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This book came out of a visit with one of the most famous prisoners in the world and the most famous living Philadelphian. Mumia Abu-Jamal—Mumia, as he is known to millions—has been on death row for over a quarter of a century. In December 1981 he was arrested for killing a police officer who shot him as he ran to help his brother. Mumia was sentenced to death after a trial so flagrantly racist that Amnesty International dedicated an entire report to it, concluding:

Based on its review of the trial transcript and other original documents, Amnesty International has determined that numerous aspects of this case clearly failed to meet minimum international standards safeguarding the fairness of legal proceedings. Amnesty International therefore believes that the interests of justice would best be served by the granting of a new trial to Mumia Abu-Jamal.¹

Mumia and I had never met but I came well-recommended. He had high regard for my late husband, C. L. R. James, author of The Black Jacobins, a Marxist and organizer who advocated both class struggle and black autonomy. Niki Adams and I visited Mumia at the end of 2004, and despite the Plexiglas separating us from this handsome, handcuffed man,² we talked—from when we were let in at 9:00 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. when we had to leave him behind.

Mumia was remarkably well–informed; as a practicing journalist he works hard to stay up to date. He hardly mentions his situation or his case. Helped by an optimistic and even temper, he keeps his eyes on the prize, tackling the mountain of work he sets himself. Few of us outside function that well.

When Mumia mentioned jailhouse lawyers, he was taken aback by our excitement. While prisoners everywhere are driven to become legal experts to defend themselves, we had not heard this expertise named and acknowledged. Niki coordinates a self-help legal service³ in London; the low-income people she works with learn the law and insist on its application to win the justice that professional lawyers—Mumia calls them “street lawyers”—can’t or won’t fight for. Jailhouse lawyers, amazingly, were doing similar life-saving work, with immeasurably more constraints and fewer resources.

Before we left that afternoon, we had asked Mumia if he would consider writing a book about jailhouse lawyers. The first on this important subject, it would enable the public to glimpse a crucial aspect of the growing movement against the prison-industrial complex hidden by high walls and steel doors, one which Mumia knows inside out. (We later learned—not from him—that his own jailhouse lawyering had got him appointed vice president representing jailhouse lawyers of the National Lawyers Guild.)

A couple of months later, he wrote to say yes, he would do the book and agreed to work with us on it, despite an ocean between us.

At the time I knew nothing of what Mumia had to consider before agreeing to do this book. He has a heavy schedule. He writes books and articles. He phones weekly commentaries to the Prison Radio Project. He sends messages to movement events—showing solidarity with their causes and using his voice to transcend the barriers of prison walls. He needs to do a lot of reading, making careful notes and excerpts since he’s allowed only seven books at a time in his cell which, he says, is “as large as your bathroom.” Despite repression and restraints, Mumia Abu-Jamal is leading his life, not the one he planned for himself but not the one his persecutors planned for him either.

As I got to know him, I began to understand that Mumia personifies the best of the movement of the 1960s: committed, principled, loyal, and determined to win. He became a Black Panther at 14, when millions of young people in many parts of the world were creating communes and collectives. Panthers, under constant attack, couldn’t choose as many white kids did to “turn on, tune in and drop out.” Panther life was also collective but one of struggle and service: from legal defense to the breakfast program for children, to distributing bags of groceries to poor Black people. By their late teens, many of these young people were experienced political organizers. Some, like Chairman Fred Hampton Sr., who was killed by the government when he was 21, became distinguished political leaders. Mumia, a teenager, spoke at Hampton’s Philadelphia memorial.

Mumia’s journalistic mastery and consistency derive from this history, training, and an uncompromising commitment to change the world. This makes his journalism among the most radical and distinguished in the United States—a beacon during the benighted Bush years. The support movement, which has stayed the hand of the state against his execution, has grown worldwide because of who he is, a fighter free of machismo and self-indulgence.

These qualities inform every page of this book, which took shape despite petty and malicious prison restrictions. Telephone charges for prisoners are inflated to dollars per minute even as tariffs dwindle for the rest of us. Prisoners are denied access to computers—Mumia has yet to use one or go online. He must buy typewriter ribbons inhouse at inflated prison prices—ribbons reused until they become so lightly inked that the script can barely be read let alone scanned; each draft of the book needed retyping. City Lights Books and Mumia continued the editing process, resulting in the final version presented here.

Mumia uncovers what extraordinary lives of resistance some prisoners have created from need, imagination, and determination. Drawing on his experience, compassion, and extensive correspondence, he sketches portraits of great jailhouse lawyers focussed on beating justice out of the system. Often spurred by the need to repair the damage to their own cases inflicted by lazy and uncaring “street lawyers,” Mumia describes how jailhouse lawyers learn the law, the precedents, the jargon, and mount a legal defense, often formidable. Despite great odds, they often—well, sometimes—win, and even win big. Other prisoners might then apply for their help, and some then get hooked into dedicating their time to this. In the process they carve out a life for themselves, a victory in itself.

Mumia doesn’t neglect women, the least visible of the prison population. More than one jailhouse lawyer dedicates herself to justice for women prisoners. Compounding the tragedy of imprisonment, women often carry the heavy responsibility and guilt of being mothers.

No word was added or deleted without Mumia’s express permission. He was always ready to consider another view. We debated (sometimes in long letters) the impact of jailhouse lawyers winning. Does it give the system credibility when after great effort you save a life? We concluded that not only does every life matter but that every victory strengthens and encourages our side.

As this book goes to press, an appeal on Mumia’s behalf submitted by Robert R. Bryan, his committed lead attorney, is being considered by the U.S. Supreme Court. The key issue is that racism in jury selection kept some Black people off the jury, ensuring Mumia’s conviction. If the Supreme Court accepts his appeal, Mumia will get the new trial he has fought for.

Racism in jury selection, central in thousands of cases of imprisoned women and men of color, including on death row, is a crucial aspect of racism in the United States. If you’re Black you can now be elected president; but unless you’re president, racism can still keep you off a jury; and if you’re accused of a crime, racism can impose a jury likely to convict whatever the evidence. In confronting racism in jury selection, Mumia is doing cutting-edge justice work for many others.

One in every ninety-nine people in the United States, and one in every nine Black men between the ages of 20 and 34, are in prison.⁴ We hope this book will contribute to changing that. It could also inspire another kind of collaboration. The book tells the story of how one jailhouse lawyer learned that legal action inside could be far more effective if it was reinforced by simultaneous actions outside. We see no reason why what jailhouse lawyers do should not be regularly supported in this way. That’s for the future—though we hope not too far in the future.

At showings of In Prison My Whole Life, a new film about Mumia’s case, audiences have been immediately engaged by him. His voice from death row, powerfully honest and compelling, is a force against the death penalty, but also against racism and sexism, exploitation and war. He speaks for internationalism, for movements, and for revolution. Mumia, our jailhouse lawyer, advocates to liberate us all from the social, political, and psychological prisons that hold us captive. Best of all, he introduces us to jailhouse lawyers who, like him, are determined to win.

Selma James

November 2008