Mumia

I don't remember the first time I learned the story of Mumia Abu-Jamal. I do remember a mural painted in the H building art classroom of Berkeley High with Mumia's face and a banner demanding his freedom, but I didn't mean anything to me at the time. In that same classroom was the icon 'by any means necessary' photo of Malcolm X - the one of Malcolm in a suit and tie, a rifle in hand, pulling back the shades looking out a window. Mumia is one of over 2 million people locked in cages in the U.S., and one of a smaller group serving life sentences. He is of that generation (if slightly younger) of fighters like Huey Newton, Fred Hampton, and Angela Davis. He was barely a teenager when Malcolm and Martin were murdered. When things really start to move in this country, will Mumia be free from his cage to march alongside us? He is further proof that nothing is of greater threat to the ruling class than a thinking man or woman, and that no cage can confine the human mind.