James “Bumpy” Bennett

Photograph by Kevin H. Abdul-Rahman, published in The Appeal.

James “Bumpy” Bennett was a fighter. He conquered cancer two times. He had a hip replacement after his friends and family advocated for him to get the surgery. He had served time for 48 years when, on May 17, he died at the age of 71 in Huntingdon, a state prison in Pennsylvania. 

James was a role model to the many young incarcerated men who got to know him. He was affectionately nicknamed after the famous Harlem gangster, “Bumpy Johnson,” and James was revered by those who knew him.

James qualified as a member of a vulnerable population, defined by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention as people over the age of 65 and people with compromised immune systems. However, despite his health and good behavior, the state of Pennsylvania failed to release him. Even as the number of COVID-19 cases increased from 17 to 100 in only a couple of weeks in May, the Huntingdon facility had no adequate sanitation or isolation to prevent the spread of the virus. 

As James’ friend Robert Saleem Holbrook wrote in The Appeal, those who fight decarceration efforts “appear not to care that aging, incarcerated people are at risk of being sacrificed during the COVID-19 pandemic… One more death is one too many.”

This memorial was written by MOL team member Dayle Chung with information from an opinion piece written by Richard Saleem Holbrook published in The Appeal.