In Mumia Abu-Jamal’s newly-released book, Writing on the Wall: Selected Prison Writings (p. 223), he tells of Black Panther Kwando B. Kinshasa (of the New York Panther 21) doing time in the imperial U.S. army in Guatemala, but being politically radicalized there, too. It was the activists there that challenged him. They minced no words […]
Excerpt One, from my book, The Executed God. My publisher, Fortress Press, has agreed to allow me to post segments of the forthcoming new edition of my book, The Executed God: The Way of the Cross in Lockdown America (due out November 1). These posts will be altered a bit for appearing here at my website, with […]
By Mark Lewis Taylor Consider two dynamics of white terror today. For centuries both dynamics of this terror have persisted in the US. Both give succor to a scourge of political and social violence that many in the U.S. still hesitate to admit and redress, even – perhaps especially – in the wake of the […]
By Mark Lewis Taylor Mumia Abu-Jamal’s fight today for his physical health exposes the pervasive inhumanity of US mass incarceration’s very nature. It is a lethal system. Abu-Jamal is currently incarcerated in a Frackville, Pennsylvania state prison, serving a Life Without Possibility of Parole sentence (LWOPP). That began after nearly 30 years on death row […]
by Mark Lewis Taylor A Review published in Theology Today (April 2015) of Jacques Derrida, The Death Penalty, Volume 1. The Death Penalty Seminars. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013. (at right: Derrida at one of his death penalty seminars – this one in New York City, I believe) _____________________________ It is highly significant that no philosophical discourse […]
[ Latest update: We just heard today, May 18, that Mumia phoned his wife, Wadiya, this morning. He confirmed that he is in this hospital where I visited last Saturday. He sounded stronger. The call was only for 15 minutes, and neither family, lawyers, nor anybody can visit him. So a press conference is being held to […]
The letter below was mailed on April 22, 2015 to the New Jersey Orange Township Public School District Superintendent and Board, as well as to the Mayor of Orange, New Jersey, Dwayne D. Warren, Esq. This letter represents a fuller statement of my support for Ms. Zuniga than I was able to give in my […]
by Mark Lewis Taylor This essay is forthcoming in Socialism and Democracy, first to appear in print within a few weeks, then going online, but not until after a year’s time. At present, only the Introduction to this Special Issue on Mass Incarceration is available at the online site. For the full table of contents […]
As a kind of meditation in the wake of hearing too many complaints about Ferguson protestors “destroying property,” I here type out segments of my marked-up copy of chapter 4 of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Trumpet of Conscience (New York: Harper and Row, 1967, pp. 55-7). If you have the large James Washington volume, see […]
Statement of “Greetings” by Mark Lewis Taylor from the Host Committee for the dialogue on “Revolution and Religion: The Fight for Emancipation and the Role of Religion,” between Bob Avakian, Chair of the Revolutionary Communist Party USA, and Cornel West, Professor of Philosophy and Christian Practice, Union Theological Seminary. Taylor was introduced as professor at […]