Death Blossoms: Reflections from a Prisoner of Conscience - Softcover

Abu-Jamal, Mumia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0896086992 ISBN 13: 9780896086999

Publisher: South End Press, 2003

Synopsis

In Death Blossoms: Reflections from a Prisoner of Conscience Mumia Abu-Jamal, America’s best known political prisoner, offers poetic observations and reflections on life on this planet and on death row. In this collection of short essays and personal vignettes, which take on everything from spirituality and religion to capitalism and the prison-industrial complex, Mumia examines the deeper dimensions of existence.

Mumia’s ability to celebrate life and advocate for revolutionary change while being held, at the state’s convenience, at death’s door, imbues his thoughts and words with power and passion. "Many people say it is insane to resist the system, but actually, it is insane not to," he writes in "Politics." In "God-Talk on Phase II" he writes, "On death’s brink, men begin to see things they’ve perhaps never seen before. Like those around them, and especially those who share their fate...men whose death warrants have been signed, men with a date to die—live each day with a clarity and a vibrancy they might have lacked in less pressured times."

Mumia turns this clarity towards his quest for spiritual and social fulfillment drawing connections between religion and race politics. He embraces spirituality while exploring the true nature of the institutions that have sentenced him to die.

"Crucial reading for all opponents of the death penalty—and for those who support it, too."—Katha Pollitt, The Nation

"A brilliant, lucid meditation on the moral obligation of political commitment by a deeply ethical—and deeply wronged—human being. Mumia should be freed, now."—Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

"If Mumia Abu-Jamal has nothing important to say, why are so many powerful people trying to kill him and shut him up? Read him."—John Edgar Wideman

Mumia Abu-Jamal, an award-winning journalist and former Black Panther Party member, has been living on death row in a Pennsylvania prison since 1982.

About this title

About the Author:

Mumia Abu-Jamal, an award-winning journalist, is America's best-known political prisoner. Sentenced with execution, Mumia has lived on Death Row since 1982. Ever since he wrote for the Black Panther Party's national newspaper as a youth, Mumia has reported on the racism and inequity in our society. He soon added radio to his portfolio, eventually recording a series of reports from death row for NPR's All Things Considered. However, NPR, caving in to political pressure, refused to air the programs. Mumia Abu-Jamal is still fighting for his own freedom from prison, and through his powerful voice, for the freedom of all people from inequity.

From Booklist:

Abu-Jamal has been on death row for 15 years for a crime many believe he did not commit. A well-respected African American journalist, Abu-Jamal followed a lifelong quest for meaning and enlightenment, which inspired him to join the Black Panther Party as a young man and later John Africa's community, MOVE, alignments that put him in clear opposition to the powers-that-be, a stance he firmly retains. Refusing to be silenced by his incarceration and impending execution, Abu-Jamal has defied the authorities to write Live from Death Row (1995), which has sold 80,000 copies, and now this collection of vigorous social critiques and moving essays on matters of faith. Like so many other oppressed writers-of-conscience, Abu-Jamal has been rewarded for suffering the torment of exile and isolation, vilification and a sentence of death with the grace of a genuine spiritual awakening, and the flame of his keen intellect and irrepressible soul burns brightly, illuminating each mind that opens to his wise words. Donna Seaman

About this edition

• Publisher: South End Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0896086992
• ISBN 13: 9780896086999
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 150