Soledad Brother; The Prison Letters of George Jackson
Vaughn Covington (Cover photograph) New York: Bantam Books, 1970. Fifth printing stated. Mass market paperback. [6], 250 pages. Cover worn, torn, taped, creased, soiled and chipped. Some page discoloration. Introduction by Jean Genet. Jean Genet (19 December 1910 – 15 April 1986) was a French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. George Lester Jackson (September 23, 1941 – August 21, 1971) was an American author, activist, and convicted criminal. While serving a sentence for armed robbery in 1961, Jackson became involved in revolutionary activity and co-founded the Marxist–Leninist Black Guerrilla Family. In 1961, he was convicted of armed robbery (stealing $70 at gunpoint from a gas station) and sentenced to one year to life in prison. During his first years at San Quentin State Prison, Jackson became involved in revolutionary activity. He was described by prison officials as egocentric and anti-social.[5] In 1966, Jackson met and befriended W.L. Nolen, who introduced him to Marxist and Maoist ideology. The two founded the Black Guerrilla Family in 1966 based on Marxist and Maoist political thought. In speaking of his ideological transformation, Jackson remarked "I met Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Engels, and Mao when I entered prison and they redeemed me." In 1970, he was charged, along with two other Soledad Brothers, with the murder of Correctional Officer John Vincent Mills. The same year, he published Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson, a combination of autobiography and manifesto addressed to an African American audience. The book became a bestseller and earned Jackson personal fame. Jackson was killed during an attempted prison escape in 1971. As Jackson's disciplinary infractions grew he spent more time in solitary confinement, where he studied political economy and radical theory. He also wrote many letters to friends and supporters which would later be edited and compiled into the books Soledad Brother and Blood in My Eye, bestsellers that brought him a great deal of attention from leftist organizers and intellectuals in the U.S. and Western Europe. He amassed a following of inmates, including whites and Latinos, and most enthusiastically with other black inmates. A collection of Jackson's letters from prison, Soledad Brother is an outspoken condemnation of the racism of white America and a powerful appraisal of the prison system that failed to break his spirit but eventually took his life. Jackson's letters make palpable the intense feelings of anger and rebellion that filled black men in America's prisons in the 1960s. But even removed from the social and political firestorms of the 1960s, Jackson's story still resonates for its portrait of a man taking a stand even while locked down. Condition: Fair.
Keywords: Racism, Prisoners, Criminals, Black Guerrilla Family, Civil Rights, Prison Reform, African-Americans, Political Activist, Jean Genet
[Book #83111]
Price: $30.00