Interview with Jamal Ibn-Mumia

MN: This is Michael Novick. I’m here today with Jamal ibn Mumia Freedom. We’re going to talk about his father’s case and freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal, and also the work that he has been doing. He recently went to Cuba on his father’s behalf. Jamal, can you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit more about Freedom From Frameup and the other work that you’re doing?

J: Okay, thank you, Mike. Well, I am Jamal ibn Mumia, Mumia’s eldest son. The work we do in our organization, Freedom From Frame-Up Foundation, is based on 5 principles, and it’s the FRAME Initiative.

     F is for free, R is for reform, and A is for advocate, and M is for mentorship, and E is education. We do grassroots work. We go into the communities.

     Our recent Mumia Freedom Tour has been in Cuba. We were at the Third International Meeting on Theoretical Publications of Left-Wing Parties and Movements and first Granma-Rebelde Festival 2025 celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Granma-Rebelde Newspaper was both held Oct. 15-20 at Nico Lopez University in Miramar, Cuba. as well as at Granma, which is the media outlet of the Cuban revolution that was led by Castro, celebrating its 60th year anniversary.

    Other things that we did was go into the communities and observed different things the Cubans are doing. Their culture and way of life. What we also do is educate people on Mumia’s case, educate people on Mumia’s innocence, and Political Prisoners we show the facts. Some popular facts that we push are the Arnold Beverly confession that he unalive police officer Daniel Faulkner. NOT Mumia Abu Jamal. A lot of times, people don’t know about that.

MN: Right. Beverly confessed to the murder that Mumia is accused of, and they’ve just ignored that, disregarding it.

J: Yes, Mumia’s falsely accused of murdering Daniel Faulkner, a police officer in Philadelphia, in 1981, December the 9th.

    My father, as always, has been a journalist before and during his incarceration. His whole thing was bringing media to the people at any level. So as a result, he became public enemy number one to the racist establishment.

     Like I tell people, it all started with Powelton Village. When you look at Powelton Village, that’s called the Black Bottom, that’s 39th Street in West Philadelphia. My father interviewed Move 9 when they were doing standoffs from the police. Back then, they used to have block captains that get together, and they can sign a petition and just basically tell you; we evict you off our block. You need to leave. The police backed the play. And Move was like, basically, we bought this house. We don’t care if you like what we do; we’re not going anywhere. This is back in 1978, ’79, and my father covered it.

     And he covered also John Africa’s case; that was a federal gun case before that. When I’m saying he was covering it, he was a journalist. He actually was looking into the details, going to the press conferences, asking questions. So, the status quo is that he’s been under COINTELPRO as having been also a Black Panther member. At the age of 14, he was the Minister of Information for the Philadelphia Black Panther Chapter, under Captain Reggie Shell. So, if we look at our history, there’s always been some entanglement with law enforcement and the Black Panthers.

     Then during the press conference when Officer Ramp was killed during the Move standoff in ’78 or 79, down in Powelton Village. My father was one of the bold journalists, when Mayor Frank Rizzo was giving a press conference, and trying to control the narrative.

MN:  Rizzo was the former police chief of Philly, if people don’t know, just historically racist…

J: Yeah, the former police chief of Philadelphia and he was running a very racist police force. And then as Mayor, he controlled the narrative. And one of his narratives was, we got these wild people off the street, and a police officer has died, and we’re charging them with murder, all of them. So, 9 people were charged for murder, facing 30 to 100 years.

MN: People should be aware, it’s clear that officer was killed by friendly fire, so-called, by other police.

J: I’m getting to that. During the press conference, my father raises his hand, and he says, “Excuse me, can you express to the people, what is a friendly fire?” He says, “because the coroner’s report says Officer Ramp was killed by another officer, which was Friendly Fire.”

     Rizzo’s response was, if they left when he told them to leave, then this officer wouldn’t have died. And he pointed at my father, and he said, “Young man, you’re going to be accountable for your actions.” One and a half years later, Mumia is facing capital murder charges, and he was arrested for killing Officer Daniel Faulkner.

MN: It’s kind of ironic that many of the Move 9 basically have been freed, and Mumia is still locked down to this day. Can you say more about the effort to actually free your father?

J: Move 9 is out, so let me ask a question. How many times did you see Move 9 doing an interview talking about their arrests or their wrongful conviction, okay? You got Mike Africa Jr. going around about a book and all this, but he doesn’t speak about his own parents. He doesn’t interview his parents. They’re home now, Michael Sr. and Janine Africa. So, what I’m saying is that a lot of times people push different things, and Mumia is getting caught in the whirlwind.  I believe that a lot of times, people are not doing the work that they… claim to do.

     I don’t understand how people allowed Daniel Williams to write a book during the time he’s defending Mumia on his PCRA [Post-conviction relief] appeals. Daniel and Leonard Weinglass, Mumia’s lead attorney, are aware of the contradictory book that was prioritized over actual innocence evidence of a live and written affidavit confession by Arnold Beverly, and Williams writes a contradictory book titled Executing Justice.

That directly and indirectly contradicts what Mumia’s defense is and Beverly’s confession. So, I think the people should expose that, because attorney Daniel and Weinglass tried to discredit Arnold Beverly’s confession to killing Faulkner, to promote the book for a payday over defending their innocent client, Mumia Abu Jamal. But there’s 3 points that people don’t look at with the Arnold Beverly confession. First, at the time, there was tremendous police corruption in Philadelphia during that time, 1980.

MN: Absolutely. There were federal cases against the Philadelphia Police Department.

J: Yeah, 1980 to 1988, Mike; they were under FBI probes. Meaning that, it was an investigation going on. After Mumia was convicted in 1982, there were over 30 cops that were convicted of the Philadelphia downtown police precincts. And 15 of those corrupted cops worked on Mumia’s investigation. So how is it that his case wasn’t overturned? How did the people that did not push that?

     When I said three factors. One, he passed three lie detector tests. Two, he knew stuff that other people didn’t know, and he describes, actually, the scene. Right? And three, his blood is at the scene. We actually had detectives matching it. The judicial system is saying it’s time-barred [and can’t be considered]. Because attorneys Dan Williams and Weinglass should have put it in a timely manner of the PCRA appeal.

     What are we talking about here? We’re talking about an innocent man that was on death row for 30 years. And his sentence changed to life sentence without parole to date for 14 more years served, thus far a total of 44 years of incarceration. Mumia’s medical condition declined drastically. And he has had triple bypass heart surgery. Had diabetic shock induced by medical mistreatment, passed out in the prison, half blind, had cataracts, had surgery only on one eye because they still denied him the other eye; that has retinopathy and glaucoma. He also had COVID-19. What are we doing here?

     Freedom From Frame-Up Foundation, Inc. puts out information on Political Prisoners like Mumia that are framed and innocent that we’re pushing for their release. We went out to Cuba on an international level educating how this is in the US currently happening in real time. We established that by informing the people in Cuba that other Black Panthers including Mumia Abu-Jamal, Kamau Sadiki, and Iman Jamil Abdullah al-Amin are still being persecuted by a political agenda, COINTELPRO still alive, weaponizing of the legal judicial system against those that dare to speak truth to power. We did plenty of press conferences with many different countries and organizations. Bringing to light that Mumia was placed to slow death row. By Mumia an innocent man being removed from the death-row to Life sentence without parole, is slow death row. Educating our struggle through comprehensive interviews and press conferences over Cuba. Perhaps, around 15 interviews with interpreters and some with English speaking interviewers. When we went to Cuba at this international conference, we exposed the facts that prove Mumia is Innocent and Framed and a Political Prisoner through his situation… there were people there that was from Chile, from Venezuela, from Cuba, from Antigua, from Morocco, from Namibia and they were like, well, we know about Mumia. Is he free? Because we heard in 2001 that he got off from death row. I said, they moved him out of the frying pan and put him in the broiler.

     Because he did not get free. They took him off the international stage. And put him in life without parole. And the way they did it, Judge Yohn, said that there were constitutional irregularities. This is a capital murder case. If there’s any constitutional infraction, the whole case should have been overturned.

MN: That’s right. They just overturned the penalty phase, the death sentence, and let the conviction stand. Can you talk a little bit more about the humanity aspect, and the fact that he’s a father or grandfather and great-grandfather, and also, could you tell a little bit more about the difficulty and the effort it took to maintain your family relationship over all these years of his being on death row, and now locked up, life without parole.

J: Thank you. Well, me being a grandfather now myself, I remember, I was 9 and a half years old, and our whole world had an earthquake when he was arrested. Because my father was a hands-on father. He’s the first one who taught me how to read, ride a bike, you know, clean my face, you know, get ready, and play sports. He’s a hands-on father. So, what they did was, when they put him on death row, there’s a glass wall pure isolation. And then there’s a screen at the bottom. And he’s shackled. So that, psychologically, no more touch, physically, for 30 years.

 Right? And then, on top of that, you can’t even help your kids when they’re going through different triumphs, like my brother or my sister, when they’re going through things.

 My father had always pushed me to read, was about education, was being self-taught, autodidact. So, I was always pushed, like books like Franz Fanon and Wretched of the Earth. I’m talking, when I was, like, maybe 12.

What we did? We kept our family ties in education. So now that I bring my granddaughters up there to see their great-grandfather. They push the line, because they are today’s children, so they’re, like, between the ages of 12, and seven. And they’re like, “Grandpa, what… why… why great grandpop isn’t home? Why we got to go up here?  Why we got to do this?” I said, wait a minute, he’s an elder, so why don’t you ask him? And then you can get your answer.

     I take them up there, and we play Connect Four and all of that. But, you know, it brought tears to his eyes, because of my oldest granddaughter, she asked him. She says, “Grandpop, I want you to come home. And I seen on my tablet that you got streets named after you in Paris, and I want you to get me a place on that block. I want you to take me and get that. Grandpa told us to ask you anything we need to ask you, so how much longer you got to be in here?”

     And then the other one was like, “it isn’t that extravagant, I’m 7. But, Grandpa, can you take me to one of the best beaches, and bury me in the sand, and don’t let it get too hot? And come on and get me out. Grandpa does that, but I want my great-grandpa to do that. Why you can’t do that?”

MN: Wow

J: And then he’s looking at me, Christ! You know? And then he called me after that. He was like, you got to get me out of here. And that was the birth of the Freedom From Frame-Up Foundation, Inc. organization. Because we couldn’t keep listening to other people, saying, what’s going on with Mumia? What’s happening, and attorneys are doing what they want to do, a lot of things. I said, Dad, why didn’t you get an appeal bond?

     What I’m saying is, they’re not pushing the line that he is innocent and framed. That’s what they have to push, because that is the truth. People don’t understand that Officer Faulkner was suspected. Where is his camera? You know, they had him with his camera on paper. Why was his camera empty when they got his body? Who took the film out? Why was he taking pictures that night? See, people don’t understand, in Philadelphia there is a corrupt side that’s beyond the Liberty Bell.

     And then some people say that this guy Arnold Beverly does not look like a hit-man, and they don’t believe he did a hit on Faulkner for the mob and the dirty cops. However, other people are saying Arnold Beverly did do the hit, and his confession of the crime and evidence corroborates the crime scene. Yes, during the 1980-1988 period Philly Cops’ corruption was at its highest and investigated. Over thirty corrupt cops were prosecuted and convicted. And sentenced, and this Philly FBI office investigates the Philly Downtown police corruption area that led to over thirty federal convictions. And Beverly’s written affidavit with the video confession, passing three lie detectors. I’m not the smartest person in the world. But I need to know why a court of law did not have a hearing just to hear Beverly testify in open court.

     This is a capital murder case where Mumia has been on death row 30 years, why… No other case ever says that “this is time-barred, this issue has already been raised.”

     What Freedom From Frame-Up Foundation continued to do when we went to Cuba? We’re educating people on this Mumia Freedom Tour, and Political Prisoners, Black Panthers, because we had the locals, and you’ve seen this with the children, and we were giving them candy and educating about the FREE MUMIA case, but we were also giving them literature. Take this to your mom and your pop, and this is Mumia Abu Jamal. He’s a political prisoner in America, you know, and we pushed the line.

     We donated to the Cuban people medical centers medical supplies and over the counter meds that we collected from doctors here, that the US prevents Cuba from getting. Cuba’s right now going through Hurricane Melissa. They’re getting flooded out. You know, there’s aid that these people need. We need to stop the blockade and the embargo. It is crazy. That stuff almost brought tears to my eyes, the way how these people live because of the blockade.

      I think we’re losing our humanity, and people like Mumia, he touches that. Think about all the fire that Mumia has been through, and he has peaceful words. Because the man has a pure heart. But we got to stop people from taking advantage of my father. We can’t keep letting attorneys defend Mumia, without world and national scrutiny, and hold them to a high standard and stop their getting a pass. Are they qualified? Have they tried Criminal cases of this magnitude? Show us your track record! We got to know what your past is like? What did you do? How many people did you free? What are your wins? What are your losses? Because we got to look at it. This is a Black Panther Political Prisoner whose only crime is that he survived. Mumia Abu Jamal has no record. He was a journalist. The Philadelphia Inquirer said he was the voice of the voiceless.

MN:  That’s right. You know, he was one of the top 20 young influential journalists in Philadelphia by Philadelphia Magazine; president of the Black Journalists Association.

J: Correct. Yeah, and you remember that, but a lot of people don’t know. They see the “cop killer”, or they buy that narrative that the prosecution and Fraternal Order of Police put out.  People are like, oh man, I’ve seen your pop, a commentator in prison, I’ve seen this. I said, that’s what he was doing before this! He was always a journalist. It wasn’t prison radio; he was doing that already before they existed.

     He has… been always in the community. People don’t know, my father comes originally from 7th and Wallace Street. 7th and Wallace Street is the project area, low income, in North Philadelphia, that’s where he was born and raised at.

     He continuously goes out to the people. He has this humanity, moral compass; his heart is so big, but I feel like, Mike, I feel like people are just pushing too much exculpatory evidence towards his innocence stuff under the rug. I had so many people tell me, like, oh, I don’t believe that confession, like, why would someone confess? And so many people say Arnold’s confession makes so much sense. I said, whatever their reason is, that isn’t your business. My business is saying, why didn’t the courts allow this in an open court? Let a judge rule on this. Let a jury rule.  You need to just say, this is clear weaponizing of the judicial system. Just call it what it is.

MN: People may recall that Judge Sabo, [who presided at the trial then heard the appeal] basically saying, you know, we’re going to fry that N-word…

J: Yeah, he said, “I’m going to help him fry the N-word.” We got that testimony from Terri Maurer-Carter. She was a court stenographer, she said, “this is crazy. I do this all the time, I never heard them… so personally enthralled in somebody’s case.”

    Mumia continues to believe in the people. But the people got to step up. We don’t worry about no celebrities. We worry about the grassroots people. We talking about do the work.

     Because at this time, Mike, it should be, “Excuse me, Mr. Shapiro, with all due respect; this is a case that you need to go and look at yourself and sign on a dotted line. There is no need for a new trial. We’re not asking for no hearing. There’s so much corruption in Mumia’s case, it’s unbelievable. How could a district attorney say, oh, my assistant found some boxes of exculpatory evidence. That’s crazy. He said he found it in the closet, so I asked the question, because I always ask the question. I said, “well, the district attorney’s office back in the 80s and the 90s that I remember; it used to be on Arch Street. Now the district attorney’s office is on Filbert Street. So, who moved it into a U-Haul? Who put it back in a closet?”

     Why are we not pressing this governor? Just saying, look, we need you to look at Arnold Beverly’s confession. We have a live confession. If you go to our website at freedomfromframeUp.org. I put it up there on the video.

MN: Just to follow up on what you said, Mr. Shapiro; you’re referring to the governor of Pennsylvania. We did a campaign here in L.A. back when Gerry Brown was the governor of California for a California clemency campaign, to try to get him to release all the people who were still locked up, like Hugo Pinell and Ruchell Magee. And the same thing could be happening in Pennsylvania. They could be going to the governor and saying, release this man. [Ed. Note: In PA, unlike CA, the governor can only ratify or prevent a release by the parole board, but cannot independently pardon someone or offer executive clemency.]

J: Well, great question, Mike. You look at that, right? I think Trump or Biden, I can’t remember which one, they said if you’re sick, or you got the COVID, you get early release.

     Mumia has had every major ailment that a person could have in prison. He had… diabetic shock, and he passed out. This was caused by the dermatitis eczema medicated cream with steroid that simultaneously raised Mumia’s glucose level extremely high that caused diabetes shock. And he went to a local clinic. I went to the clinic and questioned the doctor on what was the side effects of the medication that he was on. Because people don’t understand, he has a dermatitis issue. Where did he get this skin issue from, right? He didn’t have that when he was on death row. He didn’t have diabetes when he was on death row. He didn’t have triple bypass heart surgery when he was on death row. You know, now he goes into the general population, in 15 years, he got major illnesses. So, I said, is this murder by medicine? So, I asked the doctor, “what are you putting on my father’s skin, for the dermatitis? He said, eczema. I said, “You can’t say eczema. Because you don’t have a diagnosis. Or do you?

     He said, “Well, no, I don’t know. I said, so you can’t say it’s eczema … Because we don’t know what it is. So, I said, “Well, can I ask you a question?” He said, yeah. I said, “so, that cream. Do it have any steroids in it?” He said, “yeah, he got steroids that keep him from scratching, and all that. That question doesn’t make any sense.”

     I said, “So let me ask you this. Don’t steroid off-balance your glucose? So, if you get your glucose unbalanced, then it’s rising. That’s your diabetic shock.” So, I say, “who is authorizing his medication?”  Because you know he had the liver issues, he had to take them to court about the liver. When he got shot back in 1981, December the 9th, they gave him a blood intrusion that was infected with Hepatitis C. That’s how he caught hepatitis C. And then they refused to give the medication for it to him. And he had to take them to court. And then, because they got a cure for it, he finally received the treatment, but half of his livers ate up.

     So, what I’m saying is, this is a torment. We need to stop it. And I’m asking for people from all the Mumia support groups. We’ve put out information on Mumia Framed and Innocent, and had people sign petitions for Mumia’s actual Innocent release by the PA. pardoned board for the governor, but we need to organize a time to have this governor act. This is a cover-up of a frame-up, and we got to stop giving them passes. We got to call them on that.

     I got my grandbabies looking at me like Grandpa. What’s taking you so long to get Great Grandpa out? And I’m like, baby girl, grandpa working on this. It’s a whole lot of force. And she says, “Well, I don’t understand. Well, I don’t really want to go up and visit today. I’m tired of playing Uno. I want my great grandpa.” And I’m like. Okay, let me work on what I’m doing.”

   We support the Cuban people and went out to Cuba with the different delegates from Antigua, from Morocco, and even in China. Beijing. We expressed this. And we were talking to these delegates, and Namibia, he was from South Africa, I spoke to him. And he was like, “In South Africa, Desmond Tutu sent regards for Mumia, the archbishop.” And he says, “We thought Mumia was home.” He said, “Move 9 now is home. Why are they not out talking about Mumia?”

     This is what people are asking on an international level. I say Mumia’s still in prison, and right now, his health is declining. Mike, I speak the truth, they want him to die in there.

MN:  Yeah, they tried to kill him over and over again. I mean, they shot him and tried to kill him in the original incident. They tried to kill him by execution, and they are trying to kill him by medical neglect and mistreatment.

J: It is what it is.

MN: I would emphasize this is a general weakness of our movement. I came up in the time when we freed political prisoners on the regular, you know, we freed Huey, we freed Bobby, we freed Erika, we freed Angela, we freed the Panther 21. We freed Assata. But we just had No Kings Day, 7 million people out in the streets, and why didn’t they demand free all political prisoners, free Mumia Abu Jamal, you know what I mean? There’s a level of white supremacy, I think, and racism, and complacency, and…

J: Definitely. Most definitely.

MN: collaboration that the movement has not overcome those weaknesses, and I think that reflects on what you’re talking about. It’s not just the individual, you know?

J: What I think in support of that, what you’re saying, there was a certain strategy. The PDC, Partisan Defense Committee. Gotta give them their props. They were pushing in the late 80s, early 90s; they pushed the unions. The unions were all in there, you had the longshoremen, and you had different unions that was pushing that.

MN: Yes I’m in UTLA, a teachers union member.. We got the teachers’ union to adopt a motion here to demand a new trial for Mumia back then.

J: Right. Well, what I’m saying is, America, we know, is imperialism, capitalism. So, you start messing with their money, they listen. As long as you just yelling as loud as you want, they don’t care nothing about that. When you start talking about, we’re going to start a strike, or boycott, they’re like, hold up, wait a minute, that’s messing with my money.  Now it becomes interesting.

     I think that somewhere in the movement, I think there’s definitely are agent provocateurs, and there have been different evidence of things and true confessions, testimonies in the movement that took away from the people, like Mumia’s case. It’s a very clear case of frame-ups. It’s just, you don’t see it no more wicked than was done to Mumia. They removed him from the courtroom when he was doing his voir dire. You know, picking his own jury, putting him in a holding cell, and bought him back out. His attorney at the time, Anthony Jackson, I think, was a public defender, who… admitted that he was using drugs during Mumia’s trial and smoking crack cocaine? I mean, like, any other case, they would have overturned this wrongful conviction and been like, okay, look, get him out of here. Yeah, go home. Get out of here. You know what I mean?

     Listen, 30 cops were convicted of corruption from the Philadelphia center-city precinct downtown, from an FBI investigation. That 15 of those cops were involved in Mumia’s investigation one way or another underneath the third in command of the Philly Police Department, Frank Rizzo’s right-hand man, Inspector Alfonzo Giordano, who was later convicted. And during pretrial hearings testified fabricated manufactured testimony, creating a lie to support the frame-up about Mumia’s supposed confession. But he isn’t telling people he took my dad’s head and rammed it into a telephone pole. He ain’t telling people he stomped him out after he was shot. You know? And the doctor said “that’s impossible. When they brought Mumia there, he could barely even breathe and not talk.”

MN: That’s right, and the cop didn’t say any of that at the time in his report; he only said it later on when they wanted to put a case together.

J: Correct. The report was Gary Wahshul guarding Mumia on December 9th, 1981. Mumia’s arrested, right? April, May, he had a trial in June, he had trial. Right? On July the 3rd, he’s sentenced to death. Less than 90 days, huh? What capital murder case? I know people that got burglary charges pre-trial that stay at least a year before the case is concluded to trial.

MN: It’s a railroad.

J: And like I said, think about January 6th. Remember Jan 6th? Did they have another hearing? Did they have to sit up and get new trials and all this? No. They got the stroke of the pen.

     I’m like, how many times we got to keep looking at this, Mike, and a man’s life is dwindling away? He’s coming up on the 44th anniversary that he’s been incarcerated. 30 years on death row no physical contact, and transitioned to date 14 years doing Life with no parole on slow-death row. He couldn’t even hug his mother when she passed, my grandmother.

     But I’m saying, him and my mother, Francine Habiba, they both went to Goddard College together, in Vermont. It’s not like he wasn’t educated to do what he was doing. He loved journalism. They were mad that he was covering the Move Case, in late 1978-1979 and at the time, Move was very distasteful to the Philadelphia Police Authority.

MN: Right, even the mayor; I mean, they bombed Move, Mayor Goode, the so-called first black mayor.

J: Yeah. Mayor Goode, the first Black mayor. And when they bomb them, they do a military firebomb on Osage Avenue that burnt down two blocks. But let me ask you, what else got found on Osage Avenue? You know what else got found, Mike? Freeman got found. You know who Kenneth Freeman is? Kenneth Freeman was another suspect that the Philly corrupted cops refused to follow up investigate other suspects that were reported running away in the Mumia case, that they said that other person’s ID was in Officer Faulkner’s pocket.

MN: That’s right; they found [his] driver’s license, right?

J: There was another person ID in Faulkner pocket when he died. Yes, there were other people reportedly at the crime scene, running away! But these are the things that’s too magical that corrupted cops and biased prosecutors keep overlooking. Let me tell you how they found Kenneth Freeman. Butt naked, hogtied with a strap around his arm, with a hypodermic needle in his arm. Said, cause of death a heart attack. Why would you get butt-nekkid and overdose outside? At the same time, they are burning down Osage Avenue in West Philadelphia. Suspect Kenneth Freeman hogtied dead body literally found on May 13, 1985 that day. On the same day, all major news is focused on MOVE Bombing Osage Avenue. And that’s 1985. Mumia, locked up, 1981. Do the math! Got the FBI corruption investigation going, the whole thing, they are cleaning up shop! Okay? Because 1988 is when the cops finally got convicted. See, people don’t know this corruption was infested in Philly more than ever, this is the stuff that I’m saying. Then you got Arnold Beverly’s confession saying, yeah, the corrupted cops wanted Faulkner out of there.

     And then when you look at Mumia, a journalist, a guy that has no record, a guy that covers police assaults, police acts of violence, corruption, and racist actions towards people of color, been upright his whole life. I don’t know why we can’t force the full exoneration of Mumia Abu Jamal and this Governor Josh Shapiro, while he’s in office, just say, look, man, these facts have happened. These are facts. Listen, this is a frame-up of an actual innocent man Mumia Abu Jamal.

     And that’s one of the things that Freedom From Frame Up Foundation, organization.

We push and educate people on this, because you got to think, Mumia’s not the only one that’s out there framed up. We got a few clients that we go around… we got letters coming into our office, and we got to investigate it, but we do it on a case-by-case basis, because everybody’s going to say they’re innocent. You know? But we… if you’re framed up. You send it to our emails, and you go to our website, and we help.

     I look at the movement, and I look at things what people do, and I’m not discrediting what people do. I’m just disappointed. If you don’t believe Mumia’s innocence, then stop faking like you support him, because you’re just in the way. We want people to support Mumia’s Innocent and believe the facts he has been framed and believe the truth. We want truth-sayers. We want people that stand on what we’re standing on.

MN: So, how can people get in touch with you about Freedom From Frame-Up, the other work you’re doing, and about Mumia’s case

J: They can follow us on social media. We’re at Freedom from Frame Up, Inc, and we’re at the Mumia Freedom Tour. And also, our website, freedomfromframeUp.org. You can get the address on all social media and write us a email or letter. But let me tell you something. We got attorneys on staff, we got a board, we got all that. So we’re going to do our investigation. We’re not saying that every letter that comes through, we’re going to jump up and just you know, turn the courts over. We’re going to do the investigation.

      Because this is for people that have been framed up, because a lot of people that’s framed, they don’t have the resources, they don’t have the proper thing. They just got their mom, their dad, and just like, “I didn’t do it. I don’t know what’s going on.”

      Where are things at? National Guards is in the Bay Area, right? National Guards is all over the country now. They were in Chicago, they were all over. So, at some point we got to say that… If we don’t pull as a community and protect our human rights. You know, it’s beyond the Constitution, it’s human rights. That’s what people forget, Mike.

     Real quick, we still asking people to call the prison at SCI Mahanoy, and ask for the superintendent Bernadette Mason, because we are illustrating is they are neglecting Mumia of his medical rights. Again, we’re dealing with human rights. You got this man incarcerated under life, and you trying to question what he needs for his eyes. You did one surgery on one eye, and then you’re saying the other eye ain’t as bad as that. What does that mean? Your man got cataracts coming in both eyes, so you cleared one, why wouldn’t you clear the other?

     So, one of the things that we want to do is to keep an eye and mindful of his health. Keep the pressure on. We want to make calls and send emails to Josh Shapiro, and ask him, “Why is Mumia still in prison?” “Can he listen to or hear Mumia’s case?” He’s a governor. He can do that. So, we need to push that, and I really appreciate you for having us.

MN: And as I say, we have to build a real fighting movement here in this country.

J: A coalition. See, like you said, Mike, back in the day, there was a coalition … We need to support and go back grassroots and have coalitions. Like I said, towards the governor to do what’s right, release Mumia. And also, toward the prison to give him proper medical attention.

MN: That’s right, immediately.

J: That’s how it used to be back in the day when I was young. When I came out here in 1990, I think I started speaking out against my father’s death sentence. You know what I mean? I said, man, if I can’t show the humanity part, who can? So you look at it, Mumia Abu Jamal means Mumia is the father of Jamal. Jamal ibn Mumia means Jamal is the son of Mumia. And he did that when I was born. So that’s another thing that you can’t see, a father just changes their whole name when their son is born. You know? These are things of a connection. See, people don’t understand; love is the most powerful force.

      Something isn’t working, Mike. It has been 44 years. So, we have to change the dynamics of it. We are requesting that people hold those people in the office accountable. We sign petitions, full exonerations, and immediate release but if the people go and say, look, you’re the State Pardon Board and Governor. How you aren’t looking at the clear and convincing facts of actual innocent and framed case of Mumia?

MN: Pennsylvania, they advertise “Pennsylvania is for lovers,” maybe people need to think about boycotts and…

J: Correct.

MN: You know, put some teeth into what the campaign is.

J: Mess with the purse, you mess with their nerves. Now you got their attention when you start messing with their money. All that talk, they don’t care nothing about that. You can have 20 bullhorns. You start talking about you’re going to stop going to this store, or I’m going to stop going to Target; hold on, hold on, hold out. What the hell’s going on?  You see what I’m saying? So, we got to go back to the grassroots.

MN: Well, we’ll be printing this interview in the next issue of Turning The Tide. We’ll raise this question, why aren’t people saying, to Gov. Shapiro and the parole board, free Mumia now; put some heat on him.

J: Appreciate how you said that y’all going to key on that, but also key on, who gets to judge is a confession right or wrong? It’s supposed to be heard in a court of law with a jury, on a capital murder charge. You understand? Because two things in America law, that nullifies any conviction. One is an open, live confession. right? Second is an alibi. They got the person there, and they are hearing it out the person’s mouth. That’s a whole different thing. Mumia never got that. Just… my thing is saying, you got an innocent man, a journalist, and you as a journalist know that y’all are the most powerful forces of truth-sayers.

     That’s the threat! They don’t care about gangbanging and all that stuff these people doing. They care about truth sayers. If you go through anything, propaganda rules everything. But one of the things that we want to state is we fighting for Mumia, we’re going to continue the Mumia Freedom Tour, and we thank you for having us.

MN: All right, thank you. Really appreciate your time, and the work you’re doing, and it’s all there with Cuba, it’s all of a piece. We need to understand why they punish Cuba, why they want to keep Mumia locked up, is that the people in power fear Cuba, they fear Mumia and what he’s saying.  They are trying to make us fearful, but the truth is they’re afraid of us. The fear they project, it’s their fear, the fear that the oppressors and exploiters have of the people, and of the people’s struggle, and the people’s power.