Who is Mumia Abu Jamal?

Mumia Abu-Jamal has stated that he spent his youth as an “apprentice in revolutionary journalism” for the Black Panthers. The Panthers were a radical group that, along with their legitimate “social work,” advocated violence, kidnapping, drug dealing and murder, as appropriate methods of response to perceived government and police oppression. Jamal, who had no prior criminal record prior to the Faulkner shooting, eventually rose to the rank of “Lieutenant Minister of Information” for the Panther’s Philadelphia Chapter. He left the Panthers in the early 1970s and began working for a string of local Philadelphia radio stations. In March of 1981, Jamal was fired from his part-time job as a reporter for Philadelphia’s NPR (National Public Radio) affiliate station, WUHY-FM, (now WHYY) in Philadelphia.

NOTE: Along with millions of others, it appears that the Mumia propaganda machine duped us too. When we first went on line, based on the information we collected while researching this issue — which included articles written by Jamal’s supporters — we stated, “Mumia Abu-Jamal was a longstanding critic of the Philadelphia Police Department.” However, since our initial posting of this site we have been contacted by several credible sources, including Pulitzer Prize winning author Buzz Bissinger and various other reporters who worked for local Philadelphia newspapers in 1981. These individuals informed us that, while Mumia Abu-Jamal known in Philadelphia’s inner city for his reports on social issues, he was not known as a critic of, or even a commentator on, the Philadelphia Police Department. In his Vanity Fair article “The Guilty and the Dead” (Which is posted at danielfaulkner.com) Buzz Bissinger states that William Marimow (who shared in a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 1978 for reporting on police abuses in Philadelphia, and who is now the managing editor of the Baltimore Sun) told him, “I was very attuned to everyone who wrote about Philadelphia police violence. This guy [Jamal] didn’t register a blip on my radar screen.” Several other prominent Philadelphia journalists who specialized in writing about police abuse echo Mr. Marimow’s sentiments.

Jamal’s supporters have always insisted that he was “targeted by police” because he was a constant nuisance to them and had “exposed” much of their alleged wrongdoing. But the reality seems to be that Jamal’s supposed commentary on police issues in 1981 has nothing to do with his case, because he simply never made any such commentary. As confirmed by the statement made by one of Jamal’s own attorneys – who admitted that the arresting officers likely had “no idea” who Jamal was on the morning of the killing — this notion appears to be just another article of misinformation on the part of Jamal’s adherents.

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