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African Peoples Independence Society
Summary
Began serving one-year-to-life prison sentence for gas station robbery, 1961; Black Panther
organizer, 1961-1969; charged with killing prison guard, 1970; published Soledad Brother, a
collection of prison letters, 1970; killed while allegedly attempting to escape from prison, 1971;
posthumously published Blood in My Eye, a collection of letters and essays, 1972.
Life's Work
Was George Jackson a political martyr and revolutionary hero, or merely an arrogant criminal
caught up in the radical mood of his time? Either way, there is no doubt that Jackson was an
eloquent spokesman for the American underclass. Though he spent his entire adult life behind
bars, Jackson was able to relay his message of discontent across to a wide audience of black
militants, white activists, college students, and others. His call for urban guerrilla warfare as a
means for affecting social change gave white mainstream Americans nightmares, and gave
desperate, impoverished African Americans hope. Jackson's revolution has not come to pass, but
the passions that he and his comrades aroused frame our collective memory of the stormy times
in which he lived and died. In addition, his political analyses, whether one likes them or not,
remain as relevant as ever.
George Lester Jackson was born on September 23, 1941, on Chicago's West Side, the second of
five children. His father, Lester, was a postal worker. Georgia Jackson, George's mother, was
overprotective, rarely allowing her son to leave the house. Growing up in a segregated
neighborhood, Jackson did not see a white person until he started kindergarten. He was so
curious about the strange- looking children in his class that he approached the first white boy he
saw and started feeling his straight hair and scratching the pale skin on his cheek. The boy
responded by knocking Jackson out with a baseball bat.
After that event, Mrs. Jackson transferred her son into a parochial school, St. Malachy. He soon
discovered that St. Malachy was actually two separate schools across the street from each other--a
run down one for black kids and a well-equipped one for white kids. During the summers, Jackson
was sent downstate to stay with his grandmother and aunt in his mother's hometown of
Harrisburg, Illinois, in order to get him away from the dangers of urban life. Jackson enjoyed the
relative freedom he was given in the country, and he especially liked learning to use guns and
rifles.
Meanwhile, the Jackson family began to outgrow its Chicago apartment. After two more children
were born, they moved into a new apartment that was larger, but located in a more dangerous
neighborhood. Jackson began sneaking out of the house more and more, and his life on the street
included petty crimes of all sorts. By about 1950, he was having run-ins with the law on a regular
basis. The family soon moved again, this time into the Troop Street housing projects. The projects
served as a virtual training ground for criminal behavior. By the time he was a teenager, the
quick-learning and increasingly rebellious Jackson had graduated from shoplifting to mugging
and other more serious offenses. He would often disappear from home for days at a time.
In an effort to straighten his son up, Lester Jackson obtained a transfer from the post office and
moved George across country to Los Angeles in 1956. The move did nothing to alter the young
Jackson's behavior. He quickly became involved in a street gang called the Capones. Jackson's
first California arrest came in January of 1957, when he was taken in for stealing a motorcycle.
Several more arrests followed in quick succession, but as a minor he was always released into
his father's custody. Eventually, a department store break-in finally landed him in the Paso Robles
youth facility north of Los Angeles. Although he missed the freedom to roam, Jackson's stay at
Paso Robles was not all that bad. He liked the food and, more importantly, he enjoyed the
opportunity to read a lot.
Released from the youth camp after seven months, Jackson returned to Los Angeles, where he
quickly resumed his career as a robber. He pleaded guilty to a Bakersfield gas station hold-up,
then calmly walked out of the county jail by tying up and impersonating another inmate who was
scheduled to be released. He was eventually recaptured in Harrisburg, Illinois, where he had
spent summers as a boy. He was brought back to California and returned to a California Youth
Authority facility, where he remained until his parole in June of 1960.
The next few months were the last that Jackson would ever spend as a free man. Later that year he
was arrested in connection with a gas station robbery that netted 71 dollars. Convinced by his
public defender that it would result in a lighter sentence, Jackson pleaded guilty. Because of his
previous convictions, however, he was given the indefinite sentence of one year to life. At the age of
19, Jackson entered Soledad Prison, where he remained a prisoner for the rest of his life.
Jackson was no more obedient to authority in prison than he had been on the street. In 1962 he
was transferred to San Quentin Prison for a series of infractions. There he came under the
tutelage of an older inmate, W. L. Nolen. Nolen familiarized Jackson with the writing of many
radical political theorists, including Karl Marx, Mao Tse Tung, and black-Algerian psychologist
Franz Fanon. Jackson was a good student, and he was soon well- versed in leftist political
thought. He came to see his crimes and imprisonment in a political context, and he quickly
became a leader among the growing faction of politically-charged inmates at San Quentin. The
study groups founded by Jackson, Nolen, and other inmates eventually evolved into a revolutionary
organization called the Black Guerrilla Family (BGF), which still exists and recognizes Jackson as
the chief intellectual force behind its creation. His aim was to rechannel the rebellious energies of
African Americans away from petty crimes toward political activity.
Jackson was repeatedly denied parole, either because of his disruptive behavior--as claimed by
prison officials and members of the parole board--or because of racism and his political activism--
as claimed by Jackson and his supporters. In 1968 he was transferred back to Soledad. There he
continued in his efforts to help raise the consciousnesses of his fellow African American inmates.
Gradually, Jackson's world view gelled into a cohesive revolutionary philosophy that revolved
around the need to overthrow the racist, imperialist United States establishment through armed
warfare. He became an important prison organizer for the Black Panthers, an organization that
shared his radical outlook.
In 1970 three black Soledad prisoners were shot to death by a white guard during a minor fistfight
in the exercise yard. A few days later, a different white guard was found beaten to death. Jackson,
along with two other black prisoners, Fleeta Drumgo and John Clutchette, was charged with the
guard's murder. The case received nationwide attention, and the trio of suspects became known
as the Soledad Brothers. Many people believed that the Soledad Brothers were being framed
because of their political activities, and a number of famous liberals and radicals spoke out on
their behalf, most notably University of California professor Angela Davis. Davis and Jackson went
on to become close friends. While the case was at its height of controversy, a collection of
Jackson's prison letters was published under the title Soledad Brother. The book became a
national best-seller, and suddenly George Jackson was being hailed- -and condemned--as a
leading figure among militant black thinkers.
Among those who were strongly influenced by Jackson's writing was his younger brother,
Jonathan Jackson. On August 7, 1970, Jonathan was shot to death by police during an attempt to
take over a California courthouse to free three San Quentin inmates who were on trial. The judge
and two of the inmates were also killed during the episode. In the summer of 1971, Jackson was
sent back to San Quentin to await trial for his alleged role in the killing of the Soledad guard. While
there, he completed another book of essays and letters, Blood in My Eye. In this second book,
Jackson predicted and called for civil war in the United States. He also predicted his own murder
in prison.
A week after the completion of Blood in My Eye, one of those predictions may have come true. On
August 21, 1971, Jackson was shot while allegedly trying to escape from San Quentin. There is
still widespread disagreement about what actually took place that day. According to prison officials,
Jackson's lawyer Stephen Bingham smuggled in a gun, which Jackson then concealed under an
Afro wig. Jackson then shot a guard, released several other prisoners, and made a break for the
prison wall, before being gunned down by tower guards. Three guards and two other prisoners
were also killed during the chaos. Supporters of Jackson point to a number of inconsistencies and
improbable elements in that story. They believe that Jackson was set up and murdered by prison
authorities because he had become too powerful and posed a serious threat to their control.
Meanwhile, Bingham disappeared from sight and remained a fugitive until the mid-1980s, when
he was tried for and acquitted of smuggling the gun to Jackson.
There may never be general agreement as to what actually took place on the day Jackson was
killed. As political moods shift with the passage of time, the idea of a prison conspiracy no longer
seems particularly farfetched to the American public. At the same time, the urban guerrilla warfare
that Jackson called for does not seem as imminent as it may have been in 1971. Nevertheless,
Jackson's thoughts on racism and class conflict remain relevant, and they have played a large role
in the intellectual development of a generation of African Americans who seek to change their
society.
Began serving one-year-to-life prison sentence for gas station robbery, 1961; Black Panther
organizer, 1961-1969; charged with killing prison guard, 1970; published Soledad Brother, a
collection of prison letters, 1970; killed while allegedly attempting to escape from prison, 1971;
posthumously published Blood in My Eye, a collection of letters and essays, 1972.
Life's Work
Was George Jackson a political martyr and revolutionary hero, or merely an arrogant criminal
caught up in the radical mood of his time? Either way, there is no doubt that Jackson was an
eloquent spokesman for the American underclass. Though he spent his entire adult life behind
bars, Jackson was able to relay his message of discontent across to a wide audience of black
militants, white activists, college students, and others. His call for urban guerrilla warfare as a
means for affecting social change gave white mainstream Americans nightmares, and gave
desperate, impoverished African Americans hope. Jackson's revolution has not come to pass, but
the passions that he and his comrades aroused frame our collective memory of the stormy times
in which he lived and died. In addition, his political analyses, whether one likes them or not,
remain as relevant as ever.
George Lester Jackson was born on September 23, 1941, on Chicago's West Side, the second of
five children. His father, Lester, was a postal worker. Georgia Jackson, George's mother, was
overprotective, rarely allowing her son to leave the house. Growing up in a segregated
neighborhood, Jackson did not see a white person until he started kindergarten. He was so
curious about the strange- looking children in his class that he approached the first white boy he
saw and started feeling his straight hair and scratching the pale skin on his cheek. The boy
responded by knocking Jackson out with a baseball bat.
After that event, Mrs. Jackson transferred her son into a parochial school, St. Malachy. He soon
discovered that St. Malachy was actually two separate schools across the street from each other--a
run down one for black kids and a well-equipped one for white kids. During the summers, Jackson
was sent downstate to stay with his grandmother and aunt in his mother's hometown of
Harrisburg, Illinois, in order to get him away from the dangers of urban life. Jackson enjoyed the
relative freedom he was given in the country, and he especially liked learning to use guns and
rifles.
Meanwhile, the Jackson family began to outgrow its Chicago apartment. After two more children
were born, they moved into a new apartment that was larger, but located in a more dangerous
neighborhood. Jackson began sneaking out of the house more and more, and his life on the street
included petty crimes of all sorts. By about 1950, he was having run-ins with the law on a regular
basis. The family soon moved again, this time into the Troop Street housing projects. The projects
served as a virtual training ground for criminal behavior. By the time he was a teenager, the
quick-learning and increasingly rebellious Jackson had graduated from shoplifting to mugging
and other more serious offenses. He would often disappear from home for days at a time.
In an effort to straighten his son up, Lester Jackson obtained a transfer from the post office and
moved George across country to Los Angeles in 1956. The move did nothing to alter the young
Jackson's behavior. He quickly became involved in a street gang called the Capones. Jackson's
first California arrest came in January of 1957, when he was taken in for stealing a motorcycle.
Several more arrests followed in quick succession, but as a minor he was always released into
his father's custody. Eventually, a department store break-in finally landed him in the Paso Robles
youth facility north of Los Angeles. Although he missed the freedom to roam, Jackson's stay at
Paso Robles was not all that bad. He liked the food and, more importantly, he enjoyed the
opportunity to read a lot.
Released from the youth camp after seven months, Jackson returned to Los Angeles, where he
quickly resumed his career as a robber. He pleaded guilty to a Bakersfield gas station hold-up,
then calmly walked out of the county jail by tying up and impersonating another inmate who was
scheduled to be released. He was eventually recaptured in Harrisburg, Illinois, where he had
spent summers as a boy. He was brought back to California and returned to a California Youth
Authority facility, where he remained until his parole in June of 1960.
The next few months were the last that Jackson would ever spend as a free man. Later that year he
was arrested in connection with a gas station robbery that netted 71 dollars. Convinced by his
public defender that it would result in a lighter sentence, Jackson pleaded guilty. Because of his
previous convictions, however, he was given the indefinite sentence of one year to life. At the age of
19, Jackson entered Soledad Prison, where he remained a prisoner for the rest of his life.
Jackson was no more obedient to authority in prison than he had been on the street. In 1962 he
was transferred to San Quentin Prison for a series of infractions. There he came under the
tutelage of an older inmate, W. L. Nolen. Nolen familiarized Jackson with the writing of many
radical political theorists, including Karl Marx, Mao Tse Tung, and black-Algerian psychologist
Franz Fanon. Jackson was a good student, and he was soon well- versed in leftist political
thought. He came to see his crimes and imprisonment in a political context, and he quickly
became a leader among the growing faction of politically-charged inmates at San Quentin. The
study groups founded by Jackson, Nolen, and other inmates eventually evolved into a revolutionary
organization called the Black Guerrilla Family (BGF), which still exists and recognizes Jackson as
the chief intellectual force behind its creation. His aim was to rechannel the rebellious energies of
African Americans away from petty crimes toward political activity.
Jackson was repeatedly denied parole, either because of his disruptive behavior--as claimed by
prison officials and members of the parole board--or because of racism and his political activism--
as claimed by Jackson and his supporters. In 1968 he was transferred back to Soledad. There he
continued in his efforts to help raise the consciousnesses of his fellow African American inmates.
Gradually, Jackson's world view gelled into a cohesive revolutionary philosophy that revolved
around the need to overthrow the racist, imperialist United States establishment through armed
warfare. He became an important prison organizer for the Black Panthers, an organization that
shared his radical outlook.
In 1970 three black Soledad prisoners were shot to death by a white guard during a minor fistfight
in the exercise yard. A few days later, a different white guard was found beaten to death. Jackson,
along with two other black prisoners, Fleeta Drumgo and John Clutchette, was charged with the
guard's murder. The case received nationwide attention, and the trio of suspects became known
as the Soledad Brothers. Many people believed that the Soledad Brothers were being framed
because of their political activities, and a number of famous liberals and radicals spoke out on
their behalf, most notably University of California professor Angela Davis. Davis and Jackson went
on to become close friends. While the case was at its height of controversy, a collection of
Jackson's prison letters was published under the title Soledad Brother. The book became a
national best-seller, and suddenly George Jackson was being hailed- -and condemned--as a
leading figure among militant black thinkers.
Among those who were strongly influenced by Jackson's writing was his younger brother,
Jonathan Jackson. On August 7, 1970, Jonathan was shot to death by police during an attempt to
take over a California courthouse to free three San Quentin inmates who were on trial. The judge
and two of the inmates were also killed during the episode. In the summer of 1971, Jackson was
sent back to San Quentin to await trial for his alleged role in the killing of the Soledad guard. While
there, he completed another book of essays and letters, Blood in My Eye. In this second book,
Jackson predicted and called for civil war in the United States. He also predicted his own murder
in prison.
A week after the completion of Blood in My Eye, one of those predictions may have come true. On
August 21, 1971, Jackson was shot while allegedly trying to escape from San Quentin. There is
still widespread disagreement about what actually took place that day. According to prison officials,
Jackson's lawyer Stephen Bingham smuggled in a gun, which Jackson then concealed under an
Afro wig. Jackson then shot a guard, released several other prisoners, and made a break for the
prison wall, before being gunned down by tower guards. Three guards and two other prisoners
were also killed during the chaos. Supporters of Jackson point to a number of inconsistencies and
improbable elements in that story. They believe that Jackson was set up and murdered by prison
authorities because he had become too powerful and posed a serious threat to their control.
Meanwhile, Bingham disappeared from sight and remained a fugitive until the mid-1980s, when
he was tried for and acquitted of smuggling the gun to Jackson.
There may never be general agreement as to what actually took place on the day Jackson was
killed. As political moods shift with the passage of time, the idea of a prison conspiracy no longer
seems particularly farfetched to the American public. At the same time, the urban guerrilla warfare
that Jackson called for does not seem as imminent as it may have been in 1971. Nevertheless,
Jackson's thoughts on racism and class conflict remain relevant, and they have played a large role
in the intellectual development of a generation of African Americans who seek to change their
society.
George Jackson
(September 23, 1941 – August 21, 1971)
(September 23, 1941 – August 21, 1971)
George Jackson
| Huey Newton |
| Malcolm X Al-Hajj Malik Shabazz |
| Fred Hampton |
| Bobby Seale |
| Bobby Hutton |
| Each month APIS will display a profile of a person important and relavant to our struggle. Study them and celebrate their lives and sacrifices made in the name of freedom and liberation. Also, there will be listed below a series of images of others relative to the individual struggles of the person profiled. |
| Assata Shakur |
| Angela Davis |