© 7/2026 by Mumia Abu-Jamal
https://www.prisonradio.org/commentary/message-to-galaxy-fellows/
The most important thing you can share — the North Star you refer to — is History. Real history teaches why today is the way it is, today.
Malcolm X used to say, History, of all our studies, best rewards our research. When he learned about history, it transformed him. The history of Black people in America opened his head and expanded his mind.
It remade him — it made him into one of the greatest Black leaders of the 20th century.
That’s the power of history. The power of history is the power of how to see the world today, as it is, not as you are told it is.
I also think about Frantz Fanon, speaking of Algeria. They wanted not only to take over the people of Algeria, the land of Algeria, they wanted to reach back and destroy the history of the people of Algeria.
What about Steve Biko? The racist government of South Africa feared him, and killed him, because they believed that he would one day be the president of South Africa.
Another book, one closer to home, a remarkable work of history, by a master historian named Robin D. G. Kelley. His book “Hammer and Hoe,” about the 1930s, when a group was working with workers in Alabama who were agricultural workers and miners who wanted a few pennies more to help take care of their families. And in response, they got the repression of groups like the Knights of the White Camellia, the Ku Klux Klan and other groups who assisted police, and really, who assisted the land-owners, right? I was blown away when I read it.
Does the state not want people to awaken from their slumber? History matters, because it explains why the world is the way it is today — and there lies the key for changing it.
I extend my deepest appreciation, and more importantly, liberatory solidarity, from the bowels of a prison cell in Pennsylvania, serving the 44th year of a death-by-incarceration sentence, to the cohorts of the Galaxy-Gibbs family. I thank you for your work.
With love, not fear, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal
