New iHeart Series About The Conviction of Black Activist To Debut

 Like many, H. Rap Brown has a complicated legacy. He was a human rights activist, Muslim cleric, black separatist, a convicted robber, and convicted murderer who was the fifth chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the 1960s. He served as the Black Panther Party's minister of justice during a short-lived (six months) alliance between SNCC and the Black Panther Party.

Yet over 20 years later, questions still linger about his arrest, trial, and conviction. Perhaps the biggest piece of exculpatory evidence is the confession by Otis Jackson of the murders before Brown's trial. At the time, the court did not consider Jackson's statement as evidence.

 Premiering December 5, 2023, the podcast tells the story of Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, a Muslim leader who was convicted of shooting two sheriff’s deputies — one fatally —in 2000, outside a mosque in one of Atlanta’s oldest neighborhoods. Prior to converting to Islam, Al-Amin was known as the Black Power activist H. Rap Brown, and was one of the most polarizing figures of the movement, gaining a reputation as a charismatic orator and passionate revolutionary. H. Rap Brown was an honorary officer in the Black Panther Party, and like his peers, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King JR., and Stokely Carmichael, was a target of the FBI’s COINTELPRO surveillance program.

The trial for the shootings took place just months after the September 11 attacks — a time of unprecedented anti-Muslim fervor in the United States — and Jamil Al-Amin was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.  Al-Amin, in prison to this day, has maintained his innocence, and by 2020, a glimmer of hope emerges as a “conviction integrity unit” begins to reexamine the case.

Leading Atlanta-based independent content production company Tenderfoot TV, and award-winning podcast studio Campside Media, have announced a multi-show partnership agreement. Both of the first-announced series sit at the intersection of social justice, true crime, and journalism, focused on stories from Atlanta, Georgia, where both companies have roots.

“Radical” is hosted by Mosi Secret, a former reporter for The New York Times and ProPublica who grew up in Atlanta’s African-American Muslim community. Secret takes listeners through this odyssey that spans the Jim Crow South, the Civil Rights Movement, the War on Drugs, and post-9/11 America, unraveling a story that transcends a murder trial to explore the impact on a community of Black Muslims in the South, revealing something deeper about violence in America, and who deserves to be called radical.

“Jamil Al-Amin was a crucial figure in Black history, and a vibrant leader who played an integral role in establishing a religious community in one of Atlanta’s oldest neighborhoods, yet many people do not know his story,” said “Radical” host, Mosi Secret. “This podcast is not just a story of a brutal murder and a manhunt, but a complex historical and political story, and one that showcases the consequences of violence for a small community of African American Muslims in the South.”

On the heels of the recently announced Cop City documentary with award-winning production company Ventureland, Tenderfoot TV and Campside Media will release an investigative podcast surrounding Atlanta’s controversial proposed police training facility. The indie podcast will cover the protests, violence, arrests and accusations of domestic terrorism erupted last year in response to the proposed $90M, 85-acre ‘Cop City,’ which is set to become one of the largest militarized police training centers in the United States. Told in eight episodes, the narrative will center specifically on the death of Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, a young activist killed by police in January 2023.

“Atlanta’s cultural and political influence is unmatched both nationwide and globally. The stories and figures that have shaped Atlanta — both historical and present-day — are as complex as the city itself,” said Donald Albright, CEO of Tenderfoot TV. “We’re proud to partner with Campside Media to take a deeper dive into the events taking place in our own backyard and told through the voices of our neighbors.”