<TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText>Jailhouse Lawyers</TitleText> <Subtitle>Prisoners Defending Prisoners v. the U.S.A. </Subtitle>

City Lights Books onix@onixsuite.com 20130217 eng

GCDS-9780872864696 03 01 City Lights Books 01 GCOI 87286100448090 02 0872864693 03 9780872864696 15 9780872864696 BC <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText>Jailhouse Lawyers</TitleText> <Subtitle>Prisoners Defending Prisoners v. the U.S.A. </Subtitle> 1 A01 Abu-Jamal, Mumia Mumia Abu-Jamal This picture of Mumia was taken on death row at Huntingdon State Penitentiary Pennsylvania in 1992.  No new photographs have been allowed of PA's death row residents since 1996. Mumia Abu-Jamal is author of many books, including Live From Death Row, Death Blossoms, All Things Censored, and We Want Freedom. He has been living on death row in a Pennsylvania prison since 1982. 2 A23 Davis, Angela Y. Angela Y. Davis Through her activism and her scholarship over the last decades, Angela Y. Davis has been deeply involved in our nation's quest for social justice. Her work as an educator - both at the university level and in the larger public sphere - has always emphasized the importance of building communities of struggle for economic, racial, and gender equality. Professor Davis' teaching career has taken her to San Francisco State University, Mills College, and UC Berkeley. She has also taught at UCLA, Vassar, the Claremont Colleges, and Stanford University. She spent the last fifteen years at the University of California Santa Cruz where she is now Professor Emerita of History of Consciousness, an interdisciplinary Ph.D program, and of Feminist Studies. Angela Davis is the author of eight books and has lectured throughout the United States as well as in Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, and South America. In recent years a persistent theme of her work has been the range of social problems associated with incarceration and the generalized criminalization of those communities that are most affected by poverty and racial discrimination. She draws upon her own experiences in the early seventies as a person who spent eighteen months in jail and on trial, after being placed on the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted List." She has also conducted extensive research on numerous issues related to race, gender and imprisonment. Her most recent books are Abolition Democracy and Are Prisons Obsolete? about the abolition of the prison industrial complex, and a new edition of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.Angela Davis is a founding member Critical Resistance, a national organization dedicated to the dismantling of the prison industrial complex. Internationally, she is affiliated with Sisters Inside, an abolitionist organization based in Queensland, Australia that works in solidarity with women in prison.Like many other educators, Professor Davis is especially concerned with the general tendency to devote more resources and attention to the prison system than to educational institutions. Having helped to popularize the notion of a "prison industrial complex," she now urges her audiences to think seriously about the future possibility of a world without prisons and to help forge a 21st century abolitionist movement. 01 eng 288 01 In Jailhouse Lawyers, award-winning journalist and death-row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal presents the stories and reflections of fellow prisoners-turned-advocates who have learned to use the court system to represent other prisoners-many uneducated or illiterate-and in some cases, to win their freedom. In Mumia's words, "This is the story of law learned, not in the ivory towers of multi-billion-dollar endowed universities [but] in the bowels of the slave-ship, in the hidden, dank dungeons of America ... It is law learned in a stew of bitterness, under the constant threat of violence, in places where millions of people live, but millions of others wish to ignore or forget. It is law written with stubs of pencils, or with four-inch-long rubberized flex-pens, with grit, glimmerings of brilliance, and with clear knowledge that retaliation is right outside the cell door. It is a different perspective on the law, written from the bottom, with a faint hope that a right may be wronged, an injustice redressed. It is Hard Law." Mumia Abu-Jamal is author of many books, including Live From Death Row, Death Blossoms, All Things Censored, and We Want Freedom. He has been living on death row in a Pennsylvania prison since 1982.Listen to Mumia Abu-Jamal's latest dispatches from death row on Prison Radio. Praise for Jailhouse Lawyers:"Jailhouse Lawyers is a must-read for everyone connected in any fashion to the criminal justice system. It illuminates a dark area seen by few and outlines the legal battles still waged from the 'hole' by the semantic warriors who inhabit it. The book plumbs the depth of man's inhumanity to man by exploring the ongoing legal attack by underground lawyers on an unfair legal system. Death-row prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, an award winning journalist, once again demonstrates his courage in opposing the oppression of prison existence." -Tony Serra"[Mumia Abu-Jamal] is one of the most important public intellectuals of our time.... Jailhouse Lawyers is a persuasive refutation of the ideological underpinnings of the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA). The way he situates the PLRA historically-as an inheritance of the Black Codes, which were themselves descended from the slave codes-allows us to recognize the extent to which historical memories of slavery and racism are inscribed in the very structures of the prison system and have helped to produce the prison-industrial-complex. Mumia Abu-Jamal has once more enlightened us, he has once more offered us new ways of thinking about law, democracy, and power. He allows us to reflect upon the fact that transformational possibilities often emerge where we least expect them." -Angela Y. Davis, from the foreword Praise for Mumia Abu-Jamal: "A rare and courageous voice speaking from a place we fear to know: Mumia Abu-Jamal must be heard." -Alice Walker"The power of his voice is rooted in his defiance of those determined to silence him. Magically, Mumia's words are clarified, purified by the toxic strata of resistance they must penetrate to reach us. Like the blues. Like jazz." -John Edgar Wideman"Brilliant in its specificity and imperative, Mumia Abu-Jamal's work is about why multitudes of people don't overcome. It rings so true because he has not overcome." -LA Weekly "Expert and well-reasoned commentary on the justice system...His writings are dangerous." -The Village Voice "Crucial reading for all opponents of the death penalty-and for those who support it, too." -Katha Pollitt, The Nation "Uncompromising, disturbing...Abu-Jamal's voice has the clarity and candor of a man whose impending death emboldens him to say what is on his mind without fear of consequence." -The Boston Globe "Abu-Jamal's words flow like the sap of trees, pulsing with energy and capturing the essence of life." -Library Journal "The voice of black journalism in the struggle for the liberation of African American people has always proved to be decisive throughout black history. From David Walker's appeal in 1829, to the political journalism of Frederick Douglass, to the Black Panther newspaper. When you listen to Mumia Abu-Jamal you hear the echoes of David Walker, Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois, Paul Robeson, and the sisters and brothers who kept the faith with struggle, who kept the faith with resistance." -Manning Marable "Like the most powerful critics in our society-Herman Melville . . . to Eugene O'Neil-Mumia Abu-Jamal forces us to grapple with the most fundamental question facing this country: what does it profit a nation to conquer the whole world and lose its soul?" -Cornel West   "Mumia refuses to allow his spirit to be broken by the forces of injustice; his language glows with an affirming flame." -Jonathon Kozol   "Mumia is a dramatic example of how the criminal justice system can be brought to bear on someone who is African American, articulate, and involved in change in society. The system is threatened by someone like Mumia. A voice as strong and as truthful as his-the repression against him is intensified." -Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking   02 Stories of prisoners who learn law to represent-and sometimes win freedom for-fellow prisoners 08 "Journalist, activist, and author Abu-Jamal writes a startling expose' on otherwise shrouded subject matter, thusly inaugurating this book unto an exemplary class by itself. Indeed, the power of his truth upholds the long-neglected promise of transformation awaiting the domains of justice." -Mischa Geracoulis The Black House Blog 08 "To borrow from an old African-American proverb, Mumia Abu-Jamal 'speaks truth to power' in his latest book on jailhouse lawyering, the American legal system, and the prison-industrial complex. . . . Abu-Jamal writes with incisive equanimity while presenting penetratingly disturbing facts, little known in mainstream society."-Mischa Geracoulis Z Magazine 08 "From his unique vantage point (he has been incarcerated for more than a quarter of a century, most of that on death row), Abu-Jamal aptly humanizes the individuals toiling behind bars to bring cases against enormous institutional, societal, and legal obstacles. . . . [The book] testifies to the character of many jailhouse lawyers, who, when treated with disdain or worse, quietly persist in reading, analyzing, writing, and fighting to do what is right - doing justice." -Heidi Boghosian The Federal Lawyer 08 "Mumia chronicles numerous stories surrounding the experiences of those who faced incarceration, but narrowly escaped with the power of the pen, and the tongue of one (or more) like-minded individuals possessing self-invented legal minds. Like-minded individuals who were immensely unafraid, to divinely deter the injustices they faced in prison. . . Mumia deconstructs the entire corruptive constructs rooted in the contradictive, confusing force that is historically known as American Law. Its callous vulture-culture continues to clash its claws upon the working poor, and the poor in general." -Marlon Crump Poor Magazine 08 "More than a book about prisoners defending prisoners in what the author justly calls 'the Prisonhouse of Nations,' Mumia Abu-Jamal's Jailhouse Lawyers has the potential to jump-start the prison reform movement in the US. In addition to telling the individual stories of the best (and worst) jailhouse lawyers defending themselves and their fellow prisoners in the face of official hostility and, in many instances personal danger, and presenting a lively history of jailhouse lawyering in modern America, Abu-Jamal clearly exposes the political and racial bias of the US criminal justice system and explores the role of jailhouse lawyers in the jungle of American law."-Richard Vogel OpEdNews.com 08 "Despite the U.S. Supreme Court's rejection April 6 of Abu-Jamal's appeal for a new trial, he continues to fight for his freedom. This would not have been possible without the support of millions worldwide. He reminds the reader of the more than two million Americans behind bars in similar situations to himself, and that those in the free world have a responsibility to those trapped 'in the bowels of the slave ship, in the hidden dank dungeons of America.'" -Jaisal Noor The Indypendent 08 "Mumia Abu-Jamal points out in his latest book, his sixth from Death Row in Pennsylvania, that unfortunately jailhouse lawyers-prisoners who learn the law in the joint and help other prisoners with appeals and legal problems-have a reputation of freeing others while they squat. 'It's the bane of jailhouse lawyers. They seem to be able to help everybody but themselves.' That truth hit home earlier this month when the U.S. Supreme Court refused, without comment, to hear the former Black Panther's appeal for a new trial based on the prosecution's consistent exclusion of blacks from his 1982 jury pool. He turns 55 Friday, which means he has officially spent more than half his life in jail. Unless further appeals work, a new Philadelphia jury will eventually be composed, and it will give him life imprisonment or re-institute his death sentence for the 1981 murder of Daniel Faulkner, a white Philadelphia police officer. Then the state of Pennsylvania will try to kill him again." -Todd S. Burroughs Drums in the Global Village 08 "Mumia Abu-Jamal's 27 years on Death Row for a murder he did not commit would have turned almost anyone else into an embittered, defeated man. Instead, he has remained what he always was, "the voice of the voiceless," as he demonstrates yet again in his most recent book . . . Jailhouse Lawyers: Prisoners Defending Prisoners v. the U.S.A. opens a tightly shut door into the operations of the U.S. penal system by chronicling the exploits of dozens of jailhouse lawyers - both men and women - who have fought the injustices the courts and the prisons have dealt them and their fellow prisoners. Their accomplishments, against all odds, have been incredible. Their story is a story never before told."-J. Patrick O'Connor Crime Magazine 08 "Because the justice system in the United States has become so politicized around 'law and order' and has erected an entire industry to house those convicted, the United States - which represents 5 percent of the world's population - now incarcerates 25 percent of the world's prison population. That would go a long way in explaining why there are tens of thousands of jailhouse lawyers working pro se for themselves and other inmates and why Abu-Jamal's latest book is such an important one."-J. Patrick O'Connor OpEd News 08 "The first of its kind, Mumia has written a book that is, paradoxically, both revolutionary and conservative. It's revolutionary because it breaks new ground enlightening us about the courageous, unorthodox resistance to the system (and its inherent injustices) posed by jailhouse lawyers. It's conservative because, as Mumia points out, '...jailhouse lawyers often unwittingly serve the interests of the state by propagating the illusion of 'justice' and 'equity' in a system devoted to neither.'  They create 'illusions of legal options as pathways to both individual and collective liberation'. . . . I recommend this book to all who are interested in justice and its denial, prisoners and their loved ones, courage and consciousness, equality and freedom."-Kiilu Nyasha ZNet 08 "Convicted for the 1981 murder of a police officer, Abu-Jamal . . . offers a hodgepodge of stories about imprisoned men and women who have picked up enough law to represent themselves and others, fight for prisoners' rights and challenge prison conditions. These advocates learned the law 'not in the ivory towers of multi-billion-dollar-endowed universities,' he writes, but 'in the bowels of the slave-ship, in the hidden, dank dungeons of America-the Prisonhouse of Nations' . . . . Drawing on correspondence with two-dozen jailhouse lawyers around the country, Abu-Jamal discusses the lives and work of men and women-some educated, others barely able to read and write-who do legal research, file grievances and litigate cases, often earning reputations as troublemakers and dealt with accordingly by prison authorities. Thousands of such lawyers now work among the 2.3 million inmates of America's prison system, 'to help, to uplift, and even to free others'. . . . Abu-Jamal details the legal strictures governing jailhouse law, including the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1996, intended to prevent frivolous lawsuits by prisoners. Far from being frivolous, he argues, many such actions have led to significant prison reforms."   Kirkus Reviews 23 01 http://www.citylights.com/resources/titles/87286100448090/extras/Pages_from_JailhouseLawyersFINAL.pdf 23 01 http://www.citylights.com/resources/titles/87286100448090/extras/Letter_from_Subcoman_257F5A.pdf 23 01 http://www.citylights.com/resources/titles/87286100448090/extras/JailhouseLawyersExcerptCL.pdf 04 02 72 01 http://www.citylights.com/resources/titles/87286100448090/images/87286100448090L.gif 07 02 72 01 http://www.citylights.com/resources/titles/87286100448090/images/87286100448090S.gif http://www.citylights.com/book/?GCOI=87286100448090 City Lights Publishers 01 City Lights Publishers 20090301 08 16 oz City Lights Books 01 WORLD 20 20090301 01 02 16.95 USD