to the point.
The book can be read in a day, not only because the type is
large but also because the imagery he uses is so vivid and
colorful. In fact, the lack of words is even more effective
than if he wrote whole soliloquies.
Bisson opens the book by using sweeping language
describing the historical and social bases that helped to
shape Abu-Jamal's life and those of millions like
him--beginning when Africans were forced to endure the
unspeakable horrors of the Middle Passage to become slaves in
a foreign land, leading to so-called freedom brought about by
the U.S. Civil War, followed by the short-lived
Reconstruction period, then Jim Crow segregation and
sharecropping, and the great migration of millions of Black
people to the North.
This migration lead to the growth of the poverty-stricken,
overcrowded projects or "PJs." Abu-Jamal was a product of the
PJs in North Philadelphia. His mother, Edith Cook, was a
powerful influence on his life. Abu-Jamal soon became adept
in surviving as an African American male growing up in a
racist city like Philadelphia.
During this period, Philadelphia was ruled with an iron
fist by the ruthless, fascistic Mayor Frank Rizzo, or
"Rizzio" as he was called in the Black community. What set
Abu-Jamal apart from many in his neighborhood was that he
became revolutionary at a young age during the late 1960s and
early 1970s.
Impact of Black Panther Party
Bisson spends a lot of time explaining how the Black
Panther Party for Self-Defense affected Abu-Jamal's political
and personal life. The BPP was the organization that more
than any other captured the revolutionary spirit within the
Black liberation movement.
The BPP popularized the right to armed self-defense in
relation to the brutal occupation of the oppressed
communities by racist police. The BPP also extended a hand of
international proletarian solidarity to the liberation
struggles of workers and oppressed peoples around the world
fighting against U.S. imperialism.
The BPP also organized breakfast programs, free
health-care clinics and revolutionary schools in the northern
projects in an attempt to empower the politically and
economically disenfranchised Black masses.
Abu-Jamal became the minister of information of the BPP's
Philadelphia branch. He then became the target of intense
surveillance by Rizzo's cops and the Counter-Intelligence
Program, or Cointelpro, created by the Federal Bureau of
Investigation's executive director, the ultra-racist J. Edgar
Hoover. Cointelpro was created during the anti-communist
McCarthyite witch hunt to destroy, undermine and discredit
any group or individual who promoted political dissent and
social revolt against U.S. foreign and domestic policies.
Bisson describes the various attacks and raids on the
Panthers carried out by the Philadelphia cops on behalf of
the FBI. The killings, jailings and forced exiles of the
Panthers led to the group's demise, including the
Philadelphia branch's.
Abu-Jamal, who wrote regularly for the Black Panther
Speaks newspaper, then decided to become a professional
journalist to earn a living. This move in turn led to him
becoming a supporter of the MOVE organization, whose members
have been murdered, illegally imprisoned and ostracized by
the Philadelphia authorities since the 1970s.
Supporter of MOVE
Bisson explains how Abu-Jamal's association with this
majority Black communal group, along with his well-known
commentaries against police repression, led to his being
falsely accused of killing a white cop on Dec. 9, 1981. He
was railroaded to death row in 1982 after a sham of a
trial.
In Chapter 19, Bisson describes "The Trial" in four
sentences--"We can be brief. The prosecution witnesses (even
those who changed their stories) were never challenged. Mumia
was not allowed to represent himself, and when he insisted,
he was barred from his own trial. Guilty." End of
chapter.
In Chapter 20, entitled "The Penalty Hearing," Bisson
writes, "We can be even briefer. Mumia's Black Panther
history was waved in the face of the jury like a bloody
shirt. Death." End of chapter.
"On a Move" is a book that should be studied in every high
school and every college across the country. Every library
should have it on its shelves. Bisson has made a great
contribution, by helping to demystify not only who Mumia
Abu-Jamal really is as an individual, but also how remaining
a revolutionary as he has for so many years under the most
repressive conditions can and does inspire others to join the
struggle for social change.
Contact www.leftbooks.com to
order your copy today.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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