About me
Jamal Joseph is a writer, director, producer educator and activist. His film and television writer/director credits include Chapter & Verse (theatrical and BET) which won the Pan African Film Festival’s Audience Choice Award and was a New York Times Critic’s pick, Drive By and Da Zone for STARZ in BLACK, Hard Chorus and Hip Hop in the Promised Land for Comedy Central, and Hughes Dream Harlem for PBS. Additional screenplay credits include Knights of the South Bronx for A&E and Ali: An American Hero for FOX. Joseph is an executive producer and is featured in the FX Docuseries Dear Mama about the life and legacy of Tupac and Afeni Shakur. Joseph is featured in the PBS documentary Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution and the EPIX docuseries By Whatever Means Necessary. He is the creator of dramatic series Panther Baby which is based on his critically-acclaimed memoir.
Joseph joined the Harlem chapter of the Black Panther Party when he was 15 years old. At age 16, he was arrested and charged with conspiracy and attempted murder as the youngest member of the New York Panther 21. After a year in prison, he was severed from the case as a youthful offender and released on bail. Joseph worked with Jerry Lefcourt and the other members of the Panther 21 who had been released on bail to raise awareness for the 21. Joseph would return to prison, spending nearly a decade incarcerated for charges related to his involvement in the Black Liberation Army. His legal representation and friendship with movement lawyers Jerry Leftcourt, Sanford Katz, Bob Bloom, Soffiyah Elijah, Chokwe Lumumba and Bill Mogulescu sustained him as a prisoner of war and the basis of the courtroom battle strategies that prevented his 9 years in prison from being life sentences.
He began writing and directing plays in prison and founded a groundbreaking multiracial theater ensemble while incarcerated at Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary. He has since written, directed and produced plays and theatrical events at National Black Theater, New Heritage Theatre, Riverside Theater, St. James Theater, The Apollo, Theater at Madison Square Garden, Miller Theater and Carnegie Hall.
Joseph is the co-founder of Impact Youth Theatre. He is the Executive Artistic Director of New Heritage Theatre, the oldest Black non-profit theater in New York State.
Joseph has been a member of Columbia University's film faculty for 25 years. He is a full professor of professional practice in film and was the first African-American to serve as the head of the screen and television writing program and as Chair of the Graduate Film Division. He is the author of Tupac Legacy, an interactive biography of Tupac Shakur published by Atria Books, Panther Baby published by Algonquin Books and co-author of Look For Me in The Whirlwind published by PM Press
Joseph’s awards include an NAACP leadership award, Black Filmmakers' Hall of Fame Award, Paul Robeson Award from Actor's Equity Association, AUDELCO Leadership Award and Sundance Directing Fellowship. He is a three-time winner of the National Black Program Consortium Prized Pieces Award, a Cine Golden Eagle, an Encore Purpose Prize, and the Film Independent Spirit Award. He has been nominated for an Oscar, and Emmy and a Grammy.