George Jackson (Black Panther)

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Cover of Soledad Brother
Cover of Soledad Brother

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.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Born in Chicago, Illinois, several juvenile convictions resulted in Jackson spending time in the Youth Authority Corrections facility in Paso Robles. Jackson was convicted for stealing $70 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 Guerrilla 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.[citation needed]

On January 16, 1970, along with Fleeta Drumgo and John Clutchette, he was charged with murdering a guard, John V. Mills, in retaliation for the killing of three black activists by a guard, O.G. Miller, at the California's Soledad prison (the San Quentin guard had been acquitted after the Grand Jury ruled the killings as justifiable homicide [specify]). He was incarcerated in the maximum-security cellblock at Soledad Prison. Jackson and the other two inmates became known as the "Soledad Brothers."

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 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.[citation needed]

On August 21, 1971, three days before he was to go on trial, Jackson was gunned down in the prison yard at San Quentin during an escape attempt.

During the escape which sparked a riot on the cellblock, Jackson had a 9 mm automatic pistol alleged to have been smuggled into the prison by attorney Stephen Bingham (immediately after the incident, Bingham went on the run and fled the country for 13 years, only to return to the US, turning himself into authorities in which he said he was scared of retaliation by the guards). Some other prisoners who witnessed the event claim that there was no weapon and that Jackson had not been planning any escape or rebellion, it should be noted that these witnesses were members and supporters of Jackson's gang.[citation needed] During the riot, caused by Jackson and two dozen other prisoners, three corrections officers and two inmates were tortured and killed.

Sgt. Vernell Crittendon, a prison guard present at the time of the riots, stated during an interview that Jackson and several of the other rioting prisoners cut a small hole in the necks of two of the captured guards. They then stuck their fingers in these holes under the skin and started to pull out veins, tendons, and arteries which were then systematically snipped with a pair of fingernail clippers. All of this occurred while the guards were still alive.

[edit] The Official Report

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 victim, shot in the 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.

[edit] 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 established 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.[citation needed] (Critics held[citation needed] 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.

[edit] Conflicting theories about death

George Jackson or someone in the Center had obtained the pistol from someone[citation needed] . The alternative press and other 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.[citation needed]

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 benefited 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.[citation needed]

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.[citation needed]

[edit] The legacy

At his request, shotguns, not flowers, were brought to George Jackson's funeral.

[edit] Quote

George Jackson on the pacifism of Martin Luther King, Jr.:

“ M.L.K. organized his thoughts much in the same manner as you have organized yours. If you really knew and fully understood his platform you would never have expressed such sentiments as you did in your last letter. I am sure you are acquainted with the fact that he was opposed to violence and war; he was indeed a devout pacifist. It is very odd, almost unbelievable, that so violent and tumultuous a setting as this can still produce such men. He was out of place, out of season, too naive, too innocent, too cultured, too civil for these times. That is why his end was so predictable.

Violence in its various forms he opposed, but this did not mean that he was passive. He knew that nature allows no such imbalances to exist for long. He was perceptive enough to see that the men of color across the world were on the march and their example would soon influence those in the U.S. to also stand up and stop trembling. So he attempted to direct the emotions and the movement in general along lines that he thought best suited to our unique situation: nonviolent civil disobedience, political and economic in character. I was beginning to warm somewhat to him because of his new ideas concerning U.S. foreign wars against colored peoples. I am certain that he was sincere in his stated purpose to 'feed the hungry, clothe the naked, comfort those in prisons, and trying to love somebody'. I really never disliked him as a man. As a man I accorded him the respect that he sincerely deserved.

It is just as a leader of black thought that I disagreed with him. 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.

The symbol of the male here in North America has always been the gun, the knife, the club. Violence is extolled at every exchange: the TV, the motion pictures, the best-seller lists. The newspapers that sell best are those that carry the boldest, bloodiest headlines and most sports coverage. To die for king and country is to die a hero.

The Kings, Wilkinses and Youngs exhort us in King's words to 'put away the knives, put away your arms and clothe yourselves in the breastplate of righteousness' and 'turn the other cheek to prove our capacity to endure, to love'. Well, that is good for them perhaps but I most certainly need both sides of my head.

 ”

[edit] Trivia

There is a non-album single released by Bob Dylan about the plight and death of George Jackson. [1]

Steel Pulse, who performed Bob Dylan's composition "George Jackson," on the album African Holocaust also sang about "George Jackson, Soledad brother" in the song "Uncle George" on their much earlier 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". The album was widely praised.

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."

Dead Prez, an Alternative rap pair mention George Jackson in their song 'Together'. "Anything can happen if you make it so, I'm like George Jackson .45 in my afro".

In the Rage Against the Machine song New Millennium Homes, George Jackson is mentioned: "Tha spirit of Jackson Now screams through tha ruins".

Underground hip hop/rap artist Zearle talks about George Jackson and his brother Johnathan in his song "Manchild"

[edit] Further reading

[edit] External links

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