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Death Blossoms
Reflections from a Prisoner of Conscience
Mumia Abu-Jamal; Foreword by Cornel West, Introduction by Julia Wright
Pages: 190ISBN: 0-89608-699-2
Format: paper only
Release Date: 2003-06-01
In Death Blossoms: Reflections From a Prisoner of Conscience Mumia Abu-Jamal, America's best known political prisoner, offers poetic observations and reflections on life on this planet and on death row. In this collection of short essays and personal vignettes, which take on everything from spirituality and religion to capitalism and the prison-industrial complex, Mumia examines the deeper dimensions of existence.
Mumia's ability to celebrate life and advocate for revolutionary change while being held, at the state's convenience, at death's door, imbues his thoughts and words with power and passion. “Many people say it is insane to resist the system, but actually, it is insane not to,” he writes in “Politics.”
In “God-Talk on Phase II” he writes, “On death's brink, men begin to see things they've perhaps never seen before. Like those around them, and especially those who share their fate … men whose death warrants have been signed—men with a date to die—live each day with a clarity and a vibrancy they might have lacked in less pressured times.”
Mumia turns this clarity towards his quest for spiritual and social fulfillment drawing connections between religion and race politics. He embraces spirituality while exploring the true nature of the institutions that have sentenced him to die.
Breaking News
December 6, 2005
Breaking News: A Victory—Time to win this one! And Bring Mumia home
From the office of Robert Bryan, esq.
Dear Friends and Supporters: Today the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit issued the most important decision affecting my client, Mumia Abu-Jamal, since the lower federal court ruling in December 2001. An order was issued this morning that the court will accept for review the following issues, all of which are of enormous constitutional significance and go to the very essence of Mumia's right to a fair trial due process of law, and equal protection of the law under the Fifth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution:
- Claim 14: Whether appellant was denied his constitutional rights due to the prosecution's trial summation.
- Claim 16: Whether the Commonwealth's use of peremptory challenges at trial violated appellant's constitutional rights under Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986).
- Claim 29: Whether appellant was denied due process during post-conviction proceedings as a result of alleged judicial bias.
Claim 16 concerns the prosecutorial use of racism in jury selection. The record establishes beyond question that racism is a m...
Mumia Abu-Jamal
Click here to view Mumia Abu-Jamal's full Author PageMumia Abu-Jamal is a renowned journalist from Philadelphia who has been in prison since 1981 and on death row since 1983 for allegedly shooting Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. He is known as the “Voice of the Voiceless” for his award-winning reporting on police brutality and other social and racial epidemics that plague communities of color in Philadelphia and throughout the world.
Mumia has received international support over the years in his efforts to overturn his unjust conviction. Mumia Abu-Jamal was serving as the President of the Association of Black Journalists at the time of his arrest. He was a founding member of the Philadelphia Chapter of the Black Panther Party as a teenager. Years later he began reporting professionally on radio stations such as NPR, and was the news director of Philadelphia station WHAT. Much of his journalism called attention to the blatant injustice and brutality he watched happen on a daily basis to MOVE, a revolutionary organization that works to protect all forms of life—human, animal, plant—and the Earth as a whole.