10.-black-august-freedom-fighters.pdf
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![revolutionary mentality. As a result, each of us has been subject to years of
the most vicious reactionary violence by the state. Our mortality rate is
almost what you would expect to find in a history of Dachau. Three of us
[Nolen, Sweet Jugs Miller, and Cleve Edwards] were murdered several
months ago [Jan. 13, 1969] by a pig shooting from thirty feet above their
heads with a military rifle” (“Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George
Jackson”).
When the brothers first demanded the killer guard be tried for murder, they
were rebuffed. Upon their insistence, the administration held a kangaroo
court and three days later returned a verdict of “justifiable homicide.”
Shortly afterward, a white guard was found beaten to death and thrown from
a tier. Six days later, three prisoners were accused of murder, and became
known as The Soledad Brothers.
“Lam being tried in court right now with two other brothers. John Clutchette
and Fleeta Drumgo, for the alleged slaying of a prison guard. This charge
carries an automatic death penalty for me. I can’t get life. I already have it.”
The concept, Black August, grew out of the need to expose to the light of day
the glorious and heroic deeds of those African women and men who
recognized and struggled against the injustices heaped upon people of color
on a daily basis in America.
On Aug. 7, 1970, just a few days after George was transferred to San Quentin,
his younger brother, Jonathan Jackson, 17, invaded Marin County
Courthouse single-handed, with a satchel full of handguns, an a
and a shotgun hidden under his raincoat.
sault rifle
“Freeze,” he commanded as he tossed guns to William Christmas, James
McClain, and Ruchell Magee.](10.-black-august-freedom-fighters 4.png)
Black August
a story of African freedom fighters
Rest wy Jewel;
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Aelesed ela By Kiilu Nyasha
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True Leap Reprints
Anti-Colonial
Originally published the website of
San Francisco Bay View: National Black Newspaper,
August 21, 2016
hltps://sfoayview.com/2016/08/black-augus
jrican-freedom-fighters/
font: Bell MT
lack August is a month of great significance for Africans throughout
the diaspora, but particularly here in the U.S., where it originated.
“August,” as Mumia Abu-Jamal noted, “is a month of meaning ... of
repression and radical resistance, of injustice and divine justice, of repression
and righteous rebellion, of individual and collective efforts to free the slaves
and break the chains that bind us.”
On this 37th anniversary of Black August, first organized to honor our fallen
freedom fighters, George and Jonathan Jackson, Khatari Gaulden, James
McClain, William Christmas and the sole survivor of the Aug. 7, 1970,
Courthouse Slave Rebellion, Ruchell Cinque Magee, it is still a time to
crifice, political education, physical
embrace the principles of unity, selfs
fitness and/or training in martial arts, resistance and spiritual renewal.
The concept, Black August, grew out of the need to expose to the light of day
the glorious and heroic deeds of those African women and men who
recognized and struggled against the injustices heaped upon people of color
ona daily basis in America.
One cannot tell the story of Black August without first providing the reader
with a brief glimpse of the “Black Movement” behind California prison walls
in the ‘60s, led by George Jackson and W.L. Nolen, among others.
As Jackson wrote: “(W)hen I was accused of robbing a gas station of $70, I
accepted a deal ... but when time came for sentencing, they tossed me into
the penitentiary with one to life. It was 1960. I was 18 years old. ... I met
Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Engels and Mao when I entered prison and they
redeemed me. For the first four years I studied nothing but economics and
military ideas. I met Black guerrillas George ‘Big Jake’ Lewis and James Carr,
W.L. Nolen, Bill Christmas, Tony Gibson and many, many others. We
attempted to transform the Black criminal mentality into a Black
revolutionary mentality. As a result, each of us has been subject to years of
the most vicious reactionary violence by the state. Our mortality rate is
almost what you would expect to find in a history of Dachau. Three of us
[Nolen, Sweet Jugs Miller, and Cleve Edwards] were murdered several
months ago [Jan. 13, 1969] by a pig shooting from thirty feet above their
heads with a military rifle” (“Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George
Jackson”).
When the brothers first demanded the killer guard be tried for murder, they
were rebuffed. Upon their insistence, the administration held a kangaroo
court and three days later returned a verdict of “justifiable homicide.”
Shortly afterward, a white guard was found beaten to death and thrown from
a tier. Six days later, three prisoners were accused of murder, and became
known as The Soledad Brothers.
“Lam being tried in court right now with two other brothers. John Clutchette
and Fleeta Drumgo, for the alleged slaying of a prison guard. This charge
carries an automatic death penalty for me. I can’t get life. I already have it.”
The concept, Black August, grew out of the need to expose to the light of day
the glorious and heroic deeds of those African women and men who
recognized and struggled against the injustices heaped upon people of color
on a daily basis in America.
On Aug. 7, 1970, just a few days after George was transferred to San Quentin,
his younger brother, Jonathan Jackson, 17, invaded Marin County
Courthouse single-handed, with a satchel full of handguns, an a
and a shotgun hidden under his raincoat.
sault rifle
“Freeze,” he commanded as he tossed guns to William Christmas, James
McClain, and Ruchell Magee.
Magee was on the witness stand testifying for McClain, on trial for assaulting
a pris
Fred Billingsley, beaten and tear-gassed to death in his cell.
n guard in the wake of an officer’s murder of another Black prisoner,
A jailhouse lawyer, Magee had deluged the courts with petitions for seven
years contesting his illegal conviction in ‘63. The courts had refused to listen,
so Magee seized the hour and joined the guerrillas as they took the judge,
prosecutor and three jurors hostage to a waiting van. To reporters gathering
quickly outside the courthouse, Jonathan shouted, “You can take our pictures.
We are the revolutionaries!”
Operating with courage and calm even their enemies had to respect, the four
Black freedom fighters commandeered their hostages out of the courthouse
without a hitch. The plan was to use the hostages to take over a radio station
to broadcast the racist, murderous prison conditions and demand the
immediate release of the Soledad Brothers.
Before Jonathan could drive the van out of the parking lot, the San Quentin
guards arrived and opened fire. When the shooting stopped, Jonathan,
Christmas, McClain and the judge lay dead. Magee was wounded and lay
unconscious, the prosecutor was seriously wounded, and one juror suffered a
minor arm wound.
Magee survived his wounds and was tried originally with co-defendant
Angela Davis. Their trials were later severed and Davis was eventually
acquitted of all charges.
Magee was convicted of simple kidnap (acquitted of the more serious kidnap
for ransom charge) and remains in prison to date — 2016 — 53 years with no
physical assaults on his record.
An incredible jailhouse lawyer, Magee has been responsible for countless
prisoners being released — the main reason he was kept for nearly 20 years in
one lockup after another. His expert lawyering got himself out of the Pelican
Bay SHU in 1994. He is currently at Lancaster and remains strong and
determined to win his freedom and that of all oppressed peoples.
An incredible jailhouse lawyer, Magee has been responsible for countless
prisoners being released — the main reason he was kept for nearly 20 years in
one lockup after another.
In Jackson's second book, “Blood in My Eye,” published posthumously,
George noted: “Reformism is an old story in Amerika. There have been
depressions and socio-economic political crises throughout the period that
marked the formation of the present upper-class ruling circle, and their
controlling elites. But the parties of the left were too committed to reformism
to exploit their revolutionary potential. ... Fascism has temporarily
succeeded under the guise of reform.”
‘Those words ring even truer today as we witness a form of fascism that has
replaced gas ovens with executions and torture chambers — plantations with
prison industrial complexes deployed in rural white communities to
perpetuate white supremacy and Black-Brown slavery.
The concentration of wealth at the top is worse than ever; individuals are so
rich their wealth exceeds the total budgets of numerous nations — as they
plunder the globe in their quest for more.
“The fascist must expand to live. Consequently, he has pushed his frontiers
to the farthest lands and people: I'm going to bust my heart trying to
stop these smug, degenerate, primitive, omnivorous, uncivil — and anyone
who would aid me, I embrace you.”
“International capitalism cannot be destroyed without the extremes of
struggle ... We are the only ones ... who can get at the monster's heart
without subjecting the world to nuclear fire. We have a momentous historical
role to act out if we will. The whole world for all time in the future will love
us and remember us
the righteous people who made it possible for the
world to live on. ... I don’t want to die and leave a few sad songs and a hump
in the ground as my only monument. I want to leave a world that is liberated
from trash, pollution, racism, nation-states, nation-state wars and armies,
from pomp, bigotry, parochialism, a thousand different brands of untruth, and
licentious, usurious economics” (“Soledad Brother’).
On Aug. 21, 1971, after numerous failed attempts on his life, the state finally
succeeded in assassinating George Jackson, then field marshall of the Black
Panther Party, in what was described by prison officials as an escape attempt,
in which Jackson allegedly smuggled a gun into San Quentin in a wig. That
feat was proven impossible, and evidence subsequently suggested a setup
designed by prison officials to eliminate Jackson once and for all.
On Aug. 21, 1971, after numerous failed attempts on his life, the state finally
succeeded in assassinating George Jackson.
However, they didn’t count on losing any of their own in the process. On that
fateful day, three notoriously racist prison guards and two inmate turnkeys
were also killed. Jackson was shot and killed by guards as he drew fire away
from the other prisoners in the Adjustment Center (lockup) of San Quentin.
Subsequently, six AC prisoners were singled out and put on trial — wearing
30 pounds of chains in Marin County Courthouse — for various charges of
murder and assault: Fleeta Drumgo, David Johnson, Hugo L.A. Pinell (Yogi),
Luis Talamantez, Johnny Spain and Willie Sundiata Tate.
Only one was convicted of murder, Johnny Spain. The others were either
acquitted or convicted of assault. Pinell was the only one kept in prison — for
a total of 51 years, over 45 suffering prolonged torture in. solitary
confinement lockups, the last 24 in Pelican Bay’s SHU, a torture chamber if
ever there was one.
A true warrior, Pinell would put his life on the line to defend his fellow
captives when he was in general population, would die rather than betray a
comrade and was an incredible role model for fellow prisoners. He gave so
much love to others, myself included.
As decades passed, our Black scholars, like Mumia Abu-Jamal, shared their
knowledge of other liberation moves that happened in Black August.
For example, the first and only armed revolution whereby Africans freed
themselves from chattel slavery commenced on Aug. 21, 1791, in Haiti. Nat
Turner's slave rebellion began on Aug. 21, 1831, and Harriet Tubman’s
Underground Railroad started in August.
As Mumia stated, “Their sacrifice, their despair, their determination and their
blood has painted the month Black for all time.”
As decades passed, our Black scholars, like Mumia Abu-Jamal, shared their
knowledge of other liberation moves that happened in Black August.
Let us honor our martyred freedom fighters this Black August. As George
Jackson counseled: “Settle your quarrels, come together, understand the
reality of our situation, understand that fascism is already here, that people
are already dying who could be saved, that generations more will live poor
butchered half-lives if you fail to act. Do what must be done, discover your
humanity and your love in revolution.”
— Kiilu Nyasha (2016)