ABOUT THIS SERIES
Aspects of Mumia Abu-Jamal’s life are familiar to those
Baby Boomers who grew up yelling "Black Power," wearing Afros, and openly
and romantically discussing how they would disrupt, destroy or subvert The
Man. Abu-Jamal (born Wesley Cook in April 1954) became Lieutenant of
Information for the Philadelphia branch of the Black Panther Party in 1969
at age 15. The Federal Bureau of Investigation began following him almost
immediately, tracking his statements and activities and clipping his
articles from The Black Panther newspaper. The young activist had
left the group by the end of 1970, a casualty of the growing split that
developed between BPP leaders Huey Newton and Eldridge Cleaver. Abu-Jamal,
who turned 50 this past April, is on Death Row in Pennsylvania, convicted of
the 1981 murder of a white Philadelphia police officer.
This series was written to coincide with the 38th
anniversary of the founding of the Black Panther Party and the publication
of Abu-Jamal’s fifth book,
"We Want Freedom:
A Life In The Black Panther Party" (South End Press). Both the
book and this series chronicle his involvement with the Party, putting it in
the larger context of his life and of many other African-Americans of that
time.
Copyright © 2004 by Todd Steven Burroughs
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Table of Contents
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Todd Steven Burroughs, Ph.D. (tburroughs@jmail.umd.edu)
is an independent researcher/writer based in Hyattsville, Md. He is a
primary author of Civil Rights Chronicle (Legacy), a history of the
Civil Rights Movement, and a contributor to Putting The Movement Back
Into Civil Rights Teaching (Teaching For Change/Poverty & Race Research
Action Council), a K-12 teaching guide of the Civil Rights Movement. He is
writing a biography of Abu-Jamal. |
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| photo of Mumia Abu Jamal from
Internationalist Group |
| photo of Todd Steven Burroughs from
Research Channel |
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