Remembering George Jackson

Posted by Eljeer Hawkins on August 25, 2011

The United States imprisons 2.3 million women and men. This is the highest incarceration rate in the advanced capitalist world. Every day this system continues its deadly assault on working people…
by Eljeer Hawkins (Harlem, New York)

Remembering George Jackson: September 23, 1941 – August 21, 1971

George Jackson

On August 21, 1971, the black freedom and prisoners’ rights movement lost one of its “organic intellectuals,” to use a term made famous by 20th century Italian Marxist and political prisoner Antonio Gramsci. The revolutionary commitment that raged inside of George Jackson was born in the belly of American capitalism’s institution of social control, the prison system. He would be gunned down a month shy of his thirtieth birthday, by San Quentin prison guards during an alleged prison break.

Jackson’s Soledad Brother was published in the fall of 1970. His book Blood in My Eye was published posthumously in the fall of 1971. These two works stand as his political manifesto—an unbounded dedication to freedom for the most oppressed people in the world.

George Jackson stands alongside Malcolm X and countless others who became politically and socially aware of racism and capitalism’s underdevelopment of black America while locked down behind the walls of prison. In a few short years he developed into an activist and revolutionary theorist committed to revolutionary change.

I met Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Engels, and Mao when I entered prison and they redeemed me. For the first four years, I studied nothing but economics and military ideas. I met black guerrillas—George “Big Jake” Lewis, and James Carr, W.L. Nolen, Bill Christmas, Torry Gibson.…We attempted to transform the black criminal mentality into a black revolutionary mentality.
—Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson

California Dreaming
Following the Great Depression of the 1930s and driven by the harsh realities of living in the Jim Crow South, the second Great Migration of African-Americans began. Donna Jean Murch, author of Living for the City: Migration, Education, and the Rise of the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California, describes this transformation:

In 1940, 77 percent of the total black population lived in the South, with over 49 percent in rural areas; two out of five worked as farmers, sharecroppers or farm laborers. In the next ten years, over 1.6 million people migrated north and westward, to be followed by another 1.5 million in the subsequent decade.…By 1970, more than half of the African American population settled outside the South, with over 75 percent residing in cities. In less than a quarter century, “urban” became synonymous with “black.” (p.15)

During World War II, well-paying jobs in defense plants attracted many working people to industrial cities on the West Coast. Organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP) from the trade union movement fought for jobs and resources for this expanding black working class. However, by the end of the war, the white working class and middle class began to flee urban centers like Oakland. Racism, discrimination in the trade unions, and deindustrialization after 1945 turned cities like Oakland into wastelands of social decay, economic depression, and political alienation.

The California Youth Authority
Capitalism needs and must have the prison to protect itself from the criminals it has created. It not only impoverishes the masses when they are at work, but it still further reduces them by not allowing millions to work at all. The capitalist’s profit has supreme consideration; the life of the workers is of little consequence.
—Eugene V. Debs, Walls & Bars: Prisons & Prison Life In The “Land Of The Free”

The arrival in California of African-Americans from the rural South was met with outright suspicion by the police authority and the state government. The generation of blacks born outside of the South, during and after World War II, tasted the bitter pill of Jim and Jane Crow, California style.

The California Youth Authority (CYA) became the prototype for social control of young people, particularly urban youth of color. CYA was founded in 1941; the Adult Authority followed in 1944. Professor Murch states:

The infusion of federal defense money and newfound prosperity enabled the state to build five medium-security adult facilities between 1944 and 1950…. In 1953, J. Edgar Hoover, the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issued a special report to “all law enforcement officials,” warning about the dangerous effects of California’s baby boom: “The first wave in this flood tide of new citizens born between 1940 and 1950 has just this year reached the ‘teen age,’ the period in which some of them will inevitably incline toward juvenile delinquency and, later, a full-fledged criminal career.”(p.58)

Lester and Georgia Jackson moved George and the rest of their family from Chicago to California in 1956. George spent time at the CYA in Paso Robles for assault and burglary as a juvenile. Future Black Panther Party (BPP) leaders like Huey P. Newton and Emory Douglass would also serve time in the CYA system. George Jackson entered the California adult prison system at the tender age of eighteen in 1960, having been accused and convicted of armed robbery. He had stolen $70 from a gas station, and went into court with a record as a petty criminal and inadequate (public) counsel. After pleading guilty, George Jackson received the bizarre and cruel sentence of one year to life. He spent his first nine years in San Quentin State prison—seven of them in solitary confinement.

The Birth of a Revolutionary
In his first years in prison, Jackson was not considered a “model” prisoner. He seemed to have a total disregard for authority and fellow inmates. He spent significant time in solitary—or “the hole,” as prisoners called it. The prison letters he authored between 1964 and 1970 showcase a young man grappling with a society that stunted his growth in the context of the collective African-American struggle to overcome the evils of white supremacy and the vestiges of slavery. Especially in the candid letters to his parents, Georgia and Lester, he attempts to understand and explain the interplay of capitalism’s values and its effects on him and the Jackson family.

The letters give us a glimpse into the mind of the voracious reader that George Jackson was, and show the influence of such authors and revolutionaries as Che Guevara, Frantz Fanon, Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and Mao Zedong. Jackson was inspired by the powerful events of the Cuban revolution and the struggle of the people of Vietnam, as well as the anti-colonial rebellions going on all over the so-called Third World.

Jackson became one of the foremost prison intellectuals and activists of the time, organizing prisoners and later becoming a Field Marshal of the BPP. In 1966 he co-founded, with W.L. Nolen, the Black Guerrilla Family, which was rooted in the ideas of Marx and Mao. In 1969, Jackson and Nolen were transferred to Soledad Prison. In January 1970, a prison guard would gun down Nolen and two other black inmates during a riot. Jackson, Fleeta Drumgo, and John Cluchette were accused of killing prison guard O.G. Miller, who had shot and killed Nolen and two other inmates. If convicted of murdering Miller, Jackson and his comrades would face the death penalty. Their case, popularly known as the Soledad Brothers case, gained national and international news coverage and support.

The case exploded with the Marin County courtroom hostage-taking organized by Jonathan Jackson, George’s younger brother. Three prisoners—James McClain, William A. Christmas, and Ruchell Magee—were in court for a hearing when they took over the courtroom with Jonathan Jackson’s assistance. They took Judge Harold Haley, Deputy District Attorney Gary Thomas, and several others hostage at gunpoint. In an act of desperation and love, Jonathan Jackson demanded the release of the Soledad Brothers. Angela Davis, then a professor of philosophy at UCLA and the key organizer of the Soledad Brothers campaign, was also a member of the Communist Party USA and a “fellow traveler” of  the Black Panther Party. She was named as an accomplice to the crime because the guns used in the takeover were registered in her name.

Jonathan Jackson, McClain, and Christmas all died in a hail of bullets as the police sought to stop the getaway vehicle. Judge Haley would also die in the gunfire. Angela Davis became a fugitive. After her arrest, her case led to a landmark trial in which she campaigned against state-sponsored violence and the FBI’s notorious Counter Intelligence Program (a.k.a., COINTLEPRO). She was acquitted.

You Can Kill a Revolutionary, But You Can’t Kill Revolution
Prison guards, they cursed him
As they watched him from above
But they were frightened of his power
They were scared of his love.
Lord, Lord,
So they cut George Jackson down.
Lord, Lord,
They laid him in the ground…
—Bob Dylan, “George Jackson,” 1971

In 1971, the tension leading up to the Soledad Brothers’ trial for the alleged murder of prison guard O.G. Miller was interrupted by the sudden death of George Jackson. Prison authorities alleged that on August 21, Jackson attempted to break out of San Quentin using a 9mm handgun smuggled in by his lawyer and supposedly hidden in his Afro wig. A gunfight resulted in the death of Jackson, two other prisoners, and three prison guards. The Soledad Brothers would be acquitted of the murder of O.G. Miller years later.

A Critical Assessment: Blood in My Eye
Many people believe the Attica prison rebellion of September 1971 was partially inspired by the death of George Jackson the month before. His book, Blood in My Eye, was published posthumously in the fall of 1971. The book is Jackson’s political testament. It touches on themes of imperialism, internal colonialism, Marxist economics, labor history, political consciousness, state violence, and armed struggle.

Jackson examined Salvador Allende’s Chile with a critical eye: “There is simply no way to compare this society or its historical experience with that of a tiny colonial country like Chile: Allende is not seizing property; his government is ‘buying property.’ Until the Chilean ruling capitalist class is suppressed, the Chilean revolution is as meaningless as the Swedish experiment. Socialist governments which attempt to coexist with capitalist economics completely forget the economic motive of human social history.” (George Jackson, Blood in My Eye, p. 77-78.) What Jackson could not see from behind prison walls was the political development and power of the Chilean working class through factory and community committees taking the Allende electoral victory in 1970 as a starting point from which to construct a socialist society. The Chilean revolution was very meaningful to working people worldwide. That is why world capitalism went on the offensive to destroy it. That attack, plus political mistakes by Allende and his government, led to the revolutionary process eventually drowned in blood. The struggle culminated in Augusto Pinochet’s CIA-sponsored military coup on September 11, 1973.

The influence of Maoism was profound during times of Black Power and the New Left of the 1960s and ’70s. The BPP sold copies of Mao Zedong’s “Little Red Book” on college campuses as a fundraising tool to establish the party and purchase firearms. The Chinese revolution of 1949 that overthrew the capitalist nationalism of Chiang Kai-shek was viewed by many African American activists as a powerful moment for the anti-colonial struggle. The solidarity messages and visits from African American leaders such as W.E.B Dubois, Shirley Graham Dubois, Paul Robeson, Robert F. Williams, and Huey P. Newton would cement the links between Mao’s victorious Chinese revolution and the struggle of African Americans in the US.

On August 8, 1963, Mao expressed his solidarity with African Americans and the struggle for civil rights: “An American Negro leader now taking refuge in Cuba—Mr. Robert Williams, the former President of the Monroe, North Carolina, Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People—has twice asked me for a statement in support of the American Negroes’ struggle against racial discrimination. On behalf of the Chinese people, I wish to take this opportunity to express our resolute support for the American Negroes in their struggle against racial discrimination and for freedom and equal rights.”

Maoism’s appeal stemmed from a rejection of Stalinism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and third world solidarity with people of color. The BPP was not grounded in genuine Marxism, but their influence on revolutionaries of all country cannot be denied. The BPP commitment to freedom, self-determination, socialism, and the rejection of reformist politics has inspired youth and workers around the world.

The BPP circulated its pamphlet, “What We Want,” as well as the ten-point program for full employment; decent housing; free food, clothing, and medical care. All these ideas are socialist in character, but as independent Marxist and organizer James Boggs states: “…the Black Panther Party has resorted to social service programs, such as the Free Breakfast and Free Health programs. Instead of mobilizing the black community to compel the city, state, or federal government to provide such services under community control, the party has taken over the responsibility for their funding and administration.” (James Boggs, Racism and the Class Struggle: Further Pages from a Black Worker’s Notebook, 1970.) The BPP’s orientation of recruiting urban youth, the unemployed, working poor, and the prison population demonstrated the revolutionary potential of this layer of the black community. Their great weakness was the inability to make vital links with the black working class, trade union movement, and the militant white working class.

The Cuban revolution that put an end to the Batista dictatorship’s landlordism and gangster capitalism also heavily influenced the BPP. What the Chinese and Cuban revolutions had in common was the negation of the social power and democratic control of  society by the working class in the construction of socialism. There was greater emphasis placed on the needs of the peasant population and guerilla warfare. What the BPP, George Jackson, and the black radical left often ignored was the political character of Mao: “He was, by his own admission, a ‘Stalinist,’ and constructed not a democratic workers’ state along the lines of Russia in 1917–23, but a regime similar to that existing in Stalinist Russia. Landlordism and capitalism were gradually eliminated and the beginnings of a planned economy were put into place, although this was presided over by a one-party, totalitarian regime, with power in the hands of a privileged bureaucracy in the party, the state, the army and the economy.” (Peter Taaffe, www.socialistworld.net, 7/20/2005.)

Fascism
The historic function of fascism is to smash the working class,
destroy its organizations, and stifle political liberties when the
capitalists find themselves unable to govern and dominate with
the help of democratic machinery.
—Leon Trotsky, Whither France?, 1934

George Jackson’s writings on fascism and class struggle demonstrate his deep understanding of history and Marxism. He carefully examines the rise of the counter-revolutionary phenomenon of fascism in Mussolini’s Italy in 1922 and Hitler’s Germany in 1933. He draws a parallel to the US government’s violent response to the militant and revolutionary character of the black freedom movement, the anti-war movement, the American Indian Movement, the Young Lords movement for Puerto Rican nationalism, and New Left activism generally. Activists in social struggle began to use the term fascist to describe the violent tactics of Hoover’s FBI and other US government agencies that sought the annihilation of these movements for freedom and economic justice.

It is crucial to understand the important differences between the events in Italy and Germany in the 1920s and ’30s, on the one hand, and those in the United States in the 1960s and ’70s, on the other. This history must be placed in the proper political context.

Leon Trotsky was the co-leader of the Bolshevik-led Russian Revolution of 1917 and a great international revolutionary socialist. One of his theoretical contributions to Marxism and to the international workers movement was his program to combat the rise of fascism in Europe. He described the process he saw taking place in Europe in terms of fascists’ manipulation of the people, made desperate by poverty: “At the moment that the ‘normal’ police and military resources of the bourgeois dictatorship, together with their parliamentary screens, no longer suffice to hold society in a state of equilibrium, the turn of the fascist regime arrives. Through the fascist agency, capitalism sets in motion the masses of the crazed petty bourgeoisie and the bands of declassed and demoralized Lumpenproletariat —all the countless human beings whom finance capital itself has brought to desperation and frenzy….After fascism is victorious, finance capital directly and immediately gathers into its hands, as in a vise of steel, all the organs and institutions of sovereignty…” (Leon Trotsky, What Next? Vital Questions for the German Proletariat, 1932.)

The rise of fascism in Italy, Germany, and later in Spain was rooted in the deep economic crisis of European capitalism following World War I. The social power of the working class and development of socialist and communist ideas throughout Europe opposed this rise of fascism. Memories of the Russian Revolution were still fresh in the 1920s and ’30s. That example of the tremendous potential of revolutionary power was in the background as workers were taking over factories and whole industries, fermenting the revolutionary process in an effort to establish a socialist society. The failure of social democratic parties and Stalinism to lead the working class to take political, economic, and social power would help usher in the dark days and nights of fascism under Hitler and Mussolini. Equating the fascism of the ’30s and the ’40s with the American fascism of the revolutionary ’60s and ’70s was an overreach.

The US experienced a tremendous economic upswing after World War II. For many years after the war the US was the pre-eminent economic, political, and military superpower in the world. Through social struggle by the working class and trade union movement, transformative gains and benefits were achieved under US capitalism and bourgeois democracy. But not everyone benefited from fruits of the post-war upswing. The black working class had to contend with the apartheid system that existed in the South. There were even vestiges of Jim & Jane Crow in northern cities such as Chicago and New York. The civil rights movement began to break the back of racial and class oppression, and eventually led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The militant Black Power movement challenged the institutions of capitalism and state-sponsored violence. Black Power posed the question of self-determination for black Americans, and eventually led not just to a national perspective but to a broader view that included the ideas of anti-imperialism and internationalism.

The presidential election victory of Richard Nixon in 1968 introduced a law and order doctrine, gaining much support from the white working class and the middle classes, particularly in the South. The traditional divide-and-conquer was adapted for the times to become Nixon’s “southern strategy,” which eventually developed into a basic strategy of the Republican Party still in use right up to the present day. In the 1960s, this counter-revolutionary strategy was part of a clear and decisive response by big business to stomp out all dissent in the streets, on campus, and in penitentiaries all across the country. It dovetailed with imperialism’s blood-thirst to end the communist threat in southeast Asia.

The US ruling elite did not need to employ European-style fascism, with its reliance on street thugs and stormtroopers to terrorize the population. Instead, that elite focused on the US labor movement and targeted socialist and communist trade unionists, ultimately expelling almost all of them from the leadership ranks of most unions. A bureaucratic, conservative, and pro-imperialist leadership came to power in the labor movement. These new leaders kept the militancy of organized labor dormant, in the main.

The tactics were not so subtle in the attempts to crush the militant black freedom movement of the ’60s and ’70s. Black Power faced police state tactics and violence by the “armed bodies of men” that daily violated civil and human rights of militant black activists.

The recent Georgia state prisoners strike, the hunger strike by four prisoners held in Ohio State Penitentiary a supermax prison, and the Pelican Bay prisoners hunger strike are all in the spirit of George Jackson and all prisoners fighting for human dignity. The United States imprisons 2.3 million women and men. This is the highest incarceration rate in the advanced capitalist world. Every day this system continues its deadly assault on working people, the poor, youth, and people of color. Another George Jackson is being born every day. George Jackson lived, struggled, and died to create a better world for the most oppressed people. Only through the revolutionary commitment to democratic socialism can we find peace, freedom, and justice.

Black August: All eyes on us

August 3, 2011

from the cell of Comrade Bobby Dixon, Minister of Justice, NABPP-PC

Editor’s note: Bobby Dixon called as the Bay View was going to press to say that he and some comrades at CMF are still on hunger strike. They are planning to commemorate this Black August more seriously than ever and are encouraging all prisoners to refuse meals on Aug. 7, 21 and 30, as he explains below.

All eyes are on us. All elders must remain focused on the youth during the month of BLACK AUGUST and come with strong teaching.

The July 18 rally in Sacramento to demand the state negotiate in good faith with the hunger strikers drew an impressive crowd. That’s Black Panther veteran and revolutionary artist Emory Douglas with the sign.

From behind enemy lines in the belly of the beast – in the California state prison system, which is part of the Amerikan injustice system – I greet you and call your attention to the annual commemoration of Black August. I invite you fellow prisoners and families through the world to join us in honoring our beloved martyrs with fasting, study, sharing Panther love and knowledge in the spirit of Hasan Shakur, Oscar Grant, Sean Bell and Gus Rugley, Jonathan Jackson and all who have laid down their lives in the struggle to give humanity a brighter future.

Comrade George Jackson was a founder and the field marshal of the original Black Panther Party Prison Chapter, who was gunned down in the yard by guards at San Quentin, and Hasan Shakur was the original minister of human rights of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party Prison Chapter (NABPP-PC), who was executed by the state of Texas for a crime he did not commit.

We also remember our comrade Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old Afrikan man whom the Oakland police handcuffed behind his back, forcing him to lay face down on a subway platform, and then shot him in the back. This cold blooded murder was caught on cell phone videos and millions have seen it on the internet.

People in Oakland immediately took to the streets in righteous protest and protests continue. This has become a symbol of the continuing national oppression in “post-racist” Amerika. This must stop! And we must move beyond protest to make revolution and advance society to communism.

We shed tears for our fallen comrades and for the masses brutally victimized by the racist, fascist, murdering police. We have a right to cry over our dead – for every life is precious beyond measure. This loss of each who has been killed by the oppressor in this land of our exile and enslavement is intolerable. We consecrate this month to those who have been taken from us but who will never be forgotten – for the love of freedom which their lives were dedicated to.

Our grief is real, and so is our determination to continue the struggle until all are free and the oppression of our people is no more. Our grief and our pain make us more human and give us more strength because it is based upon love. Our love fuels our determination to win our liberation in this century.

We are to also be in solidarity this Black August with all the state of Georgia prisoners who went on the biggest prison strike and protest in U.S. history that took place from Dec. 9-16, 2010, in the Georgia state prison system.

As minister of justice, my message to all the members of the NABPP-PC is long live the Panther! Empower yourselves: Don’t fear freedom. And empower yourselves to know that violence is not the answer. Yes there are too many uncommitted comrades. We must learn how not to draw violence from the evil beast who is our real enemy.

Now, as comrades, have we stopped to think about how we have allowed the evil enemy to destroy and murder other comrades with the power of their tongue? My case and point is to reach one teach one to guard your tongue.

To clear our minds, I propose that we eat one meal a day throughout the month of August – and fast completely on Aug. 7 in honor of Jonathan Jackson, again on Aug. 21 in honor of George Jackson and again on Aug. 31 in honor of Hasan Shakur and all other true revolutionary comrades who have fallen in the struggle.

On these three fast days, we should be quiet and contemplative and throughout August we should study and abstain from watching TV and listening to the radio with the exception of educational programming.

During this month, the veterans of the struggle and elders among us are to make a very special serious effort to reach out to the youth and teach our history and the lessons of our people’s struggle. And not allow our youth to feel all alone in the world.

We should strengthen our commitment to practicing Panther Love and throw away old grudges and resentments and initiate new friendships. We draw those around us closer and build the bonds of brotherhood and sisterhood between us.

Besides fasting, comrades should work out and get a little physical exercise and strive to put mind, body and spirit in balance. Some texts I recommend for study are:

• “Revolutionary Notes” by Julius Lester

• “Race and Ideology: Language, Symbolism and Popular Culture,” edited by Arthur K. Spears

• “The 48 Laws of Power” by Robert Greene and Joost Elffers

• “The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors” by Dr. Frances Cress Welsing

• “The Rape of the American Constitution” by Chuck Shiver

• “How to Make Black America Better,” compiled and edited by Tavis Smiley

To all who shall inherit the future

The world is a huge place. Let your minds become one with understanding. Many things can occur and time is bound by no structure. The days upon this planet have caused the growth of a useful resource called “knowledge.”

To seek such knowledge comes with a great cost. Many have failed in the attempt to obtain true knowledge. The true accomplishments of life require the true knowledge contained within this planet.

My objective to you is the comfort of success. If any shall seek to correspond or further their enlightenment, send me a message. Please beware of misinterpretation along the path of success.

This letter has been caused by the Almighty. This is also fashioned for the heart. Do not give more than desired from within the heart. And always let righteousness be your guide.

Send our brother some love and light: Bobby Dixon, C-41652, CMF, H-209L, P.O. Box 2000, Vacaville CA 95696.

The George Jackson Tribute Mixtape

We’ll start our Black August celebration a little early this year by re-posting our 2006 George Jackson FreeMix Radio Mixtape.  This mixtape features DC-area artists and activists reading portions of Jackson’s work and a bunch of good music from folks like Public Enemy, Dead Prez, Blitz, Hasan Salaam, Asheru, Head-Roc, Black United Front, Wise Intelligent, Immortal Technique, Mos Def, Lil’ Wayne, RZA, Ghostface Killah, and many more.  We also borrowed of few minutes from the classic Freedom Archives audio documentary Prisons on Fire: George Jackson, Attica and Black Liberation and a Bay Area television documentary Day of the Gun.

 

Black August

August 10, 2009

BY MARILYN BUCK

Would you hang on a cliff’s edge

sword-sharp, slashing fingers
while jackboot screws stomp heels
on peeled-flesh bones
and laugh
“let go! die, damn you, die!”
could you hang on
20 years, 30 years?

20 years, 30 years and more
brave Black brothers buried
in US koncentration kamps
they hang on
Black light shining in torture chambers
Ruchell, Yogi, Sundiata, Sekou,
Warren, Chip, Seth, Herman, Jalil,
and more and more
they resist: Black August

Nat Turner insurrection chief executed: Black August
Jonathan, George dead in battle’s light: Black August
Fred Hampton, Black Panthers, African Brotherhood murdered: Black August
Kuwasi Balagoon, Nuh Abdul Quyyam captured warriors dead: Black August
Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Ella Baker, Ida B. Wells
Queen Mother Moore – their last breaths drawn fighting death: Black August

Black August: watchword
for Black liberation for human liberation
sword to sever the shackles

light to lead children of every nation to safety
Black August remembrance
resist the amerikkan nightmare
for life

Marilyn Buck
#00482-285
Unit A
5701 8th St. Camp Parks
Dublin, CA 94568

Black August

August 10, 2009

BY MARILYN BUCK

Would you hang on a cliff’s edge

sword-sharp, slashing fingers
while jackboot screws stomp heels
on peeled-flesh bones
and laugh
“let go! die, damn you, die!”
could you hang on
20 years, 30 years?

20 years, 30 years and more
brave Black brothers buried
in US koncentration kamps
they hang on
Black light shining in torture chambers
Ruchell, Yogi, Sundiata, Sekou,
Warren, Chip, Seth, Herman, Jalil,
and more and more
they resist: Black August

Nat Turner insurrection chief executed: Black August
Jonathan, George dead in battle’s light: Black August
Fred Hampton, Black Panthers, African Brotherhood murdered: Black August
Kuwasi Balagoon, Nuh Abdul Quyyam captured warriors dead: Black August
Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Ella Baker, Ida B. Wells
Queen Mother Moore – their last breaths drawn fighting death: Black August

Black August: watchword
for Black liberation for human liberation
sword to sever the shackles

light to lead children of every nation to safety
Black August remembrance
resist the amerikkan nightmare
for life

Marilyn Buck
#00482-285
Unit A
5701 8th St. Camp Parks
Dublin, CA 94568

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Women of the Black Panther Party – Education 101, Parts 1 & 2 …

by Malaika H Kambon on Sunday, August 7, 2011 at 3:05pm

7 August 2011

 

While respecting and commemorating 7 August 2011 as the 41st year after the Marin County Courthouse Rebellion, we may also reflect upon the strength of AFRIKAN Women in general, and AFRIKAN Women of the BPP in particular through the following photographs.

 

Also, save the date 21 August 2011 for the event, ‘Remember the Fighting Spirit of George and Jonathan Jackson,” to be held at Eastside Arts, in Oakland.

 

 

Sisters on the Front Line – “Sisters did it ALL in the BPP” BJ

“Teachable Moment” – RAMPARTS Magazine, 1968 “Sister Arlene is all in the face of this chick, who got her ass kicked by the Sisters. Don’t mess with a Panther Sister, they will bring it.” – Billy X, BJ

Remembering George Jackson – 21 August 2011

4 Struggle Magazine

4 Struggle Magazinehttp://www.scribd.com/embeds/61862952/content?start_page=1&view_mode=list&access_key=key-zv3tsm512d9b5yp8qfw//

40th Anniversary – Marin Courthouse Rebellion

by Break the Chains on Saturday, August 7, 2010 at 11:13pm

To the Man-Child, Tall, evil, graceful,
brighteyed, black man-child ­ Jonathan Peter
Jackson ­ who died on August 7, 1970, courage in
one hand, assault rifle in the other; my brother,
comrade, friend ­ the true revolutionary, the
black communist guerrilla in the highest state of
development, he died on the trigger, scourge of
the unrighteous, soldier of the people; to this
terrible man-child and his wonderful mother
Georgia Bea, to Angela Y. Davis, my tender
experience, I dedicate this collection of
letters; to the destruction of their enemies I dedicate my life.

George L. Jackson

August 7, 1970, just a few days after George
Jackson was transferred to San Quentin, the case
was catapulted to the forefront of national news
when his brother, Jonathan, a seventeen-year-old
high school student in Pasadena, staged a raid on
the Marin County courthouse with a satchelful of
handguns, an assault rifle, and a shotgun hidden
under his coat. Educated into a political
revolutionary by George, Jonathan invaded the
court during a hearing for three black San
Quentin inmates, not including his brother, and
handed them weapons. As he left with the inmates
and five hostages, including the judge, Jonathan
demanded that the Soledad Brothers be released
within thirty minutes. In the shootout that
ensued, Jonathan was gunned down. Of Jonathan,
George wrote, “He was free for a while. I guess
that’s more than most of us can expect.”

***********************************************

Ruchell Cinque Magee: Sole Survivor Still

by Mumia Abu-Jamal

Slavery is being practiced by the system under
color of law – Slavery 400 years ago, slavery
today; it’s the same thing, but with a new name.
They’re making millions and millions of dollars
enslaving Blacks, poor whites, and others -
people who don’t even know they’re being railroaded. — Ruchell Cinque Magee
(from radio interview with Kiilu Nyasha, “Freedom
is a Constant Struggle,” KPFA-FM, 12 August 1995)

If you were asked to name the longest held
political prisoner in the United States, what would your answer be?

Most would probably reply “Geronimo ji jaga
(Pratt),” “Sundiata Acoli”, or “Sekou Odinga” –
all 3 members of the Black Panther Party or
soldiers of the Black Liberation Army, who have
been encaged for their political beliefs or
principled actions for decades. Some would point
to Lakota leader, Leonard Peltier, who struggled
for the freedom of Native peoples, thereby
incurring the enmity of the US Government, who
framed him in a 1975 double murder trial. Those
answers would be good guesses, for all of these
men have spent hellified years in state and
federal dungeons, but here’s a man who has spent more.

Ruchell C. Magee arrived in Los Angeles,
California in 1963, and wasn’t in town for six
months before he and a cousin, Leroy, were
arrested on the improbable charges of kidnap and
robbery, after a fight with a man over a woman
and a $10 bag of marijuana. Magee, in a slam-dunk
“trial,” was swiftly convicted and swifter still sentenced to life.

Magee, politicized in those years, took the name
of the African freedom fighter, Cinque, who, with
his fellow captives seized control of the slave
ship, the Amistad, and tried to sail back to
Africa. Like his ancient namesake, Cinque would
also fight for his freedom from legalized
slavery, and for 7 long years he filed writ after
writ, learning what he calls “guerrilla law”,
honing it as a tool for liberation of himself and
his fellow captives. But California courts, which
could care less about the alleged “rights” of a
young Black man like Magee, dismissed his petitions willy-nilly.

In August, 1970, MaGee appeared as a witness in
the assault trial of James McClain, a man charged
with assaulting a guard after San Quentin guards
murdered a Black prisoner, Fred Billingsley.
McClain, defending himself, presented imprisoned
witnesses to expose the racist and repressive
nature of prisons. In the midst of MaGee’s
testimony, a 17 year old young Black man with a
huge Afro hairdo, burst into the courtroom, heavily armed.

Jonathan Jackson shouted “Freeze!” Tossing
weapons to McClain, William Christmas, and a
startled Magee, who given his 7 year hell where
no judge knew the meaning of justice, joined the
rebellion on the spot. The four rebels took the
judge, the DA and three jurors hostage, and
headed for a radio station where they were going
to air the wretched prison conditions to the
world, as well as demand the immediate release of
a group of political prisoners, know that The
Soledad Brothers (these were John Cluchette,
Fleeta Drumgo, and Jonathan’s oldest brother,
George). While the men did not hurt any of their
hostages, they did not reckon on the state’s ruthlessness.

Before the men could get their van out of the
court house parking lot, prison guards and
sheriffs opened furious fire on the vehicle,
killing Christmas, Jackson, McClain as well as
the judge. The DA was permanently paralyzed by
gun fire. Miraculously, the jurors emerged
relatively unscratched, although Magee, seriously
wounded by gunfire, was found unconscious.

Magee, who was the only Black survivor of what
has come to be called “The August 7th Rebellion,”
would awaken to learn he was charged with murder,
kidnapping and conspiracy, and further, he would
have a co-defendant, a University of California
Philosophy Professor, and friend of Soledad
Brother, George L. Jackson, named Angela Davis, who faced identical charges.

By trial time the cases were severed, with Angela
garnering massive support leading to her 1972 acquittal on all charges.

Magee’s trial did not garner such broad support,
yet he boldly advanced the position that as his
imprisonment was itself illegal, and a form of
unjustifiable slavery, he had the inherent right
to escape such slavery, an historical echo of the
position taken by the original Cinque, and his
fellow captives, who took over a Spanish slave
ship, killed the crew (except for the pilot) and
tried to sail back to Africa. The pilot
surreptitiously steered the Amistad to the US
coast, and when the vessel was seized by the US,
Spain sought their return to slavery in Cuba.
Using natural and international law principals,
US courts decided they captives had every right
to resist slavery and fight for their freedom.

Unfortunately, Magee’s jury didn’t agree,
although it did acquit on at least one kidnapping
charge. The court dismissed on the murder charge,
and Magee has been battling for his freedom every since.

That he is still fighting is a tribute to a truly
remarkable man, a man who knows what slavery is,
and more importantly, what freedom means.

FREE CINQUE !!

May 27, 1997 © 1997 Mumia Abu-Jamal – All Rights Reserved
****************************************************************

From the Forward to Soledad Brother (1994) By Jonathan Jackson, Jr.

I was born eight and a half months after my
father, Jonathan Jackson, was shot down on August
7, 1970, at the Marin County Courthouse, when he
tried to gain the release of the Soledad Brothers
by taking hostages. Before and especially after
that day, Uncle George kept in constant contact
with my mother by writing from his cell in San
Quentin. (The Department of Corrections wouldn’t
put her on the visitors’ list.) During George’s
numerous trial appearances for the Soledad
Brothers case, Mom would lift me above the crowd
so he could see me. Consistently, we would
receive a letter a few days later. For a single
mother with son, alone and in the middle of both
controversy and not a little unwarranted trouble
with the authorities, those messages of strength
were no doubt instrumental in helping her carry
on. No matter how oppressive his situation
became, George always had time to lend his spirit to the people he cared for.

A year and two weeks after the revolutionary
takeover in Marin, George was ruthlessly murdered
by prison guards at San Quentin. Both he and my
father left me a great deal: pride, history, an
unmistakable name. My experience has been at once
wonderful and incredibly difficult. My life is
not consumed by the Jackson legacy, but my charge
is an accepted and cherished piece of my
existence. It is out of my responsibility to my
legacy that I have come to write this Foreword to my uncle’s prison writings.

Today I read my inherited letters often ­ those
written from George to my mother with a dull
pencil on prison stationery. They are things of
beauty, my most valuable possessions, passionate
pieces of writing that have few rivals in the
modern era. They will remain unpublished.
However, the letters of Soledad Brother
demonstrate the same insight and eloquence ­ the
way George’s writings make his personal
experience universal is the mainstay of his brilliance.

When this collection of letters was first
released in 1969, it brought a young
revolutionary to the forefront of a tempest, a
tempest characterized by the Black Power, free
speech, and antiwar movements, accompanied by a
dissatisfaction with the status quo throughout
the United States. With unflinching directness,
George Jackson conveyed an intelligent yet
accessible message with his trademark style,
rational rage. He illuminated previously hidden
viewpoints and feelings that disenfranchised
segments of the population were unable to
articulate: the poor, the victimized, the
imprisoned, the disillusioned. George spoke in a
revolutionary voice that they had no idea
existed. He was the prominent figure of true
radical thought and practice during the period,
and when he was assassinated, much of the
movement died along with him. But George Jackson
cannot and will not ever leave. His life and
thoughts serve as the message ­ George himself is the revolution.

The reissue of Soledad Brother at this point in
time is essential. It appears that the nineties
are going to be a telling decade in U.S. history.
The signposts of systemic breakdown are as
glaringly obvious as they were in the sixties:
unrest manifesting itself in inner-city turmoil,
widespread rise of violence in the culture, and
international oppression to legitimize a state in
crisis. The fact that imprisonments in California
have more than tripled over the last decade,
supported by the public, is merely one sign of
societal decomposition. That systemic change
occurred during the sixties is a myth. The United
States in the nineties faces strikingly analogous
problems. George spoke to the issues of his day,
but conditions now are so similar that this work
could have been written last month. It is
imperative that George be heard, whether by the
angry but unchanneled young or by the cynical and
worldly mature. The message must be carried
farther than where he bravely left it in August of 1971.

Over the past twenty-five years, why has George
Jackson not been an integral part of mainstream
consciousness? He has been and still is
underexposed, reduced to simplistic terms, and
ultimately misunderstood. Racial and conspiracy
theory aside, there are rational reasons for his
exclusion. They stem not only from the hard-line
revolutionary aspects of George’s philosophy, but
more importantly from the nature of the political
system that he existed in and under.

Howard Zinn has pointed out in A People’s History
of the United States that “the history of any
country, presented as the history of a family,
conceals fierce conflicts of interest (sometimes
exploding, most often repressed) between
conquerors and conquered, masters and slaves,
capitalists and workers, dominators and
dominated.” U.S. history is essentially that type
of hidden history. Without denying important
mitigating factors, the United States of today is
strongly linked to the values and premises on
which it was founded. That is, it is a settler
colony founded primarily on two basic pillars,
upheld by the Judeo-Christian tradition: genocide
of indigenous peoples and slave labor in support
of a capitalist infrastructure. Although the
Bible repeatedly exalts mass slaughter and
oppression, Judeo-Christian morality is publicly
held to be inconsistent with them. This
dissonance, evident within the nation’s structure
from the beginning, informs the state’s first
function: to oversimplify and minimize immoral
events in order to legitimize history and the
state’s very existence simultaneously.

Ironically, traditional Judeo-Christian morality
is a perfect vehicle for genocide, slavery, and
territorial expansion. As a logical progression
from biblical example, expansion and imperialism
culminated in the United States with the concept
of Manifest Destiny, which held that it was the
colonists’ inherent right to expand and conquer.
Further it was a duty, the “white man’s burden,”
to save the “natives,” to attempt to convert all
heathens encountered. Protestant Calvinism
provided a set of ethics that fit perfectly with
the colonists’ conquests. Max Weber, in his
definitive study on religion, The Sociology of
Religion, wrote, “Calvinism held that the
unsearchable God possessed good reasons for
having distributed the gifts of fortune
unevenly”; it “represented as God’s will [the
Calvinists'] domination over the sinful world.
Clearly this and other features of Protestantism,
such as its rationalization of the existence of a
lower class,
http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/soledadbro.html#NOT01
were not only the bases for the formation of the
United States, but still prominently exist today.
“One must go to the ethics of ascetic
Protestantism,” Weber asserts, “to find any
ethical sanction for economic rationalism and for
the entrepreneur.” When a nation can’t admit to
the process through which it builds hegemony, how
can anything but delusion be a reality? “The
monopoly of truth, including historical truth,”
stated Daniel Singer in a lecture at Evergreen
State College (Washington) in 1987, “is implied in the monopoly of power.”

Clearly, objective history is an impossibility.
This understood, the significant problem lies in
how the general population defines the term;
history implies that truth is being told. It is
an unfortunate fact that history is unfailingly
written by the victors, which in the case of the
United States are not only the original
imperialists, but the majority of the “founding
fathers,” dedicated to uniting and strengthening
the existing mercantile class among disjointed
colonies. There can be no doubt that from the
creation of this young nation, history as a
created and perceived entity moved further and
further away from the objective ideal. Genocide,
necessary for “the development of the modern
capitalist economy,” according to Howard Zinn,
was rationalized as a reaction to the fear of
Indian savages. Slavery was similarly construed.

The personalization of history, the process by
which we construct heroes and pariahs, is a
consequence of its dialectical nature. Without
fail, an odd paradox is created around someone
who, by virtue of his or her actions, becomes
prominent enough to warrant the designation
“historical figure.” There is a leap on the part
of the general public, sparked by the media, to
another mindset. Sensational deeds are glorified,
horrible acts reviled. A few points are selected
as defining characteristics. The media,
conforming to their restrictions of concision
(which make accuracy nearly impossible to
attain), reiterate these points over and over.
Schools and textbooks not only teach these points
but drill them into young minds. Howard Zinn
comments that “this learned sense of moral
proportion, coming from the apparent objectivity
of the scholar, is accepted more easily than when
it comes from politicians at press conferences. It is therefore more deadly.”

A few tidbits, factual or not, incomplete and
selective, are used to describe the entirety of a
person’s existence. They become part of
mainstream consciousness. We therefore know that
Lincoln freed the slaves, Malcolm X was a black
extremist, and Hitler was solely responsible for
World War II and the Holocaust. All half-truths
go unexplained, all fallacies go unchallenged, as
they appear to make perfect sense to the
everyday, noncritically thinking American. The
paradox has been created: The more famous a
person becomes, the more misunderstood he or she
is. This accepted occurrence is incredibly
counterintuitive: the public should know more,
not less, about a noteworthy individual and the
sociopolitical dynamics surrounding him or her.

This historical mythicization is not, for the
most part, a consciously created phenomenon. The
media don’t go out of their way to mislead the
public by constructing false heroes and
emphasizing the mundane. Fewer “dimly lit
conferences” take place than conspiracy theorists
believe. It is the existing political system that
is responsible for the information that reaches
the general public. The state’s control of
information created the system, and it
continually re-creates it. Propagated by
schooling and the media, information that reaches
the public is subject to three chief mechanisms
of state control: denial, self-censorship, and imprisonment.

Denial is the easiest control mechanism, and
therefore the most common. If events do not
follow the state’s agenda or its ecumenical
ideology and might bring unrest, they are denied.
Examples are plentiful: prewar state terrorism
against the people of North and South Vietnam and
later the bombing of Cambodia; government funding
and military aid to the Nicaraguan Contras; and
support of UNITA and South Africa in the virtual
destruction of Angola, among many others.

Denial goes hand in hand with self-censorship.
The media emphasize certain personal
characteristics and events and de-emphasize
others, in a pattern that supports U.S. hegemony.
The information that reached the public after the
U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989 is telling. It
was not until much later, after the heat of
controversy, that the average citizen had access
to the scope of the devastation. The
effectiveness of self-censorship in this case was
maximized, as the full details of the Panama
invasion were patchwork for years.

While we may assume that the media have an
obligation to accurately convey such an event to
the public, the media in fact perpetuate the
government’s position by engaging in their own
self-censorship. Noam Chomsky points out in
Deterring Democracy, “With a fringe of exceptions
­ mostly well after the tasks had been
accomplished ­ the media rallied around the flag
with due piety and enthusiasm, funnelling the
most absurd White House tales to the public while
scrupulously refraining from asking the obvious
questions, or seeing the obvious facts.”

Denial and self-censorship create a comfort zone
for the U.S. citizenry, generally uncritical and
willing to accept digestible versions of
historical personalities and world events. The
reasoning behind denial and self-censorship: do
not make the public uncomfortable, even if that
means diluting, sensationalizing, or lying about the truth.

Ultimately, when denial and self-censorship may
not be sufficient for control of information, the
state resorts to imprisonment. All imprisonment
is political and as such all imprisonments carry
equal weight. Society does, however, distinguish
two categories of imprisonment: one for breaking
a law, the other for political reasons. A
difference is clear: American Indian Movement
leader Leonard Peltier, serving a federal
sentence for his supposed role at Wounded Knee,
is considered a different type of prisoner than
an armed robber serving a five-to-seven-year sentence.

State policy reflects institutional needs. When
the state as an institution cannot tolerate an
outside threat, real or perceived, from an
individual or group, the consequences at its
command include isolation, persecution, and
political imprisonment. All may occur in greater
or lesser form, depending on the degree of threat.

Political incarceration removes threats to the
political and economic hegemony of the United
States. Even though in 1959 George Jackson
initially went to prison as an “everyday
lawbreaker” with a one-year-to-life sentence, it
was his political consciousness that kept him
incarcerated for eleven years. In 1970 George wrote:

International capitalism cannot be destroyed
without the extremes of struggle. The entire
colonial world is watching the blacks inside the
U.S., wondering and waiting for us to come to our
senses. Their problems and struggles with the
Amerikan monster are much more difficult than
they would be if we actively aided them. We are
on the inside. We are the only ones (besides the
very small white minority left) who can get at
the monster’s heart without subjecting the world
to nuclear fire. We have a momentous historical
role to act out if we will. The whole world for
all time in the future will love us and remember
us as the righteous people who made it possible
for the world to live on. If we fail through fear
and lack of aggressive imagination, then the
slaves of the future will curse us, as we
sometimes curse those of yesterday. I don’t want
to die and leave a few sad songs and a hump in
the ground as my only monument. I want to leave a
world that is liberated from trash, pollution,
racism, nation-states, nation-state wars and
armies, from pomp, bigotry, parochialism, a
thousand different brands of untruth, and licentious usurious economics.

Nothing is more dangerous to a system that
depends on misinformation than a voice that obeys
its own dictates and has the courage to speak
out. George Jackson’s imprisonment and further
isolation within the prison system were clearly a
function of the state’s response to his outspoken
opposition to the capitalist structure.

Political incarceration is a tangible form of
state control. Unlike denial and self-censorship,
imprisonment is publicly scrutinized. Yet public
reaction to political incarceration has been
minimal. The U.S. government claims it holds no
political prisoners (denial), while any notice
given to protests focused on political prisoners
invariably takes the form of a human interest story (self-censorship).

The efficacy of political incarceration in the
United States cannot be denied. Prison serves not
only as a physical barrier, but a communication
restraint. Prisoners are completely ostracized
from society, with little or no chance to break
through. Those few outside who might be
sympathetic are always hesitant to communicate or
protest past a certain point, fearing their own
persecution or imprisonment. Also, deep down most
people believe that all prisoners, regardless of
their individual situations, really did do
something “wrong.” Added to that prejudice,
society lacks a distinction between a prisoner’s
actions and his or her personal worth; a bad act
equals a bad person. The bottom line is that the
majority of people simply will not believe that
the state openly or covertly oppresses without
criminal cause. As Daniel Singer asked at the
Evergreen conference in 1987, “Is it possible for
a class which exterminates the native peoples of
the Americas, replaces them by raping Africa for
humans it then denigrates and dehumanizes as
slaves, while cheapening and degrading its own
working class ­ is it possible for such a class
to create a democracy, equality and to advance
the cause of human freedom? The implicit answer is, `No, of course not.”‘

How does a person ­ inside or outside prison ­
confront the cultural mindsets, the layers of
misinformation propagated by the capitalist
system? Sooner or later, what can be called the
“radical dilemma” surfaces for the few wanting to
enter into a structural attack/analysis of the
United States. Culturally, educationally, and
politically, all of us are similarly limited by
these layers of misinformation; we are all
products of the system. None of us functions from
a clean slate when considering or debating any
issue, especially history as it pertains to the United States.

George Jackson struggled against the constraints
of denial and self-censorship, to say nothing of
his physical and communicative distance from
society. Political prisoners are inherently
vulnerable to an either/or situation: isolating
silence or elimination. For George, his
vociferous revolutionary attitude was either
futile or self-exterminating. He was well aware
of his situation. In Blood in My Eye, his political treatise, he wrote:

I’m in a unique political position. I have a very
nearly closed future, and since I have always
been inclined to get disturbed over organized
injustice or terrorist practice against the
innocents ­ wherever ­ I can now say just about
what I want (I’ve always done just about that),
without fear of self-exposure. I can only be executed once.

George was equally aware that revolutionary
change happens only when an entire society is
ready. No amount of action, preaching, or
teaching will spark revolution if social
conditions do not warrant it. My father’s case,
unfortunately, is an appropriate indicator. He
attempted a revolutionary act during a
reactionary time; elimination was the only possible consequence.

The challenge for a radical in today’s world is
to balance reformist tendencies (political
liberalism) and revolutionary action/ideology
(radicalism). While reformism entails a
legitimation of the status quo as a search for
changes within the system, radicalism posits a
change of system. Because revolutionaries are
particularly vulnerable, a certain degree of
reformism is necessary to create space, space
needed to begin the laborious task of making revolution.

George’s statement “Combat Liberalism” and the
general reaction to it typify the gulf between
the two philosophies. George was universally
misunderstood by the left and the right alike. As
is the case with most modern political prisoners,
nearly all of his support came from reformists
with liberal leanings. It seems that they acted
in spite of, rather than because of, the core of his message.

The left’s attitude toward COINTELPRO is a useful
illustration. COINTELPRO, the covert government
program used to dismantle the Black Panther
Party, and later the American Indian Movement, is
typically cited by many leftists as a damning
example of the government’s conspiratorial
nature. Declassified documents and ex-agents’
testimonies have shown COINTELPRO to be one of
the most unlawful, insidious cells of government
in the nation’s history. COINTELPRO, however, was
really a symptomatic, expendable entity; a small
police force within a larger one (FBI), within a
branch of government (executive), within the
government itself (liberal democracy), within the
economic system (capitalism). Reformists in
radicals’ clothing unknowingly argued against
symptoms, rather than the roots, of the
entrenched system. Doing away with COINTELPRO or
even the FBI would not alter the structure that
produces the surveillance/elimination apparatus.

In George’s day, others who considered themselves
left of center, or even revolutionary, concerned
themselves with inner-city reform issues, mostly
black ghettos. The problem of and debate about
inner cities still exists. However, recognition
of a problem and analysis of that problem are two
very different challenges. The demand to better
only predominantly black inner-city conditions is
unrealistic at best. In the capitalist structure,
there must be an upper, middle, and especially a
lower class. Improving black neighborhoods is the
equivalent of ghettoizing some other segment of
the population ­ poor whites, Hispanics, Asians,
etc. Nothing intrinsic to the system would
change, only superficial alterations that would
mollify the liberal public. As Chomsky asserts in Turning the Tide:

Determined opposition to the latest lunacies and
atrocities must continue, for the sake of the
victims as well as our own ultimate survival. But
it should be understood as a poor substitute for
a challenge to the deeper causes, a challenge
that we are, unfortunately, in no position to
mount at the present though the groundwork can and must be laid.

Failure to understand the radical, encompassing
viewpoint in the sixties led to reformism. In
effect, the majority of the left completely
deserted any attempt at the radical balance
required of the politically conscious, leaving
only liberalism and its narrow vision to flourish.

Nobody comprehended the radical dilemma more
fully than George Jackson. Indeed, he developed
his philosophy not out of mere happenstance, but
with a very conscious eye upon maintaining his
revolutionary ideology. He writes in Blood in My Eye:

Reformism is an old story in Amerika. There have
been depressions and socio-economic political
crises throughout the period that marked the
formation of the present upper-class ruling
circle, and their controlling elites. But the
parties of the left were too committed to
reformism to exploit their revolutionary potential.

George’s involvement with the prison reform
movement should therefore be seen as a matter of
survival. Unlike the reformist left, prison
oppression was directly affecting him. His
balanced reform activities ­ improving prisoners’
rights while speaking out against prison as an
entity ­ were required to make living conditions
tolerable enough for him to continue on his
revolutionary path. Simply, he did what he had to
do to survive ­ created space while
simultaneously pursuing his radical theory.

The reform George Jackson did accomplish was and
still is incredible, transforming the prison
environment from unlivable to livable hell, from
encampments that he called reminiscent of Nazi
Germany to at least a scaled-down version of the
like. With his influence, these changes occurred
not only in California, but throughout the
nation. Only now is his influence beginning to
slip, with reactionary politics bringing about
torture and sensory deprivation facilities such
as Pelican Bay State Prison in California, as
well as the reintroduction for adoption of the
one-to-life indeterminate sentence. This type of
sentence is fertile ground for state oppression,
as it is up to a parole board to decide if an
inmate is ever to be let go. A prison can easily
and effectively create situations that transform
a one-to-life into a life sentence. (Tellingly,
the indeterminate sentence is being promoted not
by the right, but by a California senator
formerly associated with mainstream liberal causes.)

Politically, George Jackson provided us all with
a radical education, a viable alternative to
viewing not only the United States but the world
as a political entity. He gave the
disenfranchised a lens through which they could
clearly see their situation and become more
conscious about it. He wrote in April 1970:

It all falls into place. I see the whole thing
much clearer now, how fascism has taken
possession of this country, the interlocking
dictatorship from county level on up to the Grand Dragon in Washington, D.C.

Crucially, George’s treatment is a concrete,
undeniable example of political oppression. Race
is more times than not the easy answer to a
problem. Among people of color in the United
States, the quick fix, “blame it on whitey”
mentality has become so prevalent that it
shortcuts thinking. Conversely, stereotypes of
minorities act as simple-minded tools of
divisiveness and oppression. George addressed
these issues in prison, setting a model for the
outside as well: “I’m always telling the brothers
some of those whites are willing to work with us
against the pigs. All they got to do is stop
talking honky. When the races start fighting, all
you have is one maniac group against another.” On
the surface, race has been and is still being put
forth as an overriding issue that needs to be
addressed as a prerequisite for social change. In
fact, although it seems to loom as a large
problem, race as an issue is again a symptom of
capitalism. Of course, on a paltry level and
among the relatively powerless, race does play a
part in social structure (the racist cop, the
bigoted landlord, etc.), pitting segments of the
population against each other. But revolutionary
change requires class analysis that drives
appropriate actions and eliminates race as a
mitigating factor. Knowing these socioeconomic
dynamics, George Jackson was first and foremost a
people’s revolutionary, and he acted as such at
all times without compromise. His writings
clearly reflect his belief in class-based revolutionary change.

Considering the many structural elements
affecting him, it is easy to see why George and
his message have been misinterpreted. The quick
takes on him are abundant: it’s assumed that he
was imprisoned and oppressed because he was
black, because he had publicized ties with the
Black Panther Party and was a well-known
organizer within the prison reform movement.
Although George became a “prison celebrity,” a
status that certainly didn’t help him in terms of
acquittal and release, ignorance of the actual
forces responsible for his prolonged imprisonment
is inexcusable. The radical viewpoint is
absolutely indispensable when regarding both
George’s life circumstance and philosophy. His
life serves not as a mere individual example of
prison cruelty, but as a scalding indictment of the very nature of capitalism.

In these times, there are two very different ways
to be born into privilege. First and most obvious
in the system of capital is to be born into
wealth. Second, and not precluding the first, is
to have an intellectual, politically conscious
base from which to grow as a person
philosophically and spiritually. Radical figures
in modern society ­ Lenin, Trotsky, Ché Guevara,
my father, Jonathan Jackson, and my uncle George
Jackson ­ have the capability of providing this
base through their examples and writings.

Those not born into privilege can achieve a
politically conscious base in different ways. No
veils separate the lower class from the realities
of everyday life. They have been given the gift
of disillusion. Bourgeois lifestyle, although
perhaps sought after, is in most cases not
attainable. Daily survival is the primary goal,
as it was with George. Of course, when it finally
becomes more attractive for one to fight, and
perhaps die, than to live in a survival mode,
revolution starts to become a possibility. Not a
riot, not a government takeover by one or another
group, but a people’s revolution led by the politically conscious.

This consciousness doesn’t simply appear.
Individuals must grow and work into it, but it’s
an invaluable gift to have insight into and
access to an alternative to the frustration, a goal on the horizon.

The nineties are an unconscious era. The
unimportant is all-important, the essential
neglected. What system than capitalism, what time
period than now, is better suited to naturally
create the scape-goat, the seldom-heard political
prisoner, misunderstood in his
cult-of-personality status, held back in a choke
hold from society? It is not only our right, but
our duty, to listen to and comprehend George
Jackson’s message. To not do so is to turn our
backs on one of the brilliant minds of the
twentieth century, an individual passionately
involved with liberating not only himself, but all of us.

Settle your quarrels, come together, understand
the reality of our situation, understand that
fascism is already here, that people are dying
who could be saved, that generations more will
die or live poor butchered half-lives if you fail
to act. Do what must be done, discover your
humanity and your love in revolution. Pass on the
torch. Join us, give up your life for the people.

­George Jackson

Jonathan Jackson, Jr.

San Francisco

June 1994

HONORING MARTYRS & POLITICAL PRISONER RUCHELL MCGEE OF AUGUST 7TH 1970

	Sunday, August 7 · 7:00pm – 9:00pm
Location	AFIBA Center 5730 Crenshaw Blvd Los Angeles, California 90043
More Info	HONORING MARTYRS & POLITICAL PRISONER RUCHELL MCGEE OF AUGUST 7TH 1970; YOUTH ORGANIZING AND DIRECT ACTION! Documentary film, “Jackson, More than a Name” about creation and work of the Jonathan Jackson Educational Cadre’s work in Avalon Garden. Harold Welton of JJEC leading discussion on film, plus more. @ AFIBA Center 5730 Crenshaw Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90043 Presented by Black August Los Angeles For more info, call 424-200-4968

Long live the spirit of Jonathan Jackson

By Stephen Millies

Published Aug 8, 2010 11:34 PM

Jonathan Jackson was only 17 years old when he gave his life for oppressed people on Aug. 7, 1970, when he went to the San Rafael, Calif., courthouse to free his older brother George Jackson, along with Fleeta Drumgo and John Clutchette — the “Soledad Brothers.”

Jonathan Jackson, James McClain

These three revolutionary inmates were charged with killing Soledad prison guard John Mills. Just before Mills was thrown over a third floor railing, a grand jury exonerated fellow officer O.G. Miller for shooting to death Black inmates Cleveland Edwards, Alvin Miller and W.L. Nolen on Jan. 13, 1970. African-American witnesses weren’t allowed to testify at the whitewash hearing.

While no evidence linked the Soledad Brothers to the killing of Mills, California Governor and future U.S. President Ronald Reagan wanted to kill them in the state’s gas chamber because they were revolutionaries.

George Jackson was internationally known for “Soledad Brother,” a book-length collection of his letters from prison. “I met Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Engels and Mao when I entered prison and they redeemed me,” he wrote.

A field marshal of the Black Panther Party, George Jackson had already spent a decade behind bars for a $70 robbery. As an 18-year-old he was given a one-year-to-life sentence for being a passenger in a car whose driver allegedly robbed a gas station.

Jonathan Jackson went to Judge Harold Haley’s courtroom armed with guns. San Quentin prisoner James McClain was there, defending himself against frame-up charges of assaulting a guard following the beating to death of Black inmate Fred Billingsley by prison officials. Fellow inmates Ruchell Cinque Magee and William Christmas were also in the courtroom as witnesses for McClain.

Like the enslaved Africans who joined John Brown at Harper’s Ferry, these three San Quentin prisoners immediately joined Jonathan Jackson’s freedom fight. Judge Haley, assistant prosecutor Gary Thomas and three jurors were made their prisoners.

“We are revolutionaries,” they proclaimed. “We want the Soledad Brothers free by 12:30.”

According to Black Panther Party veteran Kiilu Nyasha, “The plan was to use the hostages to take over a radio station and broadcast the racist, murderous prison conditions and demand the immediate release of the Soledad Brothers.” (San Francisco Bay View, Aug. 3, 2009)

But the capitalist class would rather have one of their judges killed than let Black prisoners go free. As Jonathan Jackson drove away in a van, San Quentin guards and court cops started firing. Jonathan Jackson, McClain and Christmas were killed, along with Judge Haley. Magee and Assistant District Attorney Thomas were wounded.

“Free Angela! Free Ruchell!”

The courageous action of these four Black heroes at the San Rafael courthouse shook the capitalist state from the White House to the local police precinct. “Psychologically the slave masters have been terrified by the boldness and innovative tactical conception,” wrote Fred Goldstein in Workers World. “No court is safe anymore.” (Aug. 20, 1970)

Scapegoats had to be found. Magee and Angela Davis, who had chaired the Soledad Brothers Defense Committee, were put on trial. Jonathan Jackson had been a bodyguard for Davis and three of the guns used at the San Rafael jailbreak were registered under her name. That was enough for Gov. Reagan to try to send Davis to the gas chamber as a “conspirator” responsible for Haley’s death. In 1969 Reagan had gotten trustees at the University of California, Los Angeles, to fire the radical philosophy professor for being a member of the Communist Party.

For two months Davis eluded the FBI, which put the Black communist on its “10 most wanted” list. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover listed her as being “armed and dangerous” — an official invitation to shoot her on sight. President Nixon congratulated Hoover for the capture of Davis and labeled the Black woman “a terrorist.”

From her prison cell Davis declared, “Long live the spirit of Jonathan Jackson!”

The Black community mobilized coast to coast to defend their sister. More than 200 “Free Angela Davis” defense committees were formed. Members of every Workers World Party branch joined and supported these committees.

People rallied in Cuba, the Soviet Union and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) as well. On June 4, 1972, a jury acquitted Angela Davis of all charges.

Tried separately from Davis, Magee had adopted the name “Cinque” after the African leader of the 1839 slave revolt on the ship Amistad. The original Cinque was freed by a Connecticut court. Ruchell Cinque Magee, who also was part of a slave revolt, was convicted of kidnapping after murder charges were dismissed.

Judge Morton Colvin refused to adjourn the trial for a single day when Magee’s mother died. Yet Colvin recessed the hearing for two days following former President Truman’s death. At one point this bigot-in-robes kicked all 40 Black spectators out of the courtroom. (Jet, March 1, 1973)

An appeals court forced Colvin to allow former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who later founded the International Action Center, to help defend Cinque. Jury foreman Bernard J. Suares stated in a 2001 affidavit that the jury actually voted to acquit Cinque of kidnapping for the purpose of extortion.

Ruchell Cinque Magee remains imprisoned today. Jailed for 47 years, he is the longest held political prisoner in the U.S. and possibly the world. As an accomplished jailhouse lawyer, Cinque has freed dozens of fellow inmates.

You can write to this heroic freedom fighter at Corcoran State Prison. The address is Ruchell Magee # A92051, 3A2-131 Box 3471, C.S.P. Corcoran, CA 93212

Black August

One year after his younger brother sacrificed his life, George Jackson was assassinated by prison guards on Aug. 21, 1971. George Jackson’s murder sparked the Attica prison rebellion in which 29 prisoners were slaughtered by billionaire New York Gov., Nelson Rockefeller.

On March 27, 1972, the two remaining Soledad Brothers — Fleeta Drumgo and John Clutchette — were acquitted by a San Francisco jury.

“Courage in one hand, the machine gun in the other,” was how George Jackson described his 17-year-old brother Jonathan.

Sources: “If They Come in The Morning” by Angela Davis and other political prisoners; “The morning breaks; the trial of Angela Davis” by Bettina Aptheker.

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