In Defense of Mumia

by John Edgar Wideman

Book Overview

In 1982, the award-winning journalist and former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal was convicted of killing a Philadephia police officer and was sentenced to death. He was on death row for 13 years before... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0863160999
• ISBN13: 9780863160998
• Release Date: January 1996
• Publisher: Writers & Readers Publishing
• Length: 364 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

This is a must read for any politically progressive person!

This book speaks to the need for people of color to protect our men from being railroaded by America's so-called justice sytem (read "just us" system). And this need is even more evidenced by the New York City cases of Patrick Dorismond and Amadou Diallo who ultimately lost their lives. In Mumia's case, we as people at least still have the chance to save his life and liberate him.

An impressive body of poetry & prose: activism at its best!

From reading some of these myopic reviews, it is obvious that they come from people who clearly haven't bothered to read the book they claim to review. Rather than basing your review on television programs such as 20/20 (they always get it right?) or resorting to some uninformed knee-jerk reactions, it might be helpful to READ the impressive body of poetry and prose that Anderson and Medina have painstakingly collected. IN DEFENSE OF MUMIA offers readers a diverse array of distinguished contributors, from Gwendolyn Brooks to Toni Morrison to Nat Hentoff to E.L. Doctorow and several emerging, new writers. Within its pages these authors address many issues that move the discussion beyond Mumia the Man into a much larger arena that encompasses police brutality, the privatization of prisons, and the disenfranchisement of prisoners, to name only a few. It is a timely and much-needed collection, especially considering the dangerous times in which we live. In a nation where Proposition 21 passes, allowing cops to arrest young children...in a nation where an innocent, unarmed man can be ruthlessly murdered (shot 41 times) on his own doorstep--without impunity--...in this nation we can ill afford not to support progressive literature such as the anthology, IN DEFENSE OF MUMIA. Buy this important book and judge for yourself, don't allow others to make the decision for you.

"In Defense of Mumia" deserves 5 stars and a bag of chips!!!

"In Defense of Mumia" is one of the most comprehensive political anthologies to come out of the U.S. literary cannon these last few years of the 20th century. It is easy to see why: with writers as diverse as Toni Morrison, Gwendolyn Brooks, E.L. Doctorrow, Dennis Brutus and Jan Carew to name a few, one can't help but wonder if this is the measuring stick by which future anthologies will be judged. For we are headed for some serious turbulence in the coming years. There is no room for American artists to not take a stance on social issues where justice and equality are at stake. Readers deserve more works like this that allows for a greater understanding of the machinations of wealth and its various death machines, protecting its money. The U.S. Judicial System should be taken to task on the floor of the U.N. for the obvious railroading of writer/political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal. Anderson and Medina should put together more anthologies that are not afraid to challenge private property and cultural imperialism. "In Defense of Mumia" is a must read and a must have...no doubt about it!!!

"In Defense Of Mumia"--A Wake Up Call!!!

Rarely do you find an anthology with such diversity and depth (in terms of aestheic styles, varying genres and class and ideological views)all in one unififed, politically focused artistic expression. S.E. Anderson and Tony Medina's "In Defense of Mumia" marks the continuum of a literary movement where art is functional and used not to coerce, indoctrinate, trivialize or pervert history and distort reality, but used, as here (in "In Defense of Mumia") to defend the life of a poltical prisoner on death row, Mumia Abu-Jamal, himself a writer of strong moral and political convictions and committment, framed and railroaded by a judicial system with a history of legally (and physically) lynching Black people. As we move closer to the 21st century, we need more books like this, filled with artists on the front lines reporting on the times, documenting, in art and protest, what the people think and feel. These are scary times, and we need courageous artists that are not afraid to testify and bare witness.

This is a fantastic book!!!

I give this book a 5 star rating. It's that good. S.E. Anderson and Tony Medina have put together a mesmerizing collection of poetry, art and prose that rekindles the kind of passionately political wrting that dominated the literary landscape of the 1960s and '70s. Not only do you have giants such as Gwendolyn Brooks, Toni Morrison, Sonia Sanchez, Jayne Cortez, Amiri Baraka, June Jordan John Edgar Wideman and Cornel West to name a few of the older generation of writers,but you have new up-and-coming hotshots like Ras Baraka, Mike Ladd,Asha Bandele, Suheir Hammad, Paul Beatty, Kevin Powell and Tony Medina himself. This is a book for everyone interested in socially committed art. It is also a worthy cause...to defend the life of a fellow writer, intellectual and political activist who was sent to death row with little or no evidence when the trial he was given was not fair. This anthology leaves one with the nagging question: How many innocen people are sitting on death row because they weren't able to pay for a competent defense like, say, O.J.? If the system is allowed to execute Mumia, then what will follow in the urban areas of these as-yet-to-be-united states will be a fate worse than that which preceeded the assasinations of Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. "In Defense of Mumia" is a book that clearly and boldly warns of a fire this time.