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Security Processing Center
Mumia Abu-Jamal AM 8335
268 Bricker Road
Bellefonte, PA 16823-1667
Epilogue
Huey P. Newton echoed much of what Mumia Abu-Jamal has said, written about and how he conducts his life. This is taken from Newton's autobiography, Revolutionary Suicide,
My prison experience is a good example of revolutionary suicide in action, for prison is a microcosm of the outside world. From the beginning of my sentence, I defied the authorities by refusing to cooperate. As a result, I was confined to lock up in a solitary cell. As the months passed and I remained steadfast, they came to regard my behavior as suicidal. I was told that I would crack and break under the strain. I did not break, nor did I retreat from my position. I grew strong. If I had submitted to their exploitation and done their will, it would have killed my spirit and condemned me to a living death. To cooperate in imprison meant reactionary suicide to me. While solitary confinement can be physically and mentally destructive, my actions were taken with an understanding of the risk I had to suffer through a certain situation.
By doing so, my resistance told them that I rejected all they stood for, even though my struggle might have harmed my health, even killed me. I looked upon it as a way of raising the consciousness of the other inmates as a contribution to the ongoing revolution. Only resistance can destroy the pressures that cause reactionary suicide.
The concept of revolutionary suicide is not defeatist or fatalistic, on the contrary, it conveys an awareness of reality in combination with the possibility of hope-reality, because the revolution must always be prepared to face death, and hope because it symbolizes a resolute determination to bring about change. Above all, it demands that the revolutionary see his death and his life as one piece. Chairman Mao says that death comes to all of us, but it varies in its significance. To die for the reactionary is lighter than a feather. To die for the revolution is heavier than Mount Tai.
(Our mother) helped us see the light side in even the most difficult situations. This lightness and balance have carried me through some difficult days. Often when others expect to find me depressed by difficult circumstances and especially by the extreme condition of prison, they see that I look at things in another way. Not that I am happy with the suffering. I simply refuse to be defeated by it.
Huey P. Newton, Revolutionary Suicide (autobiography)
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