George Jackson (activist)
George Jackson (September 23, 1941 – August 21, 1971) was a Black American militant who became a member of the Black Panther Party while in prison, where he spent the last 12 years of his life. He was one of the Soledad Brothers, and achieved fame due to a book of published letters.
Biography
Born in Several juvenile convictions resulted in spending time in the Youth Authority Corrections facility in Paso Robles. Jackson was convicted for stealing $71 at gunpoint from a gas station and was imprisoned as a felon for one year to life at age 18.
While at San Quentin State Prison in 1966, he founded the Black Guerilla Family, a Marxist Prison gang with political objectives. The original goals of the group were to eradicate racism, to maintain dignity in prison and to overthrow the United States government.
On January 13, 1970, along with Fleeta Drumgo and John Clutchette, he was charged with murdering a guard in retaliation for the killing of three black activists by a guard at the California's Soledad prison (the San Quentin guard had been acquitted after the Grand Jury ruled the killings as justifiable homicide). He was incarcerated in the maximum-security cellblock at Soledad Prison. Jackson and the other two inmates became known as the "Soledad Brothers." There are reports of a taped confession of Jackson, admitting to the killing of the cell guard.
In August 7, 1970, George Jackson's 17-year-old brother Jonathan burst into a Marin County courtroom with an automatic weapon, freed three San Quentin prisoners and took Judge Harold Haley as a hostage to demand freedom for the three "Soledad Brothers." However, Haley, prisoners William Christmas and James McClain, and Jonathan Jackson were killed as they attempted to drive away from the courthouse. The case made national headlines.
The eyewitness testimony suggests that Judge Haley was hit by fire discharged from a shotgun inside the vehicle during the incident, since he was being covered by a shotgun attached by wiring, tape, and/or a strap of some sort, and/or held beneath his chin. The shotgun was traced back to Activist Angela Davis.
Gary Thomas, at that time a prosecutor (later a judge) who was also taken hostage and paralyzed by a police bullet during the incident, testified in a subsequent proceeding that "The sawed-off shotgun was being held under Judge Haley's chin by Magee. The shotgun went off. It was as if it was in slow motion--all outward features of his face moving away." Some accounts of the incident report that Judge Haley's head was taken almost completely off his body as a result of the close-range shotgun blast.
Ruchell Magee, the sole survivor among the militants who attacked the court, was convicted for Haley's kidnapping and murder and sentenced to life imprisonment, which he is serving in Corcoran State Prison. Now 56 years old, he has lost numerous bids for parole.
There are theories that the FBI had foreknowledge of the August 7 plot, but allowed it to proceed in order to force a confrontation with the Black Panthers in which they could be discredited and their members killed, as well as produce an opportunity to bring conspiracy charges against Davis and other supporters.
Isolated in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day, Jackson studied political economy and radical theory and wrote two books, Blood in My Eye and Soledad Brother, which became bestsellers and brought him world-wide attention.
On August 21, 1971, three days before he was to go on trial, Jackson was gunned down in the prison yard at San Quentin in what officials described as an escape attempt.
The official report said that in his possession, Jackson had a 9mm automatic pistol alleged to have been smuggled into the prison by attorney Stephen Bingham (Bingham was acquitted of charges related to the incident in 1984; he had spent 13 years abroad lving under a false name). According to the Soledad guards, it was discarded after the alleged escape attempt, but no record was ever made of the weapon's destruction. Some other prisoners who witnessed the event claim that there was no weapon and that Jackson had not been planning any escape or rebellion. The official report also accuses Jackson of participating in a riot earlier that day, involving two dozen other prisoners, where three corrections officers and two inmates were tortured and killed.
The Official Story
According to the state of California, lawyer-activist Stephen Bingham had smuggled a pistol concealed in a tape recorder to Jackson, who was housed in San Quentin's Adjustment Center time awaiting trial for the murder of a prison guard. On August 21, 1971, Jackson used the pistol, an Astra 9-mm semi-automatic, to take over his tier in the Adjustment Center. In his failed escape attempt, six people were killed, including three prison guards and two white prisoners.
The prison guards were Jere Graham, Frank DeLeon and Paul Krasnes. Witnesses allege that Graham was the first vctim, shot in he back of the head execution-style after Jackson commented about the pistol, "Let's see if this thing works." DeLeon and Krasenes were beaten, stabbed and had their throats cut, dying after a half-an-hour from loss of blood. Two other guards were similarly treated, and they nearly bled to death before being rescued when prison guards shot their way into the Adjustment Center. In addition to the guards, two white prisoners who had been delivering food to the Center were murdered by the "rioters." They were hogtied with bed-sheets and stabbed to death.
The Bingham Trial
In the Stephen Bingham case, defense attorney Gerald Schwartzbach (Schwartzbach later successfully defended Robert Blake on murder charges) courted the media in the run-up to the trial. A Bingham Defense Fund was establshed by sympathizers, allegedly by some who had enabled Bingham to stay on the run for 13 years, having furnished him with a counterfeit passport and money. Bingham attended fund-raisers, where he spoke about his upcoming trial and his years as a fugitive. He explained that he had fled the country and remained on the run for so many years as he had believed it would have been impossible to receive a fair trial since the crime of which he was accused resulted in the death of prison guards. (While there is some validity to his point-of-view, critics held that the argument was disingenuous as Angela Davis had been acquitted of similar charges within two years of the incident.) The alternative press in the San Francisco Bay Area was sympathetic to Bingham, as were the jurors at his trial. Bingham was acquitted.
Conflicting Theories
George Jackson or someone in the Center had obtained the pistol from someone, The alternative press and other liberal/left-wing commentators, postulated that prison officials, with the FBI, had actually given Jackson the gun in order to cause an incident in which he could be eliminated. they alleged that the George Jackson tragedy that had claimed his life and those of five others was all part of a government conspiracy to specifically destroy the Black Panthers and wreck the civil rights movement as a whole.
Other observers point to the fact that Jackson and Black Panthers founder Huey Newton were locked in a power struggle over the leadership of the organization at the time of his death. Since Newton benefitted from Jackson's death -- Jackson not only became the premier Black Panther martyr, but one of Newton's major rivals had been eliminated and the Black Panthers' treasury had been enriched by inheriting the profits from Jackson's best-selling book, "Soledad Brother" -- some have claimed that Newton somehow engineered the conflagration.
George Jackson's own sister Penny Jackson was one person who believed that her brother had been assassinated by the Party. She made a trip to the Oakland headquarters of the Black Panthers to denounce them, holding the Party responsible for his death.
The Legacy
At his request, shotguns, not flowers, were brought to George Jackson's funeral. His legacy lives on through his books and his legend, that of resistance to what he termed the prison-industrial complex that was out to rob a man not just of his freedom, but of his soul.
Quote
George Jackson on the pacifism of Martin Luther King, Jr.:
The concept of nonviolence is a false ideal. It presupposes the existence of compassion and a sense of justice on the part of one's adversary. When this adversary has everything to lose and nothing to gain by exercising justice and compassion, his reaction can only be negative.
Media references
There is also a non-album single released by Bob Dylan about the plight and death of George Jackson. http://bobdylan.com/songs/jackson.html
Steel Pulse sang about "George Jackson, Soledad brother" in the song "Uncle George" on their critically acclaimed Tribute to the Martyrs album.
The Dicks, an influential Austin, Texas punk band also made a tribute in the song "George Jackson."
Archie Shepp, a leading light in the free jazz movement of the late 1960's, recorded a tribute, "Blues for Brother George Jackson" on his 1972 album "Attica Blues".
Stanley Williams dedicated his 1998 book "Life in Prison," in part, to George Jackson. In Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's response to Williams' appeal for clemency, the governor claimed that this dedication was "a significant indicator that Williams is not reformed and that he still sees violence and lawlessness as a legitimate means to address societal problems."
Further reading
- Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson (1970) ISBN 1556522304
- Blood In My Eye (1971) ISBN 0933121237