Quotes from Mumia Abu-Jamal

Politics is the art of making the people believe that they are in power, when in fact, they have none.

here and there in the barrios and the favelas, among those who have least, beat hearts of hope, fly sparks of Overcoming.

Free people have a right to decide for themselves what they want to hear.

Elie Wiesel says that the greatest evil in the world is not anger or hatred, but indifference. If that is true, then the opposite is also true: that the greatest love we can show our children is the attention we pay them, the time we take for them. Maybe we serve children the best simply by noticing them.

Prison is a second-by-second assault on the soul, a day-to-day degradation of the self, an oppressive steel and brick umbrella that transforms seconds into hours and hours into days.

here and there in the barrios and the favelas, among those who have least, beat hearts of hope, fly sparks of Overcoming.

Conventional wisdom would have one believe that it is insane to resist this, the mightiest of empires, but what history really shows is that today's empire is tomorrow's ashes; that nothing lasts forever, and that to not resist is to acquiesce in your own oppression. The greatest form of sanity that anyone can exercise is to resist that force that is trying to repress, oppress, and fight down the human spirit.

The men laugh at the witty line, but it is not a belly laugh. Beasley's mouth is in a wide smile, but his eyes do not laugh, for there is little reason for joy. And if eyes are indeed mirrors of the soul, then they reflect an infinite sadness. I look away, afraid of what mine might reflect

For law can be just or unjust. Dr. Huey P. Newton said, "The law must serve men; not men serve the law." John Africa, founder of the MOVE Organization, said, "Just because it's legal doesn't make it right.

Like all empires, the harsh and violent forms of control that have been used on the "wretched of the earth," have migrated back to the homeland in a time of decay to keep the population in check. The tyranny we have imposed on others is now being imposed on us.

But America, like every nation, has its ages of psychosis. It has fits of indecision and periods of self-delusion. Consider how presidents spoke movingly of freedom from tyranny while personally holding hundreds of men, women, and children in slavery.

This is the meaning of Star Wars: we were rebels; we are Empire. And like all rebellious children, we were but going through a phase. We are getting ready for adulthood, after we sowed a few wild oats. Once grown, we put on our imperial uniform, and bowed to the Empire. It is your destiny. Right? Unless—

Any system that permits its children to be killed with impunity would seem to be a system in dire crisis. Something at the very core of our system—and society—is irrevocably broken and must be fixed.

It is written, we musn't forget, in the Prisonhouse of Nations —the United States of America. Here, there are more than 2.3 million men, women, and juveniles under lock and key. As theNewYork Timeshas recently reported, the U.S. has just under 5 percent of the world's population, yet it has a quarter of the world's prison population.1 In the realm of imprisonment, the United States truly is Number one.

The media, itself an arm of mega-corporate power, feeds the fear industry, so that people are primed like pumps to support wars on rumor, innuendo, legends, and lies.

Conventional wisdom would have one believe.

Very few people in prison have voices that go beyond the wall. It's my job to do the work for them because they have no one.

I spend my days preparing for life, not preparing for death.