Building digital archives. Connecting people beyond walls.
In 2020, Jessica Millward, Tiffany Willoughby-Herard and Johanna Fernandez launched the Activist Studio West to curate an open access digital archive of materials related to documenting the efforts to bring Mumia Abu Jamal home. Part love letter and part teaching and research platform, ASW is fortified in the commitment to bring Mumia’s words, writing and struggle to the public. This archive is maintained by undergraduate and graduate students at UCI and participating Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU). (Photo: Jessica Millward and Mumia Abu Jamal, April 2017, SCI Mahanoy Prison, Frackville, PA.)
“I began writing to Mumia Abu-Jamal in December 2011 while he was in the liminal space between Death Row at SCI Greene and his release into the general population at Mahanoy Prison. During the seven weeks that he was in “the hole,” we communicated in a series of hand-written notes back and forth. I am not part of the “Campaign to Bring Mumia Home.” I do not attend meetings. I do not march for his freedom. But I do ponder his confinement. As a scholar of slavery I am haunted by the loneliness, depression, strength, and sadness of our ancestors. I know the frustration of a dream deferred. I know what it is to hope for something that is unimaginable. I also knew that wishing for something and being prepared for it was often two different things.”
—Jessica Millward, Mumia, Vulnerability and Hope