MIM(Prisons) is a cell of revolutionaries serving the oppressed masses inside U.$. prisons, guided by the communist ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
Under Lock & Key is a news service written by and for prisoners with a focus on what is going on behind bars throughout the United States. Under Lock & Key is available to U.S. prisoners for free through MIM(Prisons)'s Free Political Literature to Prisoners Program, by writing:
MIM(Prisons) PO Box 40799 San Francisco, CA 94140.
Dear Top Brass At U.$. Navy (Mr. Omnipotent Administrator),
You guys bicker about sexuality, abortion, gender issues, and
whatever non-stop. Let me fill you in on your rape revenge fantasies and
myths. Just ask the Florida Department of Corrections for my essay on
sexual privilege in amerikkka. They have it in my central file in
Tallahassee.
I quote Eldridge Cleaver in Soul on Ice:
“The Omnipotent Administrator conceded to the super-masculine menial
all of the attributes of masculinity associated with the body: strength,
brute power, muscle, even the beauty of the brute body. Except one.
There was this single attribute of masculinity which he was unwilling to
relinquish, even though this particular attribute is the essence and
seat of masculinity: sex.”
The Omnipotent Administrator said “I will bind your rod with my
omnipotent will, and place a limitation on its aspiration which you will
violate on pain of death.”
I have received two much-needed documents from you: “How to Form an
Effective Study Group” and the “Revolutionary 12 Step Program” during
the holy month of Black August. During Black August (B.A.) there were
three young neophytes who also embarked on the journey of Kebuka
(remembrance) by studying the works and examples of ancestors, comrades
and many of the beautiful souls that sparked the momentous flow of
resistance.
Prior to B.A., I was invited to a think tank class where the serious
minded men here can come into a space to talk, think and reflect on
solutions to problems that plague the prison population and society at
large.
After attending a few of the sessions I realized the class lacked a
starting point to build and grow on.
However, I shared the 12 Step Program with the facilitator, and the
brothers all agreed that the layout was a great format and that the five
principles of the United Front for Peace in Prisons enumerated on page 2
of ULK should be the pillars that hold this class.
Thanking you for all the tireless work that’s being put in.
The blackest pupils you’ve ever seen Es mi hermano A man who wore his emotions on his sleeve Angu ndugu i’ve only touched his finger tips & even that violated the policy of no human contact But it’s mi hermano … i’ve never seen a grown man cry That’s how I remember those blackest eyes i literally sob at the feet of the giant his mattress rolled up at the front of the cage & me sitting cross-legged on the tier it’s how I spent my hour, every hour I was ever allowed to be out my cell. Had to beg the officer, almost like saying yesa massah At least that’s how I felt it to me But at that moment there’s no place in the world i’d rather be than with mi hermano His enemies think they got the last laugh & you should’ve seen how the badges danced … The captive told the captor that’s a captive that’s better off dead But it’s mi hermano & this is something i never will forgive!
This year marks the 51-year anniversary for the fallen comrade, BGF
founder/leader, Black Panther General/Field Marshall and Dragon of Ho
Chi Minh. This year also marks the 52 year anniversary of his alter ego,
the man-child, snatched away too soon, Jonathon Jackson, whose brave
revolutionary effort at only the age of 17 to free his older brother
George Jackson from a legal lynching, can only be viewed with awe. Their
stories of determination inspire the question of why the revolution has
been snared, and to seek a newer and more improved method for the
revolution that we new soldiers, guerrillas, and political scientists
plan to usher into the near future.
This month of August (Black August) is dedicated to the fallen
soldiers who bravely gave their lives to improve the quality of living
of not only the Afrikan Amerikans who belong to the original man, but
also to educate ourselves about the correct ways of living that the
history of antiquity has provided us with. It is a time to internalize
those lessons in a way that would help us to bridge the racial gaps and
get us to do away with our class masters and black, brown, red (a
variation of brown), yellow and white could live in a world that is free
from the trifles that have destroyed humanity.
George Jackson was a very strong, intelligent, courageous, and
dedicated brother whom the history books should teach us more about. For
many, George’s career as a shining revolutionary leader ended about as
quickly as it began. However, those exist outside of the mainstream
corporativism politics know well that George lived and existed as a
legend long before the Soledad Brother case that would make him
famous.
George Jackson entered the California penitentiary system in 1960
with an indeterminate sentence of one year to life, for the conviction
of a service station robbery that resulted in the theft of $70.00.
Though the evidence was in his favor, his court appointed attorney
convinced Jackson that if he would only plead guilty to a lesser offense
that he would receive some light county time. However, through a change
of hands, his deal that was promised would result of his conviction and
an indeterminate sentence that then in California would prove often
times volatile because it was up to a parole board if you ever went
home. A system that was heavily racist and extremely dangerous, proved
to be fertile grounds of an indeterminate sentence of one to life,
becoming life or in George’s case the death penalty.
The author of 2 classic pieces of Black literature that could be used
as a treatise of sorts, George laid out the harsh realities of
California’s prison system. The atmosphere was so openly racist that
whites were even working hand in hand to kill Black and Mexican
prisoners, even though ironically enough, just like in Texas some
Mexicans would make alliances with racist organizations and join in
killing Blacks. Through these activities George felt the need to
organize what he called “the chief of staff” and that chief of staff
that organized to combat the killing of Black prisoners would later on
become what is now known as the Black Guerrilla Family, a revolutionary
group that George attempted to align to the revolutionary movements not
only in Amerika, but also in Cuba and other Third World nations. In a
nutshell George agreed with International Communist Solidarity.
An avid reader, George transformed himself from an adolescent,
rebellious street gangster, to a revolutionary leader and prison
activist whose knowledge about history, economics, and politics, would
make college professors marvel at his intellect. But this is also part
of the larger reason why he was never paroled. You see, the sentence
that George had, at the most allowed for a convict to do 2 years and
then be paroled, but it was this political insight at a time were Black
male expression was denied. Not only Black male expression, but at a
time when George found communism, Amerika was trying its best to crush
this red scare. So his knowledge of capitalist Amerika was that great
that prison officials went to the extremes of trying to kill him. Their
line to whites was “kill Jackson it will do you some good.” However as
gifted as he was mentally and intellectually, he was also gifted as a
self-trained guerrilla assassin. George practiced a very special
bastardized style of martial arts and kung-fu called iron palm and he
worked out 6 to 7 hours a day doing 1000 finger tips a day.
Typing laboriously on a prison typewriter, Jackson wrote position
papers that dealt with prison life, economics, and the corrosion of
Amerika’s corporate capitalist culture and circulated these papers
throughout prison walls. For his activities, he was first rewarded with
segregation, often times with a welded lock. Once that proved to not be
enough, he was set up to be killed. But since he was a fierce warrior,
oftentimes even fighting for other prisoners who were the victim of
racial assaults, he would fight single-handedly 5 or 6 prisoners and
come out on top. At this point the white prisoners and officers hated
but feared him.
George was loved and respected by the Black prisoner population and
became their teacher and leader. Even the most racist whites respected
George because to them he was a man who was totally straight. All while
others would murder mouth and sell wolf tickets, George was as good as
his word. If he made a statement of some kind, it would always be
followed by action. George formed a political education class and
through that he gave his comrades the revolutionary platform that would
transform their Black criminality into a Black revolutionary mentality.
He also taught martial arts at a time where martial arts was outlawed in
prison.
His commitment was so great that during a prison protest that led to
some white inmates trying to actually lynch a Black demonstrator under
the order of racist cops, when George saw all of these white guys about
to push this brother off of a 30 ft. tier, he began punching, kicking,
and knocking those guys off the tier. However, for this, he, not the
white inmates, was locked up. It was only later on that prison officials
would admit that he stood up for a brother about to be hung.
In 1969, the California parole board who had been stringing George
along for years, but who had no intentions of ever releasing him, told
him that he was going to be transferred from San Quentin to Soledad and
that if he maintained clean conduct for 6 months he would be granted
parole. Soledad was a racist penitentiary that stoked the flames between
prisoners, and that ignited racial animosity to build to murder. George,
as a “class based” revolutionary always strove to get the convict class
to see that they could easily overcome their oppressors if they would
only unite, because by playing at racism the law would essentially win
since it would only be 2 maniac groups at war.
On 13 January 1970 after months of lockdown due to racial killings, a
new rec yard was opened. A system where Blacks, whites, and Mexicans are
to remain segregated from each other, a so-called “mistake” took place
and 7 Blacks and 8 white were led to the rec yard where predictably a
fight broke out. The officer’s job is to give a warning shot. However,
officer O.G. Miller with a military background, southern upbringing, and
racist attitude shot and killed 3 Black prisoners in cold blood. One of
the dead was George’s close friend and mentor W.L. Nolen. Three days
after these killings the Monterey County Courthouse, over prison radios,
announced that these killings were justifiable homicide. In less that 30
minutes later anger would turn into redemption as 25-year-old officer
Mills was beaten to death and thrown over a 30 ft. tier with a note in
his pocket that said “one down 2 to go.”
In February, George Jackson, John Clutchette, and Fleeta Drumgo would
be formally charged for the officers death even though they had no
evidence outside of their prison files that labeled them as Black
revolutionaries. According to prison officials, George was blamed
because he was the only person who could have done it. Hardly enough in
the area of evidence, it finally gave the state the legal pretext to do
what they had been trying to do quasi-legally for years. If George was
convicted it meant death since he already had life.
When George received visits from his family they would bring his
younger brother Jonathan and the two of them would get off to one side
of the visiting room where George would do his job as an educator and at
the age of 16 Jonathon had a remarkable insight into guerrilla warfare,
communism, and uniterian conduct locally and globally. His love for his
brother made him grow-up. He saw that they never intended to let his
brother go. At a time when most teens are thinking about
self-gratification, Jonathon could only think of George. He said “people
tell me that I’m too involved with the movement and my brother’s case,
but I have one question to ask people who think like this, ‘What would
you do if it was your brother?’”.
George and Angela Davis became somewhat of a power couple and George
appointed Jonathan to be her bodyguard. After being fired from UCLA as a
professor, just because she identified with communism, George feared
that some right-wing nut might feel like a hero by killing her. It was
around this time that the state asserts that Angela Davis provided the
weapons that Jonathan Jackson would use on 7 August 1970 when he took a
bag full of guns to a courthouse in Marin County and passed the out to 3
prisoners on trial. Calm and cold he stated “alright gentlemen I’m
taking over now” and “you can take our pictures, we are the
revolutionaries.” At the young age of 17 Jonathan had sense enough that
the only way he could affirm justice was through a bold act that would
take his life.
A year and 2 weeks later on 21 August 1971 prison authorities would
concoct the most outrageous story ever invented to justify the
assassination of one of our most gifted leaders, George Jackson. The
state “asserts” that after a visit with his attorney Stephen Bingham
that George had a metallic item in his hair that proved to be a gun that
he used to gain control of the Adjustment Center after he said these
chilling words “The dragon has come.” The absurdity is that when they
reenacted this in a court, they affirmed that George’s cell was 50 yards
away from the visiting room at San Quentin, a highly sophisticated,
technological prison. And when they reenacted how it would’ve taken
place they said “the gun wobbled dangerously”, meaning that it couldn’t
have happened that way. At best if George did end up with a weapon he
must have wrestled it away from his assassins.
But the kicker is “they say” George had explosives that he intended
to blow a 20 ft wall away and escape. “They say” that George ran towards
a wall and was shot in his ankle that was immediately shattered, yet
somehow he managed to get up and run again and a second shot was fired
that entered his back and exited his head. However, what “they say”
again proved to be a lie as autopsy proved that the shots that were
fired couldn’t have come from a high position as they assert, but rather
from the ground.
Now why such an outrageous story for this situation? I mean to me,
even though I feel very sorry for Georgia Bea Jackson as she lost 2 sons
within a year, I still can’t help but admit that if he went out as the
state asserts, it even more adds to his legend. Killing 5 people in the
span of 30 seconds (which is impossible) before being killed is
remarkable. But upon investigation, if George would’ve went to trial and
beat his case, he very well may have been released from prison. So
instead of us believing in government created conspiracies, we need to
question the facts. In love and revolution, may George and Jonathon both
rest within the essence, while they continue to live through people like
me and countless others.