The Mumia Abu Jamal & Daniel Faulkner 'Philliversary' 44

Philadelphia's Bipolar Case of America's Unbroken Justice System

- by Edmond W. Davis

Each December in Philadelphia, two memorials stand on the same street, in different worlds.

On Locust Street in Center City, only a few hundred feet separate the Pennsylvania Boxing Hall of Fame—an institution historically connected to figures like attorney and boxing advocate George Bochetto, the prosecutor for Jamal—from the site of arguably the city's most infamous and famous murders of the 20th century. The Hall of Fame is not there to honor that crime, nor does it claim any connection to it. Yet its quiet, stoic presence stands just down the block from the solemn marker honoring fallen Philly Police Officer Daniel Faulkner (25), murdered in the early morning hours of December 9, 1981.

As I recently walked that corridor, I felt how Philadelphia holds two histories in the same physical space—two narratives, two truths, two emotional universes. And each year, as the anniversary returns, so does the seismic debate over the man convicted of Faulkner's murder: journalist, activist, and global symbol of police accountability, Mumia Abu-Jamal.

"For the LORD loves justice and will not forsake his faithful ones." — Psalm 37:28