"When you listen to Mumia Abu-Jamal you hear the echoes of David Walker, Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, Paul Robeson, and the sisters and brothers who kept the faith with struggle, who kept the faith with resistance."–Manning Marable
"Mumia Abu-Jamal is one of the most important public intellectuals of our time ... He offers us new ways of thinking about law, democracy and power. He allows us to reflect up on the fact that transformational possibilities often emerge where we least expect them."–Angela Y. Davis
"Writing on the Wall, edited by Johanna Fernáaacute;ndez with an electrifying foreword by Cornel West ... is destined to become another classic tome in the canon of Prison Literature."–Noelle Hanrahan
"Abu-Jamal's writing tends to be forceful, outraged, and humorous, but he also engages in the bombastic approaches of another era. Early columns focus on his admiration for the cultish radical group MOVE, notoriously bombed by Philadelphia authorities in 1985 following years of conflict between police and blacks. From his captive perspective, the author offers powerful columns on diverse subjects ranging from the plight of black farmers to the crushing of dissent after 9/11. Some remain all too relevant–e.g., those decrying systemic police brutality as seen in flashpoints from Rodney King to Ferguson or the rise of racial disparities in drug sentencing. Abu-Jamal meditates on central figures in the black political narrative, ranging from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to Trayvon Martin. Yet some columns indulge in radical-left gamesmanship, as when he dismisses the salutary effects of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling: 'Let the bourgeoisie and the Black middle class celebrate Brown. Meanwhile, let the rest of us ignore it.' As a collection that spans from 1982 to 2014, these topical essays testify to the effects of incarceration on mind and spirit. While his prose has sharpened over time, Abu-Jamal remains enraged and pessimistic about an America that, in his view, remains wholly corrupt: '[Blacks] know from bitter experience that while Americans may say one thing, they mean something quite different.'"–Kirkus Reviews
"Hope and the seeds of revolution can come from the depths of isolation. Writing from his cell on death row, where he was held in solitary confinement for nearly 30 years, Abu-Jamal has long been a loud and clear voice for all who suffer injustice, racism, and poverty. Edited by Fernandez, this selection of 100 previously unpublished essays includes a foreword by Cornel West."–Evan Karp, SF Weekly
"Mumia knows what is happening better from behind bars than do many on the outside, because he has access to books ... Those of us outside of prison have access to books, too, although many seem to forget it. We could all be as well-informed as Mumia. We could all know what's coming next before it hits us in the face. A good place to start would be by reading the Writing on the Wall."–David Swanson, Counterpunch
"Abu-Jamal's commentaries, taken together, target the contradictions of the established order, pointing to its corrupt nature versus the natural power of people-fueled resistance ... It remains to be seen in a 2015 world of social media if the masses of 'Black Lives Matter' tweeters will develop the skill, discipline and commitment of their now-elder statesman Abu-Jamal, who wrote in the margins of the society decades before it became cool."–Todd S. Burroughs, Drums in the Global Village
"A comprehensive anthology of Mumia's short prison commentaries from 1982 to the present, which among other things tracks the ignominious history of police sponsored terror from Haitian immigrant Amadou Diallo (whose body NYPD riddled with of 40 bullets) to 92-year-old elderly Kathryn Johnston, shot to death in her Atlanta home by narco
