Beneath the Mountain: An Anti-Prison Reader

Herausgeber: Abu-Jamal, Mumia; Black, Jennifer

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

"Essential radical texts by enslaved, jailed, and imprisoned Americans, edited by renowned political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal and activist-scholar Jennifer Black. Beneath the Mountain is a reader's guide for understanding the evolution of anti-prison tenets. This essential core of primary texts provides an arc of insurgent writings by dissidents and revolutionaries who experienced incarceration and state terror first-hand. With contributions from John Brown, Frederick Douglass, and Crazy Horse, to Assata Shakur, Malcolm X, and Leonard Peltier, it also includes a previously unpublished communiquâe from Angela Davis, written from jail at the time when she was forging the anti-prison critique that has since inspired a national movement. Beneath the Mountain offers a record of the historic foundations for the contemporary abolition movement. What emerges from these texts is an emancipatory vision that inspires the work being done today, a vision centered on organizing and solidarity as an antidote to repression. An invaluable resource for readers on both sides of prison walls, this compendium of resistance and hard-won vision will be essential to all who seek to develop an abolitionist critique and to further an understanding of the nature of repression and liberation"--

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: City Lights Books
• Seitenzahl: 496
• Erscheinungstermin: 16. Juli 2024
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 206mm x 138mm x 36mm
• Gewicht: 500g
• ISBN-13: 9780872869264
• ISBN-10: 0872869261
• Artikelnr.: 67404445

Autorenporträt

Mumia Abu-Jamal is a writer, broadcast journalist, and internationally recognized human rights activist. The author of thirteen books, Abu-Jamal holds a Master’s degree in Comparative Literature and is currently working on his PhD in the History of Consciousness Department at University of California Santa Cruz. He is a political prisoner serving a life sentence, incarcerated at SCI Mahoney State Prison, Frackville, PA.  Jennifer Black holds a PhD in Comparative Studies from The Ohio State University where she taught for 12 years. Her research focuses on high-risk activism, state terror, criminal injustice, mass incarceration, and social movement theory. Black hails from a background in both academia and activism and has been collaborating on these two fronts with Abu-Jamal since 1993. She is based in State College, PA.

Inhaltsangabe

BENEATH THE MOUNTAIN 
AN ANTI-PRISON READER 
Edited by Mumia Abu-Jamal and Jennifer Black 
ANNOTATED TABLE OF CONTENTS 
Introduction Chapter 1: Oney Judge, Response to George and Martha
Washington, Her Enslavers 
Oney Judge’s successful self-emancipation and succinct response to her
enslavers reflect a profound understanding of the importance of autonomy
and self-determination in the fight for freedom. 
Bio: Oney Judge was born into servitude in 1774 at George and Martha
Washington’s plantation in Mount Vernon, Virginia. Her mother was an
enslaved seamstress and her father was a white Englishman. Oney
self-emancipated at age 22. In 1848, she died a free woman in Portsmouth,
New Hampshire. 
Chapter 2: Nat Turner’s Confession 
Nat Turner’s stark reflection outlines the circumstances and foundational
inequities that inspired him to execute a massive insurrection against
slavery. 
Bio: Nat Turner lived and died in the state of Virginia from 1800 to 1831.
Despite being enslaved, Turner learned how to read and write from the son
of one of his masters. At 21 years old, Turner escaped slavery and remained
at large for a month before voluntarily returning after receiving a
religious sign. He spent the next 10 years planning the largest and
bloodiest three-day slave revolt in United States history. He was
apprehended and hanged for his role in the uprising. 
Chapter 3: John Brown Letter 
In his final letter to his family before his death, John Brown comforts his
loved ones and remains steadfast in his view that the lengths he went to
end slavery were justified. 
Bio: John Brown was born in Connecticut in 1800 to an anti-slavery
religious family. A conductor on the Underground Railroad, Brown founded
the League of Gileadites, an organization that aided self-emancipated
people on their path to Canada. In 1959, following an unsuccessful raid on
Harpers Ferry in what is now West Virginia, Brown was caught, tried, and
executed for inciting a slave insurrection and other crimes. 
Chapter 4: Frederick Douglass, “The Run-Away Plot” from My Bondage and My
Freedom 
Frederick Douglass details the excruciating psychological torture of
slavery, and the terrifying circumstances of being apprehended and
imprisoned for trying to escape to freedom. 
Bio: Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in 1818 in Talbot County,
Maryland. When he was 20 years old, he successfully self-emancipated by
obtaining false papers that allowed him to pose as a free Black sailor. He
made his way to Philadelphia, where he was met by abolitionist friends who
helped him reach New York. A towering figure in the abolitionist movement,
Douglass was a brilliant orator, writer, thinker, organizer, and statesman.
In 1895, he died in Washington, D.C. 
Chapter 5: Crazy Horse Speech 
While dying, Crazy Horse reflects that his only crime was being an Indian
and living like one. 
Bio: Crazy Horse was a legendary warrior and leader of the Oglala Lakota
Tribe. He fought against the US government’s attempts to displace and
subjugate Native people and is best known for fighting in the 1876 Battle
of the Little Bighorn. Crazy Horse was mortally wounded by bayonet when he
allegedly resisted imprisonment at Camp Robinson. It is said that he never
signed a treaty. 
Chapter 6: Eugene Debs, “Prison Labor, Its Effect on Industry and Trade” 
Eugene Debs analyzes why prison labor emboldens and supports prison
profiteers while it impoverishes and weakens its workers. 
Bio: Born in 1855, Debs began working at age 14, scrubbing paint and grease
off railroad cars for 50 cents a day. Debs became a socialist after
observing the two-party system’s ruthless support of industrial interests.
Imprisoned twice for his political activities, his final campaign for
presidency was conducted from a jail cell. Although no known recording of
Debs’ voice exists, his oratory powers were said to be legendary. He died
in 1926. 
Chapter 7: Geronimo, “In Prison and on the Warpath” from Geronimo’s Story
of His Life 
Geronimo describes being displaced by the United States and the role of
incarceration and confinement in the process of settler-colonialism. 
Bio: Geronimo was estimated to be born in 1829 in present-day Arizona. A
member of the Chiricahua Apache people, he gained esteem fighting against
both Mexico and the United States. Known by his supporters as a warrior and
medicine man, he was believed to have supernatural powers of healing, time
manipulation, weather control, and prescience. Forcibly restricted to the
San Carlos Reservation, Geronimo and his supporters escaped three separate
times before they finally surrendered. He was the last Indian leader to
formally surrender to the United States military and spent the final 23
years of his life as a prisoner of war. He died of pneumonia in 1909. 
Chapter 8: Mother Jones, “Early Years,” “The Haymarket Tragedy,” and “In
Rockefeller’s Prison,” from Autobiography of Mother Jones 
Mother Jones’s narration of her life story highlights the circumstances
that led to the rise of workers’ struggles in the United States and the
roles of state terror and incarceration as methods of social control. 
Bio: Known best as “Mother Jones,” Maåy Harris Jones was born in Ireland in
1837 and immigrated to Canada with her family to escape famine. A fiery
orator and storyteller, she utilized dramatic speech and street theater to
draw attention to the gap between obscene wealth and devastating poverty.
Mother Jones was at one point considered the most dangerous woman in
America. She died in 1930. 
Chapter 9: Nicola Sacco Letter 
Nicola Sacco’s final letter implores his teenage son to choose solidarity
and love in the face of terror and viciousness. 
Bio: Nicola Sacco emigrated to the United States from Italy when he was 17,
where he became an active member of an anarchist group. In 1920, Sacco and
Bartolomeo Vanzetti were charged with the murder of a paymaster and a guard
during a robbery at a shoe factory. Their trial became an international
cause célèbre, as many believed that there was no concrete evidence against
them and that they were soley persecuted for their political beliefs.
Despite widespread protests and appeals, they were convicted and sentenced
to death in 1921. 
Chapter 10: Angelo Herndon, “You Cannot Kill the Working Class” 
Angelo Herndon uses his life story to illustrate how the legacy of slavery
contributes to contemporary inequality, and calls upon workers to unite
together against racism and capitalism. 
Bio: Born in 1913 in Ohio, Angelo Herndon was a Black labor organizer,
Communist Party member, and civil rights activist. As a 13-year-old laborer
in a coal mine, his experience of poor working conditions influenced his
decision to join the Young Communist League USA in 1930. In July 1932, he
was arrested for organizing a march to Georgia’s state capitol to petition
for unemployment insurance. His crime of “inciting an insurrection” was
based on a rarely invoked 1861 Georgia state law intended to prevent slave
revolts. Convicted and sentenced to 18 to 20 years in a chain gang,
Herndon’s case highlights the racial and political tensions in the South,
and the challenges to the rights of free speech. He died in 1997. 
Chapter 11: Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, Letters 
The human cost of political persecution is revealed in this set of personal
letters sent between Ethel and Julius Rosenberg and their peers. 
Bios: Ethel Greenglass was born in the state of New York in 1915. Julius
Rosenberg was born three years later. Active members of the Communist
Party, they married in 1939. Arrested in 1950, the couple was accused of
turning over military secrets about the atomic bomb and nuclear weapons to
the Soviet Union’s vice-consul. Despite an international campaign to free
them, they were incarcerated for three years and then executed. The
Rosenberg’s were the first American civilians to receive the death penalty
for the crime of conspiracy to commit espionage. 
Chapter 12: Malcolm X, “Saved” from The Autobiography of Malcolm X 
Malcolm X describes his extraordinary self-education in prison and reveals
that the study of history transformed the course of his life. 
Bio: Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little in 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska.
Following a jailhouse conversion to Islam, he was later referred to as
el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz. Malcom X was a remarkable orator and dedicated
his life to studying history, organizing, preaching, and confronting white
supremacy. At 39 years old, Malcolm X died from a hail of bullets in the
Audubon Ballroom, in Washington Heights, New York. His work remains an
inspiration to Black liberation movements around the world. 
Chapter 13: George Jackson, Jail Letters, and excerpt from Blood in My Eye
 
George Jackson’s letters from jail demonstrate his personal view of his
plight in the scope of historical circumstances, and outline the ways the
anti-prison movement is connected to all movements for social justice. 
Bio: George Jackson’s life began in Chicago in 1941 and ended in San
Quentin Prison in 1971. One of five children, Jackson spent time in
juvenile corrections for various charges. At the age of 18, Jackson was
given an indeterminate “one year to life” sentence for stealing $70 from a
gas station. Jackson was politicized by other prisoners and read
voraciously, dedicating himself to revolutionary studies. In 1971, Jackson
was shot and killed by prison guards who claimed he was trying to escape.
His writings and life story have become foundational to the development of
anti-prison theory. 
Chapter 14: Angela Davis, 1971 Jail Letter and “Beneath the Mountain”
Victory Speech 
Speaking and writing with revolutionary passion, Davis connects the dots
between militarism, capitalism, the prison system, and the role of state
terror in maintaining the status quo. These pieces reveal some of the
earliest iterations of her abolitionist critique. 
Bio: Angela Davis was born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1944. Davis came of
age witnessing racial terror as part of the everyday life of Black people
living in the South. She became a member of the Communist Party and was
closely affiliated with the Black Communist group the Che-Lumumba Club. She
rose to national and international prominence when accused of involvement
in a California courtroom shootout that resulted in four deaths. After more
than a year in prison and a trial, she was acquitted in 1972, and returned
to teaching. A leader in anti-prison organizing, she has since held faculty
positions at several universities, and continues to give public talks and
write to advance radical feminism and abolitionism. She resides in Oakland,
California. 
Chapter 15: Martin Sostre, “The New Prisoner” 
Martin Sostre presents an in-the-trenches appraisal of the mindset of
politicized prisoners. 
Bio: Born in Harlem, New York, in 1923, Martin Sostre went to prison on
drug charges and survived nearly 20 years of incarceration, much of it in
solitary confinement. He served time throughout the state of New York in
various facilities, and became politicized there by studying law, history,
and philosophy, thus developing a staunch anti-prison consciousness. Known
as a rabble rouser and organizer, he also became a revolutionary anarchist
who used his knowledge to wage and win legal battles for prisoner rights.
Upon release from prison, he opened a radical bookstore in Buffalo, New
York. Sostre went to prison again in 1967 on trumped-up drug charges,
spending 10 years there before winning his freedom. He died in 2015. 
Chapter 16: Assata Shakur, “How It Is With Us” and poems 
Assata Shakur discusses women’s prisons and emphasizes how incarceration
wastes human potential. 
Bio: Assata Shakur was born JoAnne Byron in 1947 in Jamaica, Queens. She
spent her childhood years in both New York City and Wilmington, North
Carolina. Involved in Civil Rights and Black Power movements, Shakur joined
the Black Panthers and later the Black Liberation Army. In 1973, she was
ambushed by police on the New Jersey Turnpike, and despite lack of
evidence, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the murder of a
state trooper. She escaped prison in 1979 and made her way to Cuba. Granted
political asylum, she continues to live, work, and teach there today,
forced to remain in exile due to the bounty the United States government
has placed on her head. 
Chapter 17: Rita Bo Brown, Court Statement 
Rita Bo Brown’s unyielding and steadfast court statement emphasizes the
importance of solidarity between marginalized groups and the anti-prison
movement. 
Bio: Rita Darling Brown, popularly known as Bo Brown, was born in rural
Oregon. A community-minded, working-class lesbian, she gained notoriety for
the polite and calm manner in which she robbed banks. After serving eight
years in prison, she returned to her radical community where she was known
as a committed and well-loved advocate for prison abolition and economic
and racial justice. Brown died in 2021 in Oakland, California. 
Chapter 18: Mumia Abu-Jamal *****Unpublished piece not yet
determined****** 
Bio: Born in 1954 in Philadelphia, Mumia Abu-Jamal’s career started at age
of 14 when he joined the Black Panther Party. By age 15 he had his own
byline in the weekly Party paper and an international readership of
250,000. Abu-Jamal’s broadcast career was sharply altered after his
wrongful arrest in 1981. He was found guilty of premeditated murder and
sentenced to death. After decades on Death Row, his sentence was commuted
to life in prison. Abu-Jamal continues to research, record, write, and
publish while living in SCI Mahanoy in Frackville, Pennsylvania. 
Chapter 19: Safiya Bukhari, “Coming of Age: A Black Revolutionary” from
The War Before 
Safiya Bukhari describes how she became a revolutionary, and advocates that
as long as circumstances of repression exist, people are obligated to rise
up and fight back. 
Bio: Born in Harlem, New York, in 1950, Safiya Bukhari joined the Black
Panther Party in 1969. Both a witness and a victim to the state terror
leveled against activists, she was imprisoned from 1975 to 1983 on robbery
and murder charges. Once released, she went on to co-found and co-chair the
New York Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition and the National Jericho Movement
for US Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War, and became vice-president
of the Republik of New Afrika. Known as a fierce and tirelessly hardworking
advocate, she addressed issues pertaining to women prisoners and medical
neglect. She died in 2003, in Manhasset, New York, at the age of 53. 
Chapter 20: Todd Ashker, Arturo Castellanos, Sitawa Nantambu Jamaa,
California Hunger Striker Statement, Agreement to End Hostilities 
Paving the way for their planned hunger strike, this statement signals to
their outside support networks, as well as to fellow prisoners, that a
united racial front is imperative to their success. 
Bio: TK 
Chapter 21: Chelsea Manning, Court Statement 
Writing from prison, Chelsea Manning describes why she was forced to become
a whistleblower, and details the facts of her life in relation to her
growing understanding of US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. 
Bio: Chelsea Manning was born in 1987 and grew up between the United States
and her mother’s home country, Wales. She joined the United States Army in
2007, became a whistleblower by exposing military information on WikiLeaks,
and was subsequently arrested. In 2013, Manning was found guilty of
espionage and theft and sentenced to 35 years in prison. The following
month, Manning came out as transgender. Manning served seven years in a
military prison until 2017, when her sentence was commuted by President
Barack Obama. Manning went back to prison two times in 2019 when she was
found in contempt of court for refusing to testify in a WikiLeaks inquiry,
and was released in 2020. She currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. 
Chapter 22: Russell “Maroon” Shoatz, “Liberation or Gangsterism” 
Writing from prison, Russell “Maroon” Shoatz provides a stark analysis of
how and why a generation of youth have become victims of mass
incarceration. 
Bio: Russel “Maroon” Shoatz was born in 1943. A self-proclaimed “street
thug,” Shoatz spent time in and out of juvenile prison facilities. He
became a founding member of the Black Unity Council and was a soldier in
the Black Liberation Army. In 1973, he was convicted in connection with the
murder of a Philadelphia police officer and sentenced to life in prison
with no possibility of parole. Following two prison escapes, Shoatz was
subjected to 22 consecutive years in solitary confinement, and was later
released into the general population after a successful court battle.
Having secured compassionate release from prison, he enjoyed 53 days of
freedom and died in Philadelphia in 2021. 
Chapter 23: Free Alabama Movement Collective, “Let the Crops Rot in the
Field” 
This statement discusses the power of prisoners to organize and the
significance of understanding political economy. 
Bio: TK 
Chapter 24: Ed Mead, “Men Against Sexism and Escape” 
Ed Mead discusses prison organizing, safety, and the importance of
solidarity. 
Bio: Born in 1941, Ed Mead was 13 when first incarcerated in Utah. Mead
went from being a swindler and petty criminal to a politicized anti-prison
activist, and became a founder of the George Jackson Brigade, an
underground revolutionary group. He served 18 years in prison for bank
robberies and attacks against government targets such as the Washington
Department of Corrections, Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the FBI. Mead
currently lives in Seattle, Washington, and continues to organize and
conduct community work. 
Chapter 25: Saleem Holbrook, “Dismantling the Master’s House” 
Saleem Holbrook reflects on the ways radical Black and abolitionist
traditions provide necessary tools to gain liberation from prison and
discusses what tools are necessary for greater societal change outside of
prison. 
Bio: Saleem Holbrook was born and raised in Philadelphia. The son of
politically active parents, Holbrook came of age in the “tough on crime”
era of mass incarceration. On the night of his 16th birthday, Holbrook was
convicted of first-degree murder for playing the role of lookout in a drug
deal gone bad and was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of
parole. While incarcerated, he wrote extensively on prison abuse and state
violence and helped co-found the Human Rights Coalition and the Coalition
Against Death By Incarceration. He currently resides in Philadelphia, where
he serves as executive director of the Abolitionist Law Center. 
Chapter 26: Safear Ness, “Phone Resistance” 
In this hopeful account, Safear Ness provides the anatomy of a successful
campaign for phone usage in the Pennsylvania prison system. 
Bio: Safear Ness was born in 1991 and raised in Philadelphia. Ness came to
political consciousness during the Occupy movement and went to prison
shortly afterwards. Mentored in prison by Steven Wilson and others, Ness
was released in early 2023. He currently lives, studies, writes and
organizes at the State College, Pennsylvania, where he produces “In The
Mix: Prisoner Podcast.” 
Permissions 
Acknowledgments 
About the Editors 
Index