EBONY MAGAZINE
Mumia Abu-Jamal is featured in the
November 2024 issue of Ebony magazine as one of
“The 55 Most Intriguing Blacks” in America.

About Mumia, Ebony writes:

He is an international cause célèbre. World leaders as disparate as Pope John Paul II and Nelson Mandela have called for his release from prison.

Still, Mumia Abu-Jamal sits on death row in a Pennsylvania prison, waiting to hear whether he will be executed for the 1981 murder of a Philadelphia police officer, a crime he maintains he did not commit.

But who is this man whose plight has helped shine an international spotlight on America's debate about the death penalty? Prior to his arrest, Abu-Jamal, 46, was an outspoken radio journalist who used his broadcast pulpit to decry police brutality.

Abu-Jamal's broadcast career came to a crashing halt when he was shot by a police officer during a street brawl involving his brother. The officer was killed and Abu-Jamal was charged with the officer's murder and eventually was sentenced to death.

His supporters say Abu-Jamal's political activity marked him for a legal lynching; the FBI amassed a 600-page file on him dating back to his days as a 15-year old member of the Black Panther Party. Now his fate rests on an evidentiary review of his case while death-penalty foes wait, watch and pray