A POCC Block Report Radio interview wit’ political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal

Oral arguments in the case of Political Prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal will be heard in a Philadelphia courtroom on May 17 that many believe will determine his fate; either he will be released after 25 years in prison on the trumped up charge of killing a Philly police officer or given a re-trial or murdered by the state. We as the people have to stand up and demand that the state free Mumia now or, at the least, give him a new trial, since his original trial was plagued with police coercion and prosecutorial misconduct.

Here, Mumia is interviewed on the POCC Block Report Radio show about his case, the San Francisco 8 and the Counter-Intelligence Program – Cointelpro – in general. Check it out as we talk to one of the “People’s main advocates,” who spoke wit’ us from a death-row cell in Pennyslavania ...

MOI JR: What is the status of your case?

Mumia: Nothing has changed. We’re still waiting for a briefing date from the same court of appeals.

MOI JR: What is the purpose of the corporate media being flooded wit’ negative reporting in regards to the San Francisco 8 case?

Mumia: I think there are two very key intentions. One is to demonize the Black Panther Party to a generation that only knows about it, if at all, through the movie “Panther” or an occasional book or some scattered references in popular culture movies like “Forrest Gump” or something like that. Two, (it’s) to intimidate young radicals who are inspired by the example of the Black Panther Party – to teach them that, once a revolutionary, always a revolutionary.

I mean literally those charges are perhaps two generations old. They were dismissed, I think, in 1973 – because of proven torture – by a judge in San Francisco. Most people, when they talk about the Party, they talk about it like “the old days,” “back in the ‘60s,” or some in a fit of nostalgia even would say “the good old days,” as if these days are different. Ain’t nothing changed. The Movement continues, and the repression continues, you see?

MOI JR: What is the connection between the case of the San Francisco 8 and other political prisoners and exiles like yourself, Assata Shakur, the Move 9, Hugo Pinell, Ruchell Magee, Veronza Bowers, Russell Maroon Shoatz, Chip Fitzgerald, Mutulu Shakur and Leonard Peltier, just to name a few?

As a member of the Black Panther Party in his teens, Mumia was already such an extraordinary journalist that he was named Minister of Information.

They actually began chasing people all across the United States – in Boston, in Pittsburg, everywhere in the United States at the behest of Southern slave owners. They passed a law, right, and Black people all across the North had to flee to Canada to find a place of rest and freedom and respite from state terrorism.

How things have not changed – even though we are not talking about space, because those good eight brothas were in the United States – we’re talking about the space of time. At least one of the brothas is 70 years old; almost all of them are 60, or almost 60. Some of them have worked with the DA’s office in California, you dig? All of them had established good lives of service to their community and community organizing and activity and education of younger generations.

These were men who had established families, established lifestyles of service, and they’re targeted really because of their radical ideas, because many of the people – although they are no longer members of the Party, because the Party doesn’t formally exist – still believe in some of the ideals of the Party, you see? And that is their real offense. That is their real crime. That is why they were targeted.

MOI JR: What is the connection between the media and the government’s war of terror against the Black and Brown hoods across Amerikkka?

Mumia: Back in the old days again, the FBI had something called “media friendlies.” These were literally television, newspaper and radio and wire reporters who had special access to the FBI, and the FBI had special access to them. They would use the media to go after targets in the Black Freedom Movement. They would also use the media to target and harass supporters of the Movement.

There was a woman named Jane Sebert, a white woman, a columnist in a national and some California papers, who covered an article saying that this woman had a baby by Masai Hewitt. Now it was a lie. They knew it was a lie, but the woman was so traumatized because her husband felt like she had cheated on him with a Black guy. They drove this woman to loosing her baby, mental instability, insanity and suicide. This was an actress, you see? Someone of means, money, and position in society. They did this because she supported the Black Panther Party, but no one calls this terrorism. You could read the files. They applauded. They were happy. They celebrated. So the media plays a diabolical role then and now.

MOI JR: In regards to the Counter-Intelligence Program and the Church Committee findings, where the government publicly admitted its illegal activity, what do you think should have happened?

Mumia: Whatever happens when something is illegal – I mean the government did something that was very clever. They had congressional hearings, they brought out some of the stuff that the state had done, but guess what? After all of the hearings, after all of the volumes were published and all of the news footage and the newspaper accounts, nobody that was involved in this illegal and unconstitutional and unlawful activity was prosecuted.

So what does it mean to say that you found it was illegal or you called it illegal or even unconstitutional? It meant absolutely nothing at all, not to the people who did it. It certainly meant something to the people who were the targets. Yeah, they got to talk about it. Some got to write about it. What did it really mean?

These people permitted crimes against American citizens because they didn’t like their ideas. The real tragedy is that 30 years later, everything that was illegal, unconstitutional, unlawful through Cointelpro has become legalized through what? The Patriot Act. Everything. And they’re doing today what they did yesterday, with the impunity of the law.

MOI JR: Tupac Shakur, Kamau Sadiki, Imam Jamil Al-Amin and Aaron Patterson have all been victims of the state’s war against the Black community within the last decade and a half because of stances that they have taken. What does today’s Counter-Intelligence Program or Patriot Act look like?

Mumia: It’s the same thing as Cointelpro except, again, its legalized. And here is the real kicker: It never stopped, you dig? It never stopped. It was a former FBI agent whose name is Powers, who wrote a book about his life in the FBI. And he would go to the FBI library and read about it, and he went to his instructor and said, “Wow, I read about that Cointel Program. That’s over, right? They don’t do that any more?” And the guy looked at him, smiled and said, “Look, if a thing worked, would you stop doing it?”

Powers was blown away, because he had read the Church Report hearings and he believed that that was illegal and unconstitutional, but this was an insider speaking to another alleged insider, albeit a Black one. He just told him, “If it worked, why would we stop it?” All they did was change the name of the program and continue doing the same thing. There’s never been a time when people who were dissenters, activists, resisters were not harassed, were not targeted, you dig? It ain’t stopped.

MOI JR: Barack Obama as well as Hillary Clinton have officially announced their campaigns to run for the presidency of the United States, amongst a host of other candidates. What is your opinion on what the POCC calls “the (s)elections of ‘08”?

Mumia: I certainly have some preliminary opinions, but I think it is important for people in the Movement – of various social movements and social justice freedom movements – to get with anybody who is running for any of those offices, congressional offices, local offices, and get with them about what their position is. Once they respond to the position, then you can take an educated guess, a really informed response.

As a rule, generally, it doesn’t matter if there is a Black face in a high place. If anything, the performances of the secretaries of state – the last two in the Bush administration – should show us through those examples that it doesn’t matter what your complexion is, it doesn’t matter what your color is; what matters is your consciousness. Unless we remember that important lesson, many of us can be fooled by people who look like us but who serve the interests of the ruling class and the empire.

Email POCC Minister of Information JR at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , and listen to the Block Report at hiphopwarreport.com or myspace.com/blockreportfilm

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