CONTENTS
Introduction: Have Black Lives Ever Mattered?
Hate Crimes June 14, 1998
The Law Against the Law June 20, 1998
We Are Blind to Everything but Color July 5, 1998
A History of Betrayal October 29, 1998
Legalized Police Violence March 28, 1999
The Folly of Calling the FBI April 18, 1999
Where Is the Outrage? 1999
What Is the Fourth of July For? June 19, 1999
Public Servants or Paid Predators? February 27, 2000
Cincinnati Fires April 17, 2001
Aiding and Abetting "Bombingham": The FBI May 28, 2001Of Cops and Courts 47 March 2, 2002
"We Have No Country" October 19, 2002
The Other Central Park Rapes 2002
When a Child Is Killed February 22, 2003
Trying to Survive to 90 While Black? December 2, 2006
Death in a Cell January 12, 2009
Oscar Grant and You January 17, 2009
The Arrest of Harvard Scholar Dr. Henry Louis Gates July 30, 2009
When a Grand Jury Finds Beatings To Be "Helpful" August 13, 2009
When Racists Rule Policy September 13, 2009
The Death Penalty Derives from Lynch Law March 10, 2010
Life in Dark Flesh Is Not Equal to Life in White Flesh July 10, 2010
Geronimo
June 4, 2011While Rage Bubbles in Black Hearts August 20, 2011
Troy Davis: Movement Lessons September 9, 2011
What Do You Call a Judge Who Makes Racist Statements? March 4, 2012
The Trayvon Martin Case April 12, 2012
For Rodney King the Struggle Is Finally Over June 17, 2012
Trayvon and the War Against Us June 19, 2012
Tears of Sorrow and Rage November 2, 2012
The Dorner Dilemma February 18, 2013
The Dorner Manifesto February 26, 2013
A Harsh Light on New York's Criminal Justice System April 8, 2013
Will Trayvon Martin's Killer Be Acquitted? July 8, 2013
The Verdict: Black Life Is as Cheap as Day-Old Pretzels July 14, 2013
Trayvon Is One, They Are Many July 21, 2013
The Troy Davis Tragedy October 13, 2014
Place Names of Black Pain, Loss and Death November 24, 2014
Rule of Law November 26, 2014
Ferguson Fallout November 28, 2014
"Operation Restore Trust?" December 2, 2014
Eric Garner: "I Can't Breathe" December 4, 2014
Police Terrorism: A National Crisis December 7, 2014
Grand Jury Jammed December 10, 2014
Demonstrating Respect? December 23, 2014
Ferguson: The Epicenter January 1, 2015
Black Lives Matter? January 22, 2015
Ferguson, USA March 5, 2015
Words vs. Deeds March 11, 2015
Shots May 24, 2015
The Heritage of the Confederate Battle Flag July 7, 2015
As Black as They Were Expendable August 25, 2015
Tamir Rice of Cleveland October 15, 2015
Disturbing the Peace October 28, 2015
Badge of Racism December 14, 2015
Because She Is a Black Child December 28, 2015
Killed by Cops Who Were "Just Doing Their Jobs" July 7, 2016
What Happens to a Dream Deferred? July 10, 2016
MOVE August 1, 2016
Black Lives Don't Matter December 12, 2016
To Protect and Serve Whom? September 2015, updated February 2017
Notes
About the Author
In December 1981, independent journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal was shot I Land then beaten into unconsciousness by Philadelphia police. He awoke to find himself shackled to a hospital bed, accused of killing a cop. Convict- ed and sentenced to death in a trial that Amnesty International denounced as failing to meet the lowest acceptable standards of judicial fairness, Mumia has spent decades in prison defending his innocence and speaking out against injustice, racism, and violence in America.
In Have Black Lives Ever Mattered? Mumia focuses on the generations of people of color who have fallen to police bullets and violence, and offers advice on how to fight back. Written with an unwavering commitment to a radical Black perspective, this collection of short essays chronicles the racist violence tearing our country apart and explains what must be done to turn things around.
"In this brilliant, painful, factual and useful book, we see to whom our lives have not mattered: the profit-driven Euro-Americans who enslaved and worked our ancestors to death within a few years, then murdered them and bought replacements. Many of these ancestors are buried beneath Wall Street. Mumia Abu-Jamal's painstaking courage, truth-telling, and disinterest in avoiding the reality of American racial life is, as always, honorable." ALICE WALKER
"This collection of short meditations, written from a prison cell, captures the past two decades of police violence that gave rise to Black Lives Mat- ter while digging deeply into the history of the United States. This is the book we need right now to find our bearings in the chaos." -ROXANNE DUNBAR-ORTIZ, author of An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States
"Mumia Abu-Jamal's clarion call for justice and defiance of state oppres- sion has never dimmed, despite his decades of being shackled and caged. He is one of our nation's most valiant revolutionaries and courageous intellectuals." CHRIS HEDGES, Pulitzer-prize winning journalist and author of Wages of Rebellion: The Moral Imperative of Revolt