At the time of his arrest, he was a prominent radio journalist and president of the local chapter of the Association of Black Journalists. Mumia was also a strident critic of Philadelphia's racist police force, and was affiliated with the Black Panthers. One evening in 1981 when Mumia was moonlighting as a cab driver, he came upon a cop beating his own brother. The street was full of people (the bars had just closed) when Mumia ran to his brother's defense, and after the ensuring conflict, Mumia was sitting on the curb shot in the body, his brother was bleeding from the face, and the cop lay dead. Following his arrest, he was beaten several times by police and was said by police to have confessed to the murder of the police officer. Mumia has always maintained that he did not kill the cop, and a number of witnesses blamed another man who fled the scene. Prosecutors argued for the death penalty by reciting his history in the Black Panthers and quoting his political writings. Mumia was to be put to death for consorting with radicals and upholding revolution. Mumia sits on death row because of who he is and the political views he advocates. He exposes police brutality and racism and stands with revolutionary peoples throughout the world.
Rage performed in the Mumia defense fund benefit in the Capitol Ballroom, Washington, DC on August 13, 1995. A bootleg of this performance called "Killing Your Enemy in 1995" can be found.