jinai hardwick-moore's List: Philadelphia Politics

In 1964, North Philadelphia was the city's center of African American culture, and home to 400,000 of the city's 600,000 Black Residents.[1] The Philadelphia Police Department had tried to improve its relationship with the city's Black community assigning police to patrol Black neighborhoods in teams of one Black and one White officer per squad car and having a civilian review board to handle cases of police brutality.[1] Despite the improvement attempts of the Philadelphia Police Department, Racial tensions had been high in Philadelphia over the issue of police brutality. The Philadelphia Tribune, the city’s black newspaper running several articles on police brutality which often resulted in White policemen who were brought up on charges of brutality being acquitted.[2] The summer of 1964 however was at the peak of the civil rights movement with rioting breaking out in black areas of other northern cities such as New York, Rochester, Jersey City and Elizabeth[1] caused by incidents relating to police brutality against black citizens.

Ethel D. Allen once described herself as, "BFR—a black female Republican, an entity as rare as a black elephant and just as smart." In her career she challenged sexism and racism, and was devoted to the disadvantaged in her community as both a health care provider and a politician.

One of three children, Allen was born in 1929, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where she lived and worked for most of her life. Her father, Sidney S. Allen, Sr. was a self-employed tailor, and her mother, known only as Mrs. Sidney S. Allen, was the only one of Allen's parents to graduate from high school. As a single parent she took on the legal guardianship of a child called Kathy Ann, whose parents had died shortly after her birth.

Mumia Abu-Jamal (born Wesley Cook on April 24, 1954) is an African-American who was convicted and sentenced to death for the December 9, 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner.[1] He has been described as "perhaps the best known Death-Row prisoner in the world", and his sentence is one of the most debated today.[2]

Before his arrest he was a member of the Black Panther Party, an activist, part-time cab driver, journalist, radio personality, news commentator and broadcaster.

Since his conviction, his case has received international attention and he has become a controversial cultural icon. Supporters and opponents disagree on the appropriateness of the death penalty, whether he is guilty, or whether he received a fair trial.[3][4][5] During his imprisonment he has published several books and other commentaries, notably Live from Death Row.

Since 1995, Abu-Jamal has been incarcerated at Pennsylvania's SCI Greene[6] near Waynesburg, where most of the state’s capital case inmates are held. In 2008, a three-judge panel of the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the murder conviction, but ordered a new capital sentencing hearing over concerns that the jury was improperly instructed.[7] In April 2009, the United States Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal for a new trial, allowing his July 1982 conviction to stand.[7] A separate appeal by prosecutors to reinstate the death penalty has not yet been heard.[8]