George Jackson (activist)
George Lester Jackson (September 23, 1941 – August 21, 1971) was an American author, activist and convicted felon. While serving an indeterminate sentence for stealing $70 from a gas station in 1961, Jackson became involved in revolutionary activity and co-founded the prison gang Black Guerrilla Family.[3]
For other people named George Jackson, see George Jackson (disambiguation).
George Jackson
August 21, 1971 (aged 29)
Bethel Cemetery, Mount Vernon, Illinois[1]
Prison activist[2] and co-founder of the Black Guerrilla Family
Blood in My Eye
Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson
Lester and Georgia Bea Jackson
Jonathan P. Jackson (brother)
In 1970, he was one of three prisoners known as Soledad Brothers, charged with the murder of correctional officer John Vincent Mills in the aftermath of a prison fight. The same year, he published Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson, a combination of autobiography and manifesto addressed to an African-American audience. The book became a bestseller and earned Jackson personal fame.
Jackson was killed by prison guards in 1971, during an escape attempt in which three prison guards and two inmates were killed. He never went to trial for the Mills murder.
Biography[edit]
Born in Chicago, Illinois, Jackson was the second son of Lester and Georgia Bea Jackson's five children. He spent time in the California Youth Authority Corrections facility in Paso Robles due to several juvenile convictions including armed robbery, assault, and burglary.[4]
In 1961, he was convicted of armed robbery – for stealing $70 at gunpoint from a gas station – and sentenced to one year to life in prison.[5]
During his first years at San Quentin State Prison, Jackson became involved in revolutionary activity. He was described by white prison officials as egocentric and anti-social.[6] In 1966, Jackson met and befriended W. L. Nolen, who introduced him to Marxist and Maoist ideology. The two founded the Black Guerrilla Family in 1966 based on Marxist and Maoist political thought.[7] In speaking of his ideological transformation, Jackson remarked: "I met Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Engels, and Mao when I entered prison and they redeemed me."[8] In his 1972 book Blood in My Eye, Jackson describes himself as a "Marxist-Leninist-Maoist-Fanonist".[9]
As Jackson's disciplinary infractions grew he spent more time in solitary confinement, where he studied political economy and radical theory. He also wrote many letters to friends and supporters, which would later be edited and compiled into the books Soledad Brother and Blood in My Eye, bestsellers that brought him a great deal of attention from leftist organizers and intellectuals in the U.S. and Western Europe. He amassed a following of inmates, including whites and Latinos, and most enthusiastically with other black inmates.[10]
In January 1969, Jackson and Nolen were transferred from San Quentin to Soledad Prison.[11] On January 13, 1970, corrections officer Opie G. Miller shot Nolen and two other black prisoners (Cleveland Edwards and Alvin Miller) during a yard riot with members of the Aryan Brotherhood, killing all three. Following Nolen's death, Jackson became increasingly confrontational with corrections officials and spoke often about the need to protect fellow inmates and take revenge on correction officers, employing what Jackson called "selective retaliatory violence".[12]
On January 17, 1970, Jackson, Fleeta Drumgo, and John Clutchette were charged with murdering a corrections officer, John V. Mills, who was beaten and thrown from the third floor of Soledad's Y wing.[13] This was a capital offense and a successful conviction would have put Jackson in the gas chamber. Mills was purportedly killed in retaliation for the shooting deaths of three inmates by Miller the previous year. Miller had not been charged with any crime, as a grand jury ruled his actions during the prison fight justifiable homicide.[14]
In the aftermath Jackson, Drumgo, and Clutchette became known as the Soledad Brothers and activists worked to get the three acquitted whom they viewed as being political prisoners and accused based on their race. The activists also wanted to bring attention to the disproportionate rates at which people of color were being incarcerated compared to white people and to the socioeconomic factors that led to their imprisonment in the first place. The Soledad Brothers Defense Committee was formed by Fay Stender and had many famous activists, celebrities, and writers join and support the committee. Among these activists was Angela Davis. Davis while working with the committee would eventually become a leader of the committee and become a close friend of Jackson.[15][16] Jackson and Davis corresponded over letters frequently and Jackson had sent a manuscript of his book Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson, and asked her to read it and asked for her help in improving it.[17]
Prison escape and death[edit]
On August 21, 1971, Jackson met with attorney Stephen Bingham at San Quentin prison to discuss a civil lawsuit that Jackson had filed against the California Department of Corrections. After the meeting, Jackson was being escorted by officer Urbano Rubiaco back to his cell when Rubiaco noticed a metallic object in Jackson's hair, later revealed to be a wig, and ordered him to remove it. Jackson then pulled a Spanish Astra 9 mm pistol from beneath the wig and said: "Gentlemen, the dragon has come"—a reference to Ho Chi Minh.[23] It is not clear how Jackson obtained the gun. Bingham, who lived for 13 years as a fugitive before returning to the United States to face trial, was acquitted of charges that he smuggled a gun to Jackson.[24]
Jackson ordered Rubiaco to open all the cells and along with several other inmates, he overpowered the remaining correction officers and took them, along with two inmates, hostage. Five other hostages, officers Jere Graham, Frank DeLeon and Paul Krasnes, along with two white prisoners, were killed and found in Jackson's cell. Three other officers, Rubiaco, Kenneth McCray, and Charles Breckenridge, were also shot and stabbed, but survived.[25] After finding the keys for the Adjustment Center's exit, Jackson along with fellow inmate and close friend Johnny Spain escaped to the yard where Jackson was shot dead from a tower and Spain surrendered.[26][27]
Three inmates were acquitted and three (David Johnson, Johnny Spain and Hugo Pinell) were convicted for the murders.[28] The six became known as the "San Quentin Six".[29]
There is some evidence that Jackson and his supporters on the outside had planned the escape for several weeks. Three days before the escape attempt, Jackson rewrote his will, leaving all royalties as well as control of his legal defense fund to the Black Panther Party.[30]
Jackson's funeral was held at St. Augustine's Episcopal Church in Oakland, California, on August 28, 1971.[31]