Beneath the Mountain: An Anti-Prison Reader

Praise for Beneath the Mountain:

"An extraordinary intellect, Abu-Jamal was an award-winning journalist before his incarceration 43 years ago. . . . With co-editor Jennifer Black, in Beneath the Mountain he has compiled a chronology of annotated prison writings, some famous and others less so, but all astonishing in their timelessness and seamless arrangement, illustrating the history of racial, social and political justice movements and where they intersect with law enforcement."—Denise Sullivan, San Francisco Chronicle

" . . . a powerful and necessary tool for educating anyone willing to learn about — and confront — the injustice and hypocrisy of our country's monstrous system of incarceration."—Bill Littlefield, The Arts Fuse

“The book is one-of-a-kind . . . stunning and impeccably curated . . . gleaned directly from the pens of rebels who have worked toward liberation from the bowels of the U.S. prison system.”—Robyn Maynard, co-author of Rehearsals for Living

“Like America's dungeons, this book is full of caged freedom fighters, unfree radicals, and outlaw intellectuals, whose words, smuggled from behind prison bars and cages, offer a beautiful literary anti-canon of liberation.”—David Correia, author of Violent Order: Essays on the Nature of Police

“This collection gives a compelling sense of insurgent spirits and critical minds enduring imprisonment and even facing death at the hands of powerful oppressors. These contributions have much to tell us about past and present realities that must be confronted. Mumia Abu-Jamal and Jennifer Black must be thanked for this precious gift—an inspiring resource for activists, scholars, and all who care about social justice and human rights.”—Paul Le Blanc, editor of Black Liberation and the American Dream

“Who stands beneath the mountain but prisoners of war? Mumia Abu-Jamal and Jennifer Black have assembled a book of fire, each voice a flame in captivity shedding light on what John Brown called "a most barbarous, unprovoked, and unjustifiable war," and illuminating a path to freedom. Whether writing from a place of fugitivity, the prison camp, the city jail, the modern gulag, or death row, these are our revolutionary thinkers, our critics and dreamers, our people. The people who move mountains.”—Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination

“This collection is an irruption of state captivity in all its forms. Gathering the voices of unapologetic revolutionaries, abolitionists, anti-imperialists, and militant resisters, Beneath the Mountain echoes an archive of something else after the mountain has crumbled at the feet of those who dare to do what it takes to find liberation.”—Dylan Rodriguez, author of White Reconstruction: Domestic Warfare and the Logics of Genocide, winner of the 2022 Frantz Fanon Book Award

“Beneath the Mountain reminds us that ancestors and rebels have resisted conquest and enslavement, building marronage against colonialism and genocide.”—Joy James, author of New Bones Abolition: Captive Maternal Agency and the (After)Life of Erica Garner

“Beneath the Mountain salutes generations of revolutionaries from around the world as a wonderful example of what Frantz Fanon once called “combat literature.” The uncompromising and bold voices in this collection speak to us, crafting a “we” with their clarity of thought, fearlessness, and determination. They invite us, teach us, challenge us, enlist us; they embolden and empower us. These are the voices of those defined not by their captivity but by their refusal to submit to oppression and their commitment to freedom. Their words resound across the many decades of struggle. They traverse space, overcoming its carceral partitioning with barbed wires, thick walls, and militarized borders. They advance our quest for dignity and collective liberation.”—Banu Bargu, author of Starve and Immolate: The Politics of Human Weapons