This week, we’re sharing selections from an historic interview with George Jackson, whose assassination on August 21, 1971, at the hands of San Quentin prison guards, remains a reference point for the US prisoners’ movement. Indeed, Jailhouse Lawyers Speak called for the 2018 strike to begin on this date in his memory.
George Jackson spent much of his life in prison, after stealing $70 from a gas station at the age of 18, and being sentenced to “one year to life” behind bars. Jackson spent the next eleven years in the California prison system, where he became a revolutionary, intellectual, and an inspiration to his fellow prisoners. As the Prison Strike enters its fourth day, and word from the rebelling prisoners trickles out to us, it is vital to hear George Jackson’s actual voice, as it continues to resonate now in the mass actions of prisoners in dozens of US states and Canadian provinces.