BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY : AFRICAN AMERICAN " JULIA WRIGHT " IS THE DAUGHTER OF FAMOUS AUTHOR RICHARD WRIGHT : GOES INTO THE " HALL OF BLACK GENIUS "

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Julia Wright, Daughter of Famed Writer Richard Wright, on Mumia Abu-Jamal

 

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We take a look at case of death row case prisoner, Mumia Abu-Jamal. with Julia Wright, daughter of the late, famed writer Richard Wright. We also play a tribute to Julia Wright that Mumia Abu-Jamal recorded from death row. [includes rush transcript]

We take a look at the death row case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. He was sentenced to death in 1982 for the killing of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. Abu-Jamal was gravely wounded in the incident. A journalist, Black Panther and outspoken critic of police brutality, racism and the death penalty, Mumia Abu-Jamal has always maintained his innocence.

Julia Wright is here with us now–she’s the daughter of the late, great writer Richard Wright.

Julia is visiting New York from her home in Paris where she is involved in the International Concerned Family and Friends For Mumia Abu-Jamal.

But first, let’s take a listen to this audio tribute to Julia that Mumia recorded last week.

• Mumia Abu-Jamal, recording from death row. Courtesy of the Prison Radio Project.
• Julia Wright, daughter of the literary giant Richard Wright. She is an activist with the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal.

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TRANSCRIPT

AMY GOODMAN: Julia Wright is here with us now. She’s the daughter of the late famed writer, Richard Wright. She’s visiting New York from her home in Paris, where she’s involved in International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal. We wanted first to go to a commentary of Mumia Abu-Jamal, an audio tribute to Julia, that Mumia recorded last week.

MUMIA ABU-JAMAL: Julia, the eldest daughter of the great black literary lion, Richard Wright, has been a strong presence in peoples’ movements on three continents for generations. She helped open up the famed international section of the Black Panther Party in Algiers, Algeria. When the Cleaver family left Algiers some years later, they found refuge with Julia and her family in Paris, France, and Julia founded the French branch of our support movement in 1995. A steady presence, a sister with open arms and heart when her people are in need. Not just a proud daughter of a pioneering writer and activist, but an activist and writer in her own right.

Julia knows something about repression. You could say it’s in her bones. Like millions of Black Americans, her father was the fruit of Africans and Native peoples. Her mother, Ellen Poplar Wright, was a Jewish survivor of the global genocidal Hitler regime. Thus, in that one woman, we see the crystallization of three inhuman genocidal assaults, the centuries-long war against Africans, the winnowing threshings of Native indigenous peoples from almost all of what we call the United States, and the anti-Jewish pogroms in Germany, in Nazi-occupied Europe. There’s a reason she’s so tough. She comes from tough resilient people. From death row, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.