Joan Gibbs Esquire Presente   -   Transcript

by Mumia Abu-Jamal, June 5, 2024

Her name was Joan Gibbs, a lawyer by training, an activist by instinct, and a woman who lived her life in social movements, fighting for social change. She was born on January 17, 1953, in Harlem, New York. She was raised in Swan Corner, North Carolina, where her family dwelled.   She would return to New York Bed Stuy, Brooklyn, when she was 14 years old. She attended the Bronx High School for Science during the 60s, a time of tumult and social ferment. She later attended SUNY Empire State University, where she earned her Bachelor’s Degree.

Black Panther Veteran and member of the famed Panther 21, Afeni Shakur, advised her to go to law school, which she did. Shakur may perhaps be better known as the mother of rap super star Tupac Shakur. Joan would graduate from law school at Rutgers in 1985, where she studied Constitutional and Civil Rights Law. The rest, of course, is history.

Joan Gibbs blazed a remarkable path in the law. She was named the Marvin Karpartkin Fellow of the National Office of the ACLU.  She served as Staff Attorney of the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project. She was a member of the National Conference of Black Lawyers International Affairs Section. She also served as Staff Attorney for the Center of Constitutional Rights. For almost 30 years, she served as General Counsel for the Center for Law and Social Justice at Medgar Evers College in her beloved Brooklyn.

She threw her prodigious energies into protecting the constitutional rights of many of the oppressed and downtrodden. She aided in the cases of political prisoners like the late Black Nationalist Herman Ferguson, and Panthers like Dhoruba Bin Wahad and Sundiata Acoli. She also played an important role in the defense of the group known as Act Up in New York, which engaged in numerous protests in the 80s and 90s to bring attention to those suffering from AIDS/HIV. Her colleagues called her the ultimate compliment, “a lawyer’s lawyer.”

In her personal life, she strolled down the lavender lane as a lesbian woman. She helped found Azalea, a magazine of Third World lesbians, featuring poetry, fiction, and works by Audrey Lorde, Saphire, and Jewelle Gomez. She spent her Saturdays by going to Barnes and Noble, grabbing several thick Nyad lesbian romance novels and reading all night long.  

Where did her political consciousness come from? Where else? Her mother, Ruth Juanita Gibbs, who loved to read James Baldwin. One of her former partners, Elise Harris, called her “a towering intellect.” She joined the Young Socialist Alliance in high school. Before she went to law school, she worked for the legendary radical film group, Liberation News Service.

She lived through 71 seasons of spring.

With Love not Phear this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.

These commentaries are recorded by Prison Radio. For an audio file of Mumia reading this commentary, go to: https://www.prisonradio.org/commentary/joan-gibbs-esquire-presente/

June 5, 2024.