George Jackson (Militant)

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George Jackson (born September 23, 1941 in Chicago , Illinois , † August 21, 1971 in San Quentin State Prison , California ) was an American militant activist of the Black Panther Party . During a prison sentence, he became politicized and studied. He became known around the world for his social revolutionary writings in which he pleaded for a violent overthrow.

Life

Jackson was the second of five children from Lester and Georgia Bea Jackson. He has been sentenced to juvenile prison terms for a number of crimes including armed robbery , assault, and burglary. On February 1, 1961, he was sentenced to between one year and life imprisonment for armed robbery of a petrol station, so that he could not be released until after one year at the earliest, but the imprisonment period can actually be lifelong, depending on the behavior of the convicted person in prison. While at San Quentin State Prison , he committed additional crimes against prison guards and fellow inmates, which extended his term.

In 1966 he and a friend founded the Black Guerrilla Family , a criminal organization that also operated outside of prison. On January 13, 1970, he was charged with Fleeta Drumgo and John Clutchette for the murder of a guard in Soledad Prison. He and the other two detainees came to be known as the Soledad Brothers ("Soledad Brothers").

On August 7, 1970, George Jackson's 17-year-old brother, Jonathan, stormed into a courtroom in Marin County , California with an automatic weapon intent on freeing his brother, Drumgo, and Clutchette . Jonathan Jackson provided the three inmates present, James McClain, William Christmas and Ruchell Magee, with firearms. Judge Harold Haley and three members of the jury were taken hostage. Haley and prisoners William Christmas, James McClain and Jonathan Jackson were killed while trying to escape the courthouse. The case became known internationally.

Jackson and the other two Soledad Brothers were taken to the high-security wing of San Quentin State Prison in the summer of 1971. Jackson, who was in solitary confinement 23 hours a day, studied political economy and wrote the books Blood in My Eye and Soledad Brother , which became bestsellers and brought him worldwide attention.

On August 21, 1971, three days before his trial, Jackson was gunned down in the courtyard of San Quentin Prison while trying to escape in the wake of a prisoner riot. Armed with a semi-automatic Astra 9mm pistol, Jackson and other inmates had killed guards Sergeant Jere Graham, Officer Frank DeLeon and Officer Paul Krasnes. Two other guards who had their throats cut were rescued. Two white prisoners also died. They were handcuffed and then stabbed to death.

Jackson's attorney Stephen Bingham was accused of smuggling the weapon into prison while visiting prison on August 21, 1971, after which he went into hiding and lived under an assumed name in Europe for 13 years. He returned to the United States in 1984 and was acquitted in 1986 after a three-month trial.

Effect and trivia

  • Stanley Williams posthumously dedicated his book Life in Prison to Jackson . Among other things, this was a reason for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to reject Williams' pardon.
  • According to his request, firearms were brought to Jackson's funeral instead of flowers.
  • About Martin Luther King's theses he said: “ The concept of nonviolence is a false ideal. "(Eng." The concept of non-violence is a false ideal. ")
  • Bob Dylan wrote the song George Jackson about him.
  • On their CD African Holocaust from 2004 by the British reggae band Steel Pulse , the two tracks George Jackson and Uncle George are about George Jackson.
  • Jackson served as the namesake of the George Jackson Brigade , a group that was founded after his death , a group that was responsible for numerous bomb attacks and bank robberies.
  • The Soledad Brothers gave their name to a blues rock band of the same name, founded in 1998.
  • An RAF commando that carried out an explosives attack on Rhein-Main Air Base in 1985, which resulted in two deaths, bore his name.

Fonts

  • Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson. New York: Coward-McCann, 1970. New edition 1994, ISBN 1-55652-230-4 .
  • Blood In My Eye. 1972. New edition 1990, ISBN 0-933121-23-7 .

literature

  • Paul Liberatore: The Road to Hell: The True Story of George Jackson, Stephen Bingham and the San Quentin Massacre. Atlantic Monthly Press, 1996, ISBN 0-87113-647-3 .
  • Jo Durden Smith: Who Killed George Jackson? Knopf, 1976, ISBN 0-394-48291-3 .
  • Gregory Armstrong: The Dragon Has Come. Harper & Row, 1974, ISBN 0-06-010129-6 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ron Jacobs: The Meaning of George Jackson . Counterpunch, August 2, 2003
  2. ↑ Joe Allen: The Murder of George Jackson CounterPunch, March 2, 2006
  3. ^ Arnold Schwarzenegger: Statement of Decision - Request for Clemency by Stanley Williams. ( Memento of October 14, 2006 in the Internet Archive ; PDF) December 12, 2005, p. 4/5
  4. ↑ George Jackson: Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson, 1970
  5. ↑ Song on Dylan's page
personal data
SURNAME Jackson, George
BRIEF DESCRIPTION black militant, member of the Black Panther Party and one of the Soledad brothers
DATE OF BIRTH September 23, 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH Chicago , Illinois
DATE OF DEATH August 21, 1971
Place of death San Quentin State Prison , California