August Message From Our Founder

Some two decades ago, I entered the California prison system as an unsuspecting 26 year old man unaware of the challenges that lay ahead. Indeed, as the years went by I would go through the fire: race riots, the SHU, lockdowns, etc. According to Oprah Winfrey, the prison I was warehoused in for some 11 years, California State Prison Sacramento (a.k.a., “New Folsom”), was the most violent maximum-security prison in the United States. I entered another world the day I was transferred to New Folsom. A world shaped by its own distinct history where the rules and social order were influenced by decades of political strife. Governors Ronald Reagan (1967-1975), Edmund G. “Jerry” Brown (1975-1983), George Deukmejian (1993-1991), and Pete Wilson (1991-1999) had effectively spearheaded a series of “tough on crime” initiatives aimed at dismantling the gains which resulted from the Civil Right and Black Power Movements. The criminal legal system (n.b., “prison”) was their most effective weapon. It criminalized, oppressed, and isolated the voices of political resistance. Much has been written on the subject. Therefore, I will not revisit it here. However, I will add to the narrative one account, a tailspin of events created by such measures. In what follows, I detail how the government created their own “boogieman” in the embodiment of a black revolutionary prisoner named George Lester Jackson whose life and legacy of resistance lives on and is commemorated in the month of “Black August.” 

George was introduced to me early on in my incarceration. It was during my four-year stay in the Alameda County Jail before being convicted and sentenced to life without parole for first-degree murder. My cellmate had suggested I read a book Jackson had authored, Soledad Brothers, a powerful collection of letters telling of his imprisonment. Reading it was nothing short of politically empowering. His personal transformation from street thug to radical prisoner moved me spirituality as I learned of his trajectory to becoming a decisive figure in a world of radical thinkers in California’s prison system. Born in Chicago in 1941, his family moved to California in 1956. Five years later, he was arrested at the tender age of 18 for a $70 armed robbery of a gas station. Like many impoverished black men, it was not his first encounter with the criminal legal system. He had done time in juvie, which triggered a one-to-life prison sentence for the robbery.

Entering the California prison system, George immediately was subject to Reagan’s Cold War tactics. Prison was not exempt. Communism was very much alive and striving behind prison walls. There, George became a student of Trotsky, Moa, Lenin, Marx, and mastered the martial arts. In time, he grew to become a conduit of communist ideas that entered the prison system during a time when the world was in a tailspin of political chaos. Naturally, he became a teacher, a general with a rank-and-file cadre dubbed the “Black Family.” He showed his fellow brothers how their incarceration was the product of racism, capitalism, and fascism. In 1969, Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party for Self-defense, anointed him as the Minister of Defense for the Party. Ironically, just two years prior, on May 2, 1967, the BPP had marched onto the state capitol in Sacramento with rifles in arm demanding, among other things, release of political prisoners. Governor Reagan quickly moved and successfully persuaded legislators to ban “open-carry” gun laws. 

Racial tensions being what they were during this time, one can only imagine the circumstances black prisoners encountered within the prison system. Without question, they were at odds with racist guards who could kill them with impunity. Consequently, this created the sort of environment where, from 1970-1971, nine guards and twenty four prisoners were killed. In 1970, three black prisoners were shot dead in a race riot said to have been instigated by the guards at Soledad prison. A guard was killed in retaliation. Jackson and two of his comrades were charged in connection to the murder. Thereafter, the case would become an international rallying cry for leftist celebrities like Marlon Brando, Angela Davis, and Noam Chomsky. George and his comrades would become known as the Soledad Brothers. Later that year, Soledad Brothers was published. 

Next, I read Blood In My Eye, a treatment George had authored in the spirit of communism and guerrilla warfare. Here, he appealed to the heart and plight of black America to rebel. Of course, there were many other books and stories I read or were told over the years that spoke of the tragedies that made him infamous. After the incident at Soledad, his comrades and he were transferred to San Quentin to await trial in San Francisco. However, in August of 1970, before the trial could begin, his younger brother Johnathan took hostages at the Marin County Superior Courthouse. It would result in a botched effort to force George’s release. Sadly, Johnathan was shot dead along with a judge and two other incarcerated people. 

Exactly one year later, on August 21, 1971, George himself would be killed. The official story: his attorney smuggled into San Quentin’s Adjustment Center a small caliber pistol in an attempt to aid in his escape. In the years since, much suspicion has surrounded this alleged plot. So much about the story is out of sync. Many speculate he was set up. How could such a brilliant man fail, as the escape plot was not thought out very well? At the point he was shot and killed, he was said to have exited the Adjustment Center, made a dashing break across the yard towards a wall, which stood 20 feet tall, and was gunned down in clear range of the gun tower. To this day, there is no definitive proof as to what happened that day. No body cameras. No video footage. No one’s story but the guards. 

Fifty years later, the legacy of George Jackson remains a threat to prison administrators. So much so, most prisoners, when speaking of his story, speak in secret if at all. His books are considered contraband. And there is a prevailing belief that if caught with one or other material commemorating his life, it will result in indefinite solitary confinement. Still, for others he remains a symbol of resistance; a black historical figure for those who resist white supremacy and resist what the ghettos and prisons are designed to create in us. In keeping with what George has come to symbolize, many prisoners and radical thinkers around the world commemorate this legacy by celebrating Black August, a month long fast, intense study, and organizing in his spirit. 

Reading and studying all this, one cannot help but think of how powerful George had to have been in life given how revered and despised he is in death. Even more, as time goes on and we learn more and more about what shaped his legacy, it is impossible to ignore the fact that racism played a vital role in shaping not only his life trajectory, but so too that of countless others. Sadly, people died on account of the racist political ambitions of California’s governors and prison administrators who spent–and continue to spend–billions of dollars to design and construct places like Pelican Bay State Prison where they hide the boogiemen they create. Needless to say, there is a lesson to be learned here: the boogieman isn’t always in the closet or a cage!

In Solidarity,

Ivan Kilgore