Brown University's video: Panel 1: Biography as History: Mumia Abu-Jamal Philadelphia and the Nation

The opening panel on September 28, 2023 — day two of "Voices of Mass Incarceration: A Symposium" — examines Mumia Abu-Jamal’s biography, case, and personal narrative against the backdrop of the violence of the police state within Philadelphia and the nation. Like other northern cities, Philadelphia was ground zero for controlling and patrolling racial segregation as well as movements advancing Black radical thought. Mumia’s case exists within this broader historical moment (which is both a local and national phenomenon). Panelists discuss this history and its links to the present-day social problems related to white supremacy, censorship of Black scholarship/thought, and the persistence of mass incarceration and its corollaries. Moderated by Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve, Associate Professor of Sociology at Brown University with three panelists: Elizabeth Hinton – Professor of History, African American Studies, and Law, Yale University Todd Steven Burroughs, Ph.D. – Writer and Public Historian/Consultant to Mumia Abu-Jamal archive Heather Ann Thompson – Author and historian, University of Michigan (via Zoom)