“Whatever your native language is, I wish you peace and solidarity,” Jalil Muntaqim said.
On Wednesday, Feb. 5, an expectant crowd of students waited in the Benson Auditorium to hear Muntaqim speak. A former member of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army, Muntaqim is an outspoken activist and educator. On parole as of 2020, Muntaqim had been incarcerated since age 16 — almost five decades.
Muntaqim was arrested in 1971 and charged with the murders of two NYPD police officers. He describes himself as a political prisoner.
During his years in prison, Muntaqim founded the Jericho Movement, which seeks amnesty for political prisoners and prisoners of war. He also earned two college degrees, wrote several books and taught classes to fellow inmates.
The event, titled “From Whence We Came — Which Way Forward,” was hosted by the 5C Prison Abolition Collective and co-sponsored by numerous departments and clubs across campus. The club’s mission is to “support Prison Industrial Complex abolition through political education, direct action and community engagement,” according to their Instagram.
At the door, attendees were asked to donate to The People’s Fund, “a collective of students and community members who aim to monetarily support people building power (through mutual aid) in Sudan, Gaza and Eastern Congo.”
Muntaqim’s passion for education became clear as he spoke conversationally to the audience, who responded to his questions and laughed along with his jokes. He spoke about his personal experience organizing for political change within the prison system.
“The penal system of the United States is a slave system,” he said. “I know — I was in there 49 years. And all the time I was in, I continued to resist, continued to fight, continued to organize.”
Muntaqim repeatedly referenced an anti-capitalist framework in his argument for the abolition of the prison-industrial complex.
“The system of capitalism is built off of two ideals: individuality and competition,” he said. “What’s the opposite of that? Cooperation and unity. That’s what we have to build.”
Muntaqim described corporate investment in the penal system as a main contributor to its continuation.
“If they knew the conditions existed, why not change the conditions?” he asked. “That would mean a reallocation of funds. They’re not gonna do that.”
Muntaqim claims “we have to decolonize our thinking,” by teaching “a new history that speaks truth to power by recognizing America as an imperialist state.”
To illustrate this “new history,” Muntaqim projected an image of the 13th Amendment. Standing in front of the projection, Muntaqim asked the audience, “Mass incarceration, what’s that about?”
He then answered: “To maintain the system.”
“Criminalizing poverty, criminalizing homelessness, vagrancy laws. This is the history of this country. This is what we’re confronting today.”
He also projected several state vagrancy laws written in 1865, soon after the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared that a Black person could be arrested if unemployed and without a permanent address.
“Certain states put these laws together, these regulations, these policies, these ideas of maintaining the system of white supremacy,” he said.
Muntaqim drew parallels between American history and current policies.
“Most recently, the Supreme Court has made a ruling that stated if you are homeless and vagrant you can be arrested and put in prison,” Muntaqim said, referencing the June 2024 Supreme Court decision that allowed cities to punish unhoused people for sleeping in public spaces.
“Criminalizing poverty, criminalizing homelessness, vagrancy laws. This is the history of this country. This is what we’re confronting today,” he said.
Lucy Waggoner-Wu SC ’25, who attended the lecture, was inspired by Muntaqim’s ability to connect American history to its modern-day politics.
“The way he talked about history shows a continuity with the present day,” Waggoner-Wu said. “[It] allows you to see things that otherwise seem accidental or a mistake or a failure instead as a continuation.”
“In Claremont, as on any college campus, there are so many people who are educating themselves in a way that you can’t really find anywhere else,” Ariel Dean SC ’27 said after Muntaqim’s lecture. “I think it’s important for someone like him who has learned a lot and has taught a lot to come to a place like Claremont.”
Muntaqim ended his lecture with a rallying cry based on love and cooperation.
“We have to learn to love each other. We are in it together.”