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George Jackson: Soledad Brother 40 years later


 
Forty years after his death, George Jackson continues to reflect different things to different people depending on their ideologies and experiences.

To some, Jackson was a renowned author, Marxist, and activist truth-teller who brought the injustices of the American experience in and out of prison into harsh light as the once-vibrant ‘60s faded to a disillusioned and bloody end.

To others, he was a career criminal and prisoner turned violent radical whose acts and incitements brought misery to many and resulted in the kind of revolutionary martyrdom now worshiped by Islamicists and Tea Party extremists.

In a society that both thrives on a fundamental class-based inequality and manages to keep its prison population of 2 million over 40% black, Jackson remains a figure of some relevance, however legendary. Perhaps the best way to get a picture of the man is to read his words in Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson

On the ideological side of things, here’s George Jackson - 40 year commemoration, a video produced by Jonathan Jackson Jr:
 

 
After the jump: George Jackson in context, and Bob Dylan’s salute to the man…

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Posted by Ron Nachmann
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08.22.2011
12:16 am
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Huey Newton: Prelude to a Revolution
02.17.2011
06:48 pm
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Prelude to a Revolution features prison interviews with Huey P. Newton, co-founder and leader of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense. Newton was born 17 February 1942, in Monroe, Louisiana. The youngest of seven children, his family moved to Oakland, California in 1945, where they lived at various addresses in the Bay Area. Though poor, Newton later claimed he and is family never did without food or shelter. However, he did claim in his autobiography Revolutionary Suicide he was “made to feel ashamed of being black.”

“During those long years in Oakland public schools, I did not have one teacher who taught me anything relevant to my own life or experience. Not one instructor ever awoke in me a desire to learn more or to question or to explore the worlds of literature, science, and history. All they did was try to rob me of the sense of my own uniqueness and worth, and in the process nearly killed my urge to inquire.”

In October 1966, after involvement with various radical groups, Newton and his associate, Bobby Seale formed the Black Panthers, an “organization working for the right of self-defense for African-Americans in the United States.” The Panthers changed American politics, and famously drew up a “Ten Point Plan,” a manifesto which called for, among other things, “black community self-determination, full employment, decent housing for black people, an end to police brutality, and an immediate end to all wars of aggression.” They also brought in a series of social programs (community schools, free breakfasts, self-defense classes, armed citizens’ patrols) that offered an alternative to the capitalist system. At the time, it was said Newton “could take street-gang types and give them a social consciousness.”

In 1967, Newton was involved in an incident that led to the death of a police officer. Newton was shot in the stomach, and though no gun was found on his person, was charged with manslaughter. In 1968, he was tried, found guilty and sentenced to 2-15 years. In 1970, the California Appellate Court reversed the conviction and ordered a new trial. After two subsequent mistrials, the California Supreme Court dropped the case against Newton.

Huey Newton: Prelude to a Revolution was filmed while Newton was in prison, it is a powerful and thought-provoking film, and gives great insight into Newton’s ideas and hopes for the Black Panther movement:

“We view each other with a great love and a great understanding and we try to extend this to the general black population and also oppressed people all over the world. I think that we differ from some other groups simply because we understand the system better than most groups understand the system. With this realization we attempt to form a strong political base based in the community with the only strength that we have and thats the strength of a potentially destructive force If we don’t get freedom.”

 

 
Previously on DM

Huey Newton compels William F. Buckley to side with George Washington, 1973


 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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02.17.2011
06:48 pm
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