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alms PRISONERS
BLACK LIBERATION



by Angela Davis
‘spite along history of exalted appeals to man's inherent right to resistance, there has
seldom been agreement on how to relate in practice to unjust immoral laws and the
‘oppressive social order from which they emanate. The conservative, who does not

dispute the validity of revolutions deeply buried in history, invokes visions of impending anarchy

in order to legitimize his demand for absolute obedience. Law and order, with the major emphasis

(on order, i his watchword. The liberal articulates his sensitivity to certain of society's intolerable

details, but will almost never prescribe methods of resistance that exceed the limits of legality

~ redress through electoral channels i the liberals panacea.

In the heat of our pursuit of fundamental human rights, black people have been continually cau-
tioned to be patient. We are advised that as long as we remain faithful tothe existing democratic
Order, the glorious moment will eventually arive when we wil come into our own as full-fledged
human beings.

But having been taught by biter experience, we know that there isa glaring incongruity between
democracy and the capitalist economy whichis the source of our ils. Regardless of al rhetoric
to the contrary, the people are not the ultimate matrix ofthe laws and the system which govern
them — certainly not black people and other nationally oppressed people, but not even the mass
of whites. The people do not exercise decisive control over the determining factors of their lives.

Official assertions that meaningful dissents always welcome, provided it falls within the bound-
aries of legality, ae frequently a smokescreen obscuring the invitation to acquiesce in oppres-
sion. Slavery may have been un-ighteous, the constitutional precision forthe enslavement of
blacks may have been unjust, but conditions were not to be considered so bearable (especially
since they were profitable to a small cle) as to justfy escape and other acts proscribed by law.
This was the import ofthe fugitive slave laws.

Needless to say, the history ofthe United States has been marred from its inception by an enor-
‘mous quantity of unjust laws, fr too many expressly bolstering the oppression of black people.
Paticuarized reflections of existing social inequities, these law have repeatedly born witness
to the exploitative and racist core of the society itself. For blacks, Chicanos, for all nationally
‘oppressed people, the problem of opposing unjust laws and the social conditions which nourish
their growth, has always had immediate practical implications. Our very survival has frequently
been a direct function of our skin forging effective channels of resistance. In resisting we have
as societies been compelled to openly violate those laws which directly or indirectly butress our
‘oppression, But even containing our resistance within the orbit of legality, we have been labeled
criminals and have been methodically persecuted by a racist legal apparatus.

Under the ruthless conditions of slavery, the underground railroad provided the framework for
extrarlegal anti-slavery actvty pursued by vast numbers of people, both black and white, Its
{unctioning was in flagrant violations of the fugitive slave law; those who were apprehended were
subjected to sever penalties. OF the innumerable recorded attempts to rescue fugitive slaves
{rom the clutches of slave catchers, one ofthe most striking isthe case of Anthony Bums, a slave
{rom Virginia, captured in Boston in 1853, A team of his supporters, in attempting to rescue him
by force during the course of his trial, engaged the police ina fierce courtroom battle. During the

Political Prisoners, Prisons, and Black Liberation 3
{gun fight, a prominent Abolionist, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, was wounded. Athough the
rescuers were unsuccessful in their efforts, the impact of ths incident ...cid more to crystalize
Northern sentiment against slavery than any other except the exploit of John Brown, °and this
\was the last time a fugitive slave was taken from Boston. It took 22 companies of state militia,
four platoons of marines, a battalion of United States atilerymen, and the city’s police force

to ensure the performance of this shameful act, the cost of which, the Federal govemment alone,
‘came to forty thousand dollars.”

Throughout the era of slavery blacks, as well as progressive whites, repeatedly discovered that
their commitment to the anti-slavery cause frequently entailed the overt violation of the laws of
the land. Even as slavery faded away into a more subtle yet equally pernicious apparatus to dom-
inate black people, “legal” resistance was stil onthe agenda. After the Civil War, Black Codes,
‘successors tothe old Slave Codes, legalized convict labor, prohibited socal intercourse between
backs and whites, gave white employers an excessive degree of control over the private lives
of black workers, and generally codified racism and teror. Naturally, numerous individual as well
as collective acts of resistance prevailed. On many occasions, blacks formed armed teams to
protect themselves from while terrorists who were, in tun, protected by law enforcement agen-
ies, if not actually identified with them,

By the second decade of the twentieth century, the mass movement, beaded by Marcus Garvey,
proclaimed in its Declaration of Rights that biack people should not hesitate to disobey all dis
‘timinatory laws, Moreover, the Declaration announced, they should utilize all means available to
them, legal or legal, to defend themselves from legalized terror as wellas Ku Klux Klan violence.
During the era of intense activity around civil rights issues, systematic disobedience of oppres-
sive laws was a primary tactic. The sit-ins were organized transgressions of racist legislation.

All these historical instances involving the overt violation ofthe laws ofthe land converge around
‘an unmistakable common denominator. At stake has been the collective welfare and survival
‘of a people. There is a distinct and qualitative difference between one breaking a law for one's
‘own individual se-interest and violating i inthe interests ofa cass of people whose oppression
is expressed either directly or indirectly through that particular law. The former might be called
‘criminal (hough in many instances he isa victim), but the latter, as a reformist or revolutionary, is
interested in universal socal change. Captured, he or she isa political prisoner.

The political prisoner's words or deed have in one form or another embodied political protests
against the established order and have consequently brought him into acute confct with the
state. In light of the political content of his act, the “crime” (which may or may not have been
committed) assumes a minor importance. In this county, however, where the special category
‘of political prisoners is not officially acknowledged, the politcal prisoner inevitably stands tial
fora specific criminal offense, not for a political act. Often the so-called crime does not even
have a nominal existence. As in the 1914 murder frame-up of the IWW organizer, Joe Hil it
is a blatant fabrication, a mere excuse for silencing a militant crusader against oppression.
In ll instances, however, the political prisoner has violated the unwritten law which prohibits
disturbances and upheavals in the status quo of exploitation and racism... This unvriten law
has been contested by actualy and explicitly breaking a law or by utilizing constitutionally

4 Angela Davis
protected channels to educate, agitate, and organize masses to resist

deep-seated ambivalence has always characterized theofficial response to the political prison-
et. Charged and tried forthe criminal act, his gui is aways politcal in nature. This ambivalence
is perhaps best captured by Judge Webster Thayer's comment upon sentencing Bartolomero
Vanzetttofiteen years for an attempted payrol robbery: “This man, although he may not have
actually committed the crime attributed to him, is nevertheless morally culpable, because he is
‘an enemy of our existing institutions.” (The very same judge incidentally, sentences Sacoo and
Vanzett to death fora robbery and murder of which they were manifestly innocent) tis not sur-
prising that Nazi Germany’ foremost consttutional lawyers, Carl Schmit, advanced the theory
\which generalized thus a prior cupabilty Athi, for example, was not necessarily one who had
‘committed an overt act of thet, but rather one whose character renders him a thief (wer nach
seinem wesen win Dieb ist). (President Richard] Nixon's and [FBI Director] J. Edgar Hoover's
pronouncements lead on to believe that they would readily accept Schmit’ fascist legal theory.
‘Anyone who seeks to overthrow oppressive institutions, whether or not he has engaged in an
‘overt act, is a priori a criminal who must be buried away in one of America’s dungeons.

Even in all of Martin Luther King’s numerous arrests, he was not so much charged withthe nomi-
nal crimes of trespassing, and disturbance of the peace, as with being enemy of he southern s0-
ciety, an inveterate foe of racism. When Robert Wiliams was accused of kidnapping, this charge
never managed to conceal hs real offense — the advocacy of black people's incontestable right,
to bear arms in their own defense.

The offense of the poltical prisoner is politcal bokiness, the persistent challenging - legally or
extra-egally - of fundamental social wrongs fostered and reinforoed by the state. The poitical
prisoner has opposed unjust laws and exploitative, racist social conditions in general, withthe
uitimate aim of transforming these laws and this society into an order harmonious wit the mate-
fal and spiritual needs and interests ofthe vast majority ofits members.

Nat Tumer and John Brown were political prisoners in their ime. The acts for which they were
charged and subsequently hanged, were the practical extensions of their profound commitment
to the aboition of siavery. They fearlessly bore the responsiblity for their actions, The significance
oftheir executions and the accompanying widespread repression did not ie so much inthe fact
that they were being punished for specific crimes, nor even inthe effort to use their punishment
as an implicit threat to deter others from similar armed acts of resistance. These executions, and
the surrounding repression of slaves, were intended to terrorize the anti-slavery movement in
‘general; to discourage and diminish both legal and ilegal forms of abolitionist activity. As usual,
the effect of repression was miscalculated and in both instances, anti-slavery activity was ac-
celerated and intensified as a result

Nat Tuer and John Brown can be viewed as examples ofthe political prisoner who has actualy
‘committed an act which is defined by he state as “criminal”. They kiled and were consequently
tried for murder. But did they commit murder? This raises the question of whether American
revolutionaries had murdered the British in their struggle for iberation, Nat Turner and his fllow-
cers killed some sixty-five white people, yet shorty before the revolt had begun, Natis reputed to

Political Prisoners, Prisons, and Black Liberation 5
have said tothe other rebelling slaves: “Remember that ours is not wat for robbery nor to satisfy
‘our passions, itis a struggle for freedom. Ours must be deeds and not words



The very institutions which condemned Nat Turner and reduced his struggle for freedom to a
simpler criminal case of murder, owed their existence to the decision, made a half-century earlier,
to take up arms against the British oppressor.

‘The batte for the liquidation of slavery had no legitimate existence inthe eyes ofthe government
‘and therefore the special quality of deeds caried outin the interests of freedom was deliberately
ignored. There were no political prisoners, there were only criminals; just as the movement out of
which these deeds flowed was largely considered criminal

Likewise, the significance of activities which are pursued inthe interests of liberation today is
minimized not s0 much because officials are unable to see the collective surge against oppres-
sion, but because they have consciously set out to subvert such movernents. In the Spring of
1970, Los Angeles Panthers took up arms to defend themselves from an assaut inated by the
local police force on their office and on their persons. They were charged with criminal assault
If one believed the offcial propaganda, they were bandits and rogues who pathologically found
pleasure in attacking policemen. It was not mentioned that their community activities - educa-
tional work, services such as free breakfast and free medical programs — which had legitimized
them in the black community, were the immediate reason for which the wrath of the poice had
fallen upon them. In defending themselves from the attack waged by some 600 policemen (there
\were only eleven Panthers in the office) they were defending not only their lives, but even more
important their accomplishments in the black community surrounding them, and in the boarded
thrust for black liberation. Whenever blacks in struggle have recourse to self-defense, particular
armed self-defense, itis twisted and distorted on official levels and ultimately rendered synony-
‘mous with criminal aggression. On the other hand, when policemen are clearly indulging in acts
of criminal aggression, offcally they are defending themselves through ‘ustfiable assault” or
“justifiable homicide’

The ideological aorobatcs characteristics of official attempts to explain away the existence of
the political prisoner do not end withthe equation ofthe individual political act with th individual
criminal act. The political act is defined as criminal in order to discredit radical and revolutionary
movements. A poitical event is reduced to a criminal event in order to affirm the absolute invul-
nerabilty of the existing order. In a revealing contradiction, the court resisted the description of
the New York Panther 21 trial as “poltical’, yet the prosecutor entered as evidence of criminal
intent, literature which represented, so he purported, the political ideology of the Black Panther
Patty

The legal apparatus designates the biack liberation fighter a criminal, prompting Nixon, (Vice
President Spiro) Agnew, (California Governor Ronald) Reagan et al. to process to mystify with
their demagogy milions of Americans whose senses have been dulled and whose critical powers
have been eroded by the continual onslaught of racist ideology.

‘As the black liberation movement and other progressive struggles increase in magnitude and

6 Angela Davis
intensity, the judicial system and its extension, the penal system, consequently become key
weapons in the state's fight to preserve the existing conditions of class domination, therefore
racism, poverty and war.

In 1951, W.E.B. Du Bois, as Chairman of the Peace Information Center, was indicted by the
federal goverment for “failure to register as an agent of a foreign principal’. In assessing this
‘ordeal, which occurred in the ninth decade of is life, he turned his attention tothe inhabitants of
the nation’s jails and prisons:

What turns me cold in allthis experience isthe certainty that thousands of innocent
victims are in jail today because they had neither money nor friends to help them. The
‘eyes ofthe world were on our trial despite the desperate efforts of press and radio to
suppress the facts and cloud the real issues; the courage and money of friends and of
strangers who dared stand fora principle freed me; but God only knows how many who
were as innocent as | and my colleagues are today in hell. They daily stagger out of
prison doors embittered, vengeful, hopeless, ruined. And of this army of the wronged,
the proportion of Negroes is fightul. We protect and defend sensational cases where
Negroes are involved. But the great mass of arrested or accused black folk have no
defense. There is desperate need of nationwide organizations to oppose this national
racket of ralroading to jails and chain gangs the poor, friendless and black.

‘Almost two decades passed before the realization attained by Du Bois on the occasion of his
‘own encounter with the judicial system achieved extensive acceptance. Anumber of factors have
‘combined to transform the penal system into a prominent terrain of struggle, both forthe cap-
tives inside and the masses outside, The impact of large numbers of poltcal prisoners both on
prison populations and on the mass movement has been decisive, The vast majoity of political
prisoners have not allowed the fact of imprisonment to curtail their educational, agtational, and
‘organizing activities, which they continue behind prison walls. And in the course of developing
mass movements around poitical prisoners, a great deal of attention has inevitably been focused
‘on the institutions in which they are imprisoned. Furthermore the political receptivity of prisoners
— especialy black and brown captives — has been increased and sharpened by the surge of ag-
gressive politcal activity rising out of black, Chicano, and other oppressed communities. Finally,
‘a major catalyst for intensified poitical action in and around prisons has emerged out of the trans-
formation of convicts, originally found guilty of criminal offenses, into exemplary poical militants.
Their patient educational effort in the reaim of exposing the specific oppressive structures ofthe
penal system in their relation to the larger oppression ofthe social system have had a profound
effect on their fellow captives.

The prison isa key component of state's coercive apparatus, the overiding function of which is to
censure social control. They etymology ofthe term ‘penitentiary’ furnishes a clue tothe controling
idea behind the “prison system” at its inception. The penitentiary was projacted asthe locale for
doing penitence for an offense against society, the physical and spiritual purging of procivites:
to challenge rules and regulations which command total obedience. While cloaking itself with
the bourgeois aura of universality - imprisonment was supposed to cut across al class lines, a8
crimes were to be defined by the act, not the perpetrator - the prison has actually operated as

Political Prisoners, Prisons, and Black Liberation 7
an instrument of class domination, a means of prohibiting the have-nots from encroaching upon
the haves.

The occurrence of crime is inevitable in a society in which wealth is unequally distributed, as
‘one ofthe constant reminders that society's productive forces are being channeled inthe wrong
direction. The majority of criminal offenses bear a direc relaionship to property. Contained in
the very concept of property, crimes are profound but suppressed social needs which express
themselves in anti-social modes of action. Spontaneously produced by a capitalist organization
‘of society, this type of crime is at once a protest against society and a desire to partake ofits
‘exploitative content. It challenges the symptoms of capitalism, but not its essence,

‘Some Marxists in recent years have tended to banish ‘criminals’ and the lumpenproetarat as
‘a whole from the arena of revolutionary struggle. Apart from the absence of any link binding the
criminal to the means of production, underlying this exclusion has been the assumption that
individuals who have recourse to ant-social ats are incapable of developing the discipline and
collective orientation required by revolutionary struggle.

With the declassed character of lumpenproletarians in mind, Marx had stated that they are as
capable of “the most heroic deeds and the most exalted sacrifices, as of the basest bancitry and
the dies corruption". He emphasized the fact thatthe provisional government's mobile guards
under the Paris Commune — some 24,000 troops — were largely formed out of young lumpenpro-
letaians from fiteen to twenty years of age. Too many Marxists have been inclined to overvalue
the second part of Man’s observation thatthe lumpenproletarat is capable ofthe basest ban-
ditry and the direst coruption — while minimizing or indeed totaly disregarcing his fst remark,
applauding the lumpen for their heroic deeds and exalted sacrifices.

Especially today when so many black, Chicano, and Puerto Rican men and women are jobless
1s a consequence of the internal dynamic of the capitalist system, the role of the unemployed,
\which includes the lumpenproletaratin revolutionary struggle, must be given serious thought. In-
creased unemployment, particulary for the nationally oppressed, wll continue tobe an inevitable
by-product of technological development. Atleast 30 percent of black youth are presently without
jobs. (In 1997, over 30 percent of biack men were in prison, on probation or on parole) In the
Context of cass exploitation and national oppression it should be clear that numerous indlvidu-
als are compelled to resort to criminal acs, not as a result of conscious choice — implying other
altematives — but because society has objectively reduced their possibilities of subsistence and
survival to ths level. This recognition should signal the urgent need to organize the unemployed
‘and lumpenproletariat, as indeed the Black Panther Party as well as activists in prison have
already begun to do,

In evaluating the susceptibilty ofthe biack and brown unemployed to organizing efforts, the
peculiar historical features of the US, specifically racism and national oppression, must be taken
into account. There already exists in the black and brown communities, the lumpenproletarat
included, a long tradition of collective resistance to national oppression.

Moreover, in assessing the revolutionary potential of prisoners in America as a group, it should

8 Angela Davis
be borne in mind that not all prisoners have actully committed crimes. The builtin racism ofthe
judicial system expresses itself, as Du Bois has suggested, inthe rarcading of countess inno-
‘cent blacks and other national minorities into the country’s coercive institutions,

‘One must also appreciate the effects ofcisproportionatly ong prison terms on black and brown
inmates. The typical criminal mentality sees imprisonment as a calculated risk fora particular
criminal act. One's prison term is more or less rationally predictable, The function of racism in
the judicial-penal complex isto shatter that predictabilty. The black burglar, anticipating a two-o
four-year term, may end up doing ten to fifteen years, while the white burglar leaves after two
years,

Within the contained, coercive universe ofthe prison, the captive is confronted with the realities
‘of racism, not simply as individual acts dictated by attitudinal bias; rather he is compelled to come
to grips with racism as an institutional phenomenon collectively experienced by the victims. The
cisproporionate representation of the black and brown communities, the manifest racism of
parole boards, the intense brutality inherent in the relationship between prison guards and black
‘and brown inmates — all this and more causes the prisoner tobe confronted daily, hourly, withthe
‘concentrated systematic existence of racism.

For the innocent prisoner, the process of radicalization should come easy; for the “guilty” victim,
the insight nto the nature of racism as it manifests itself inthe judicial-penal complex can lead to
‘a questioning of his own past criminal activity and a re-evaluation ofthe methods he has used to
survive in aracst and exploitative society, Needless to say, this process isnot automatic, it does
not occur spontaneously. The persistent educational work carried out by the prison's political
activists plays a key roe in developing the politcal potential of captive men and women.

Prisoners — especialy blacks, Chicanos and Puerto Ricans — are increasingly advancing the
proposition that they are poltcal prisoners. They contend that they are politcal prisoners inthe
‘sense that they are largely the victims of an oppressive poltica-economic order, swiftly becom
ing conscious of the causes underlying their victimization. The Folsom Prisoners’ Manifesto of
Demands and Ant-Oppression Platform attests to lucid understanding ofthe structures of op-
pression within the prison — structures which contradict even the avowed function of the penal
insttation: "The program we are submited to, under the ridiculous tite of rehabilitation is relative
to the ancient stupidity of pouring water on the drowning man, in as much as we are treated for
‘our hostilities by our program administrators with their hostility for medication.” The Manifesto
also reflects an awareness thatthe severe socal crisis taking place in this county, predicated
in part on the ever-increasing mass consciousness of deepening social contradictions, is forcing
the political function of the prisons to surface in alts brutality. Their contention that prisons are
being transformed into the “fascist concentration camps of modem America," should not be taken
light, although it would be erroneous as well as defeatis in a practical sense, to maintain that
fascism has iremeciably estabished its.

The point is this, and this isthe truth which is apparent in the Manifesto: the ruling circles of

‘America are expanding and intensifying repressive measures designed to nip revolutionary
movement inthe bud as well as to curtalradical-democratic tendencies, such as the movement

Political Prisoners, Prisons, and Black Liberation 9
toend the wari Indochina. The government is not hesitating to utilize an entre network of fascist
tactics, including the monitoring of congressman's telephone calls, a system of “preventive fas-
cism’, as Marcuse has termed it, n which the role ofthe judiial-penal systems looms large. The
sharp edge of poltical repression, cutting through the heightened militancy of the masses, and
bringing growing numbers of activists behind prison walls, must necessarily pour over into the
contained world ofthe prison where it understandably acquires far more ruthless forms.

Itis a relatively easy matter to persecute the captive whose lif is already dominated by a network
‘of authoritarian mechanisms. This is especially faciitated by the indeterminate sentence pol-
cies of many states, for poltically conscious prisoners will incur inordinately lng sentences on
the original conviction, According to Louis S. Nelson, warden of the San Quentin Prison, “f the
prisons of California become known as schools for violent revolution, the Adult Authority would
be remiss in their uty not to keep the inmates longer" (San Francisoo Chronicie, May 2, 1971).
Where this is deemed inadequate, authortes have recourse tothe whole spectrum of brutal cor-
poral punishment, including out and out murder. At San Quentin, Fred Bilingslea was teargassed
to death in February 1970. W. L. Nolen, Alvin Miler, and Cleveland Edwards were assassinated
by a prison guard in January 1970, at Soledad Prison. Unusual and inexplicable “suicides” have
‘occurred with incredible regulary in jails and prisons throughout the country.

It should be self-evident that the frame-up becomes a powerful weapon within the spectrum of
prison repression, particularly because of the availabilty of informers, the broken prisoners who
will do anything fora price. The Soledad Brothers and the Soledad Three are leading examples
of frame-up victims. Both cases involve miltant activists who have been charged with kiling
‘Soledad prison guards. In both cases, widespread support has been kindled within the California
prison system. They have served as occasions to lnk the immediate needs of the black com-
‘munity with a forceful ight to break the fascist stronghold in the prisons and therefore to abolish
the prison system in is present form

Racist oppression invades the lives of black people on an infnite variety of levels, Blacks are
imprisoned in a world where our labor and tol hardly allow us to eke out a decent existence, if
\we are able to find jobs at al. When the economy begins to falter, we are forever the first victims,
always the most deeply wounded. When the economy is on its feet, we continue to lve in a
depressed state. Unemployment is generally twice as high in the ghettos asi sin the country
as a whole and even higher among black women and youth. The unemployment rate armong
back youth has presently skyrocketed to 30 percent. If one-third of America’s write youths were
without a means of lvelinood, we would either be inthe thick of revolution or else under th iron
rule of fascism. Substandard schools, medical care hardly ffr animals, over-priced, dilapidated
housing, a welfare system based on a policy of skimpy concessions, designed to degrade and
divide (and even this may soon be canceled) ~ ths is only the beginning ofthe list of props inthe
‘overall scenery of oppression which, forthe mass of blacks, isthe universe,

In black communities, wherever they are located, there exists an ever-present reminder that our
universe must remain stable in its drabness, is poverty, ts brutal. From Birmingham to Harlem
to Watts, black ghettos are occupied, patrolled and often attacked by massive deployments of
police. The police, domestic caretakers of violence, are the oppressor's emissaries, charged with

10 Angela Davis
the task of containing us within the boundaries of our oppression,

The announced function ofthe police, “to protect and serve the people,” becomes the grotesque
caricature of protecting and preserving the interests of our oppressors and serving us nothing
but injustice. They are there to intimidate blacks, to persuade us with their violence that we are
powerless to alter the conditions of our lives. Arrests are frequently based on whims. Bullet from
their guns murder human beings wth litle or no pretext, aside from the universal intimidation they
are charged with carrying out. Protection for crug-pushers, and Mafia-style exploiters, support
for the most reactionary ideological elements ofthe black community (especially those who cry
‘out for more police), are among the many functions of forces of law and order. They encircle the
‘community with a shield of violence, too often forcing the natural aggression ofthe black com-
‘munity inwards. Fanon's analysis ofthe role of colonial police is an appropriate description ofthe
function ofthe police in America's ghettos.

It goes without saying that the police would be unable to set into motion thei racist machinery
\were they nat sanctioned and supported by the judicial system. The courts not only consistently
abstain from prosecuting criminal behavior onthe part of the police, but they convict, onthe basis
‘of biased police testimony, countless black men and women. Court-appointed attomeys, acting
in the twisted interests of overcrowded courts, convince 85 percent of the defendants to plead
uit. Even the manifestly innocent are advised to cop a plea so that the lengthy and expensive
process of jury trials is avoided, This isthe structure ofthe apparatus which summarily railroads
back people into jails and prisons. (During my imprisonment in the New York Women's House
‘of Detention, | encountered numerous cases involving innocent black women who had been
advised to plead guilty. One sister had entered her white landlords apartment for the purpose of
paying rent, He attempted to rape her and in the course ofthe ensuing struggle, a it candle top-
pled over, burning a tablecioth, The landlord ordered her arested for arson. Following the advice
cof her court-appointed attomey, she entered a guity plea, having been deceived by the attorney's
insistence thatthe court would be more lenient. The sister was sentenced to three years.)

The vicious circle linking poverty, police courts, and prison isan integral element of ghetto exis-
tence. Unlike the mass of whites, the path which leads to jails and prisons is deeply rooted inthe
imposed patterns of black existence. For this very reason, an almost instinctive affinity binds the
mass of black people tothe poitical prisoners. The vast majority of blacks harbor a deep hatred
‘ofthe police and are not deluded by official proclamations of justice through the courts.

For the black individual, contact with the law-enforcement udicial-penal network, directly oF
through relatives and fiends, is inevitable because he or she is black. For the activist become
political prisoner, the contact has occurred because he has lodged a protest, n one form or an-
‘other, against the conditions which nail blacks to this orbit of oppression.

Historically, black people as a group have exhibited a greater potential for resistance than any
‘other part of the population. The iron-clad rule over our communities, the institutional practice
‘of genocide, the ideology of racism have performed a strcty politcal as well as an economic
function. The capitalists have not only extracted super profits from the underpaid labor of over
15 percent ofthe American population with the aid of a superstructure of terror. This terror and

Political Prisoners, Prisons, and Black Liberation 11
more subtle forms of racism have further served to thwart the flowering ofa resistance - even a
revolution that would spread to the working class as a whole.

In the interests of the capitalist class, the consent to racism and terror has been demagogi-
cally elicited from the white population, workers included, in order to more efficiently stave off
resistance, Today, Nixon, [Attomey General John] Mitchel and J. Edgar Hoover are desperately
attempting to persuade the population that dissidents, particularly blacks, Chicanos, Puerto
Ricans, must be punished for being members of revolutionary organizations; for advocating the
‘overthrow of the government; for agitating and educating inthe streets and behind prison wall.
The political function of racist domination is surfacing with accelerated intensity, Whites who have
professed their solidarity with the black liberation movement and have moved in a distinct revo-
lutionary direction find themselves targets ofthe same repression. Even the ant-war movement,
rapidly exhibiting an ant-imperialst consciousness, is faling victim to government repression.

Black people are rushing full speed ahead towards an understanding ofthe circumstances that
give rise to exaggerated forms of political repression and thus an overabundance of poitical
prisoners, This understanding is being forged out of the raw material oftheir own immediate
‘experiences with racism. Hence, the black masses are growing conscious of their responsibility
to defend those who are being persecuted for attempting to bring about the alleviation of the
‘most injurious immediate problems facing black communities and ultimately to bring about total
liberation through armed revolution, iit must come to ths,

‘The black liberation movement is presently at a critical juncture. Fascist methods of repression
threaten to physically decapitate and obiterate the movement. More subtle, yet no less danger-
‘ous ideological tendencies from within threaten to isolate the black movement and diminish its
revolutionary impact. Both menaces must be counteracted in order to ensure our survival. RevO-
lutionary blacks must spearhead and provide leadership for a broad anti-fascst movernent.

Fascism is a process, its growth and development are cancerous in nature, While today, the
threat of fascism may be primarily restricted to the use of the lav-enforcementudicial penal
apparatus to arest the overt and latent revolutionary trends among nationally oppressed people,
tomorrow it may attack the working class en masse and eventually even moderate democrats.
Even inthis period, however, the cancer has already commenced to spread. In addition to the
prison army of thousands and thousands of nameless Third World victims of poltical revenge,
there are increasing numbers of white poltical prisoners - draft resisters, ant-war activists such
as the Harrisburg Eight, men and wornen who have involved themselves on all levels of revolu-
tionary activity.

‘Among the further symptoms ofthe fascist threat are ofcal efforts to curtail the power of orga-
nized labor, such as the attack on the manifestly conservative construction workers andthe trends
towards reduced welfare aid. Moreover, court decisions and repressive legislation augmenting
police powers - such as the Washington no-knack law, permitting police to enter private dwelings
without warning, and Nixon's "Crime Bil" in general -can eventually be used against any citizen
Indeed congressmen are already protesting the use of police-statewire-tapping to survey theit
activities. The fascist content of the ruthless aggression in Indo-China should be self-evident

12 Angela Davis
‘One ofthe fundamental historical lessons to be learned from past failures to prevent the rise of
fascism is the decisive and indispensable character of the fight against fascism in its incipient
phases. Once allowed to conquer ground, its growth is facilitated in geometric proportion. Al
though the most unbridled expressions ofthe fascist menace are til ie to the racist domination
‘ofblacks, Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, Indians, it urks under the surface wherever there is potential
resistance to the power of monopoly capital, the parasitic interests which control this society.
Potentially it can profoundly worsen the conditions of existence forthe average American citizen
‘Consequently, the masses of people inthis country have a rea, direct, and material stake inthe
struggle to free political prisoners, the struggle to abolish the prison system in its present form,
the struggle against all dimensions of racism.

No one should fal o take heed of Georgi Dimitrov’s waming: “Whoever does not fight the growth
of fascism at these preparatory stages is not ina positon to prevent the victory of fascism, but,
‘on the contrary, facilitates that victory” (Report tothe Vith Congress of the Communist interna
tional, 1935). The only effective guarantee against the victory of fascism is an indivisible mass
movement which refuses to conduct business as usual as long as repression rages on.Itis only
natural that blacks and other Third World peoples must lead this movement, for we are the first
‘and most deeply injured victims of fascism. But it must embrace all potential victims and most
important, all working-class people, forthe key to th triumph of fascism is its ideological victory
‘over the entire working class. Given the eruption of a severe economic crisis, the door to such
‘an ideological victory can be opened by the active approval or passive toleration of racism. Itis
essential that wite workers become conscious that historically through their acquiescence inthe
capitalist inspired oppression of blacks they have only rendered themselves more vulnerable to
attack.

The pivotal struggle which must be waged in the ranks ofthe working class is consequently the
‘open, unreserved battle against entrenched racism. The whit worker must become conscious
ofthe threads which bind him to a James Johnson, a black auto worker, member of UAW, and
a political prisoner presently facing charges forthe kilings of two foremen and a job setter. The
merciless proliferation of the power of monopoly capital may ultimately push him inexorably down,
the very same path of desperation. No potential victim [ofthe fascist terror] should be without the
knowledge that the greatest menace to racism and fascism is unity!

MARIN COUNTY JAIL.
May, 1971

Political Prisoners, Prisons, and Black Liberation 13
Bi
RY Lacy ¢

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The Boston Anarchist Black Cross functions as the defensive arm of
local anarchist struggles. We work to forge an organized support network
for local activists in need and for folks behind bars. We seek the total
abolition of prisons and work on projects in support of this cause.