Beneath the Mountain

Essential radical texts by enslaved, jailed, and imprisoned Americans, edited by renowned political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal and activist/scholar Jennifer Black.

"Mumia's critical voice, experience, and analysis . . . embody the courage and commitment necessary for any social movement to succeed."--Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Author of Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership

In many traditions, the mountaintop represents the dream of freedom, liberation, and spiritual community. In the United States, however, where the Thirteenth Amendment continues to permit slavery as a "punishment for crime," the interconnected institutions of enslavement and imprisonment represent the nightmare of captivity and control imposed on millions since the founding of the nation.

In Beneath the Mountain, renowned political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal and activist/scholar Jennifer Black present a selection of essential texts from unfree radicals--enslaved people, political prisoners, jailed revolutionaries, imprisoned Native American insurgents--who contribute to the canon of contemporary abolitionist thought and anti-prison organizing.

With contributions from John Brown, Frederick Douglass, and Crazy Horse, to Assata Shakur, Martin Sostre, Leonard Peltier, and Angela Y. Davis, Beneath the Mountain offers a careful and diverse selection of voices pointing to a future where both enslavement and incarceration are abolished.

Beneath the Mountain also features two early texts by Angela Y. Davis, including one previously unpublished communique she wrote while in jail, fighting for her life, and forging the anti-prison critique that has since inspired a national movement.

"Martin Luther King told us what he saw when he went to the mountaintop," writes Angela Y. Davis. "But there's also the foot of the mountain, and there are also the regions beneath the surface. I want to try to tell you a little something about those regions. I want to attempt to persuade you to join in the struggle to give life and breath to those who live sealed away from everything that resembles human decency." Beneath the Mountain is essential reading for all dedicated to seeing that struggle win.