<html>
<body>
<font size=3> <br>
An Interview with George Jackson (with Karen
Wald)<a name="_ftnref1"></a>* <br>
<br>
Karen Wald: George, could you comment on your conception of
revolution?<br>
<br>
George Jackson: The principal contradiction between the oppressor and
oppressed can be reduced to the fact that the only way the oppressor can
maintain his position is by fostering, nurturing, building, contempt for
the oppressed. That thing gets out of hand after a while. It leads to
excesses that we see and the excesses are growing within the totalitarian
state here.<br>
<br>
The excesses breed resistance; resistance is growing. The thing grows in
a spiral. It can only end one way. The excesses lead to resistance,
resistance leads to brutality, the brutality leads to more resistance,
and finally the whole question will be resolved with either the
uneconomic destruction of the oppressed, or the end of oppression.<br>
These are the workings of revolution. It grows in spirals,
confrontations, and I mean on all levels. The institutions of society
have buttressed the establishment, so I mean all levels have to be
assaulted.<br>
<br>
Wald: How does the prison liberation movement fit into this? Is its
importance over-exaggerated or contrived?<br>
<br>
Jackson: We don't have to contrive any ... Look, the particular thing I'm
involved in night now, the prison movement was started by Huey P. Newton
and the Black Panther Party.<a name="_ftnref2"></a>* Huey and the rest of
the comrades around the country. We're working with Erika [Huggins] and
Bobby [Seale],<a name="_ftnref3"></a>* the prison movement in general,
the movement to prove to the establishment that the concentration camp
technique won't work on us. We don't have to contrive any importance to
our particular movement. It's a very real, very-very real issue and I'm
of the opinion that, right along with the old, familiar workers'
movement, the prison movement is central to the process of revolution as
a whole.<br>
<br>
Wald: Many of the cadres of the revolutionary forces on the outside have
been captured and imprisoned. Are you saying that even though they're in
prison, these cadres can still function in a meaningful way for the
revolution?<br>
<br>
Jackson: Well, we're all familiar with the function of the prison as an
institution serving the needs of the totalitarian state. We've got to
destroy that function; the function has to be no longer viable, in the
end. It's one of the strongest institutions supporting the totalitarian
state. We have to destroy its effectiveness, and that's what the prison
movement is all about.<br>
<br>
What I'm saying is that they put us in these concentration camps here the
same as they put people in tiger cages or “strategic hamlets” in
Vietnam.<a name="_ftnref4"></a>* The idea is to isolate, eliminate,
liquidate the dynamic sections of the overall movement, the protagonists
of the movement. What we've got to do is prove this won't work. We've got
to organize our resistance once we're inside, give them no peace, turn
the prison into just another front of the struggle, tear it down from the
inside. Understand?<br>
<br>
Wald: But can such a battle be won?<br>
<br>
Jackson: A good deal of this has to do with our ability to communicate to
the people on the street. The nature of the function of the prison within
the police state has to be continuously explained, elucidated to the
people on the street because we can't fight alone in here.<br>
<br>
Oh yeah, we can fight, but if we're isolated, if the state is successful
in accomplishing that, the results are usually not constructive in terms
of proving our point. We fight and we die, but that's not the point,
although it may be admirable from some sort of purely moral point of
view.<br>
<br>
The point is, however, in the face of what we confront, to fight and win.
That's the real objective: not just to make statements, no matter how
noble, but to destroy the system that oppresses us. By any means
available to us. And to do this, we must be connected, in contact and
communication with those in struggle on the outside. We must be mutually
supporting because we're all in this together. It's all one struggle at
base.<br>
<br>
Wald: Do you see any signs of progress on the inside, in prison?<br>
<br>
Jackson: Yes, I do. Progress has certainly been made in terms of raising
the consciousness of at least some sectors of the prison population. In
part, that's due to the limited victories we've achieved over the past
few years. They're token victories, perhaps, but things we can and must
take advantage of.<br>
For example, we've struggled hard around the idea of being able to
communicate directly with people on the outside. At this point, any
person on the street can correspond with any individual inside
prison.<br>
<br>
My suggestion is, now that we have the channels of education secured, at
least temporarily, is that people on the outside should begin to bombard
the prisons with newspapers, books, journals, clippings, anything of
educational value to help politicize the comrades who are not yet
relating.<br>
<br>
And we, of course, must reciprocate by consistently sending out
information concerning what's really going on in here. Incidentally,
interviews like this go a long way in that direction. There should be
much more of this sort of thing.<br>
<br>
Wald: [Inquiring to whether the life of George's younger brother,
Jonathan, was wasted when he was killed on August 7, 1970 in a courtroom
shootout.]<a name="_ftnref5"></a>*<br>
<br>
Jackson: Well, that's obviously a tough question for me because,
emotionally, I very much wish my little brother was alive and well. But
as to whether I think Jonathan's life may have been wasted? No, I
don't.<br>
<br>
I think the only mistake he made was thinking that all of the 200 pigs
who were there would have, you know, some sort of concern for the life of
the judge. Of course, they chose to kill the judge, and to risk killing
the D.A. and the jurors, in order to get at Jonathan and the others. It
may have been a technical error. But I doubt it, because I know Jonathan
was very conversant with military ideas, and I'm sure it occurred to him
that there was a possibility that at least one pig would shoot, and that
if one shot, they' all shoot, and it’d be a massacre. Judge or no
judge.<br><br>
It was all a gigantic bluff, you know? Jonathan took a calculated risk.
Some people say that makes him a fool. I say his was the sort of courage
that cause men of his age to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor
in somewhat different settings. The difference is that Jonathan
understood very clearly who his real enemy was; the guy who gets the
congressional medal usually doesn't. Now, who's the fool?<br>
<br>
Personally, I bear his loss very badly. It's a great burden upon my soul.
But I think it's imperative – we owe it to him – never to forget why he
did what he did. And that was to stand as a symbol in front of the people
– in front of me – and say in effect that we have both the capacity and
the obligation to stand up, regardless of the consequences.<br><br>
He was saying that if we all stand up, our collective power will destroy
the forces that oppose us. Jonathan lived by these principles, he was
true to them, he died by them. This is the most honorable thing
imaginable. He achieved a certain deserved immortality insofar as he
truly had the courage to die on his feet rather than live one moment on
his knees. He stood as an example, a beacon to all of us, and I am in awe
of him, even though he was my younger brother.<br><br>
<br>
<a name="_ftn1"></a>* This interview with George Jackson was conducted by
Karen Wald … and published … It is reprinted with permission of Karen
Wald. <br>
<a name="_ftn2"></a>* Editor’s Note: In May 1967 Bobby Seale and thirty
other members of the Black Panther Party were arrested in Sacramento,
California for protesting a proposed California bill which sought to
outlaw the carrying of loaded guns in public. (The Party, originally the
Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, supported the carrying of loaded
guns in public as a means to discourage the widespread police brutality
meted out upon African Americans.) This confrontation catapulted the
Party to national attention and attracted scores of new members in
California and throughout the country. In October 1967 Huey Newton was
arrested and charged with murder in the death of a police officer.
Eldridge Cleaver (a former convict and author of <i>Soul on Ice</i>)
recruited Stokeley Carmichael, the former chairman of the Student
Non-violent Coordinating Committee and a nationally known Black power
leader, and together they built a national “Free Huey” movement on behalf
of their accused comrade. In September 1968 Newton was found guilty of
manslaughter. His conviction was later overturned in August 1970. In the
subsequent years, Party chapters were opened in prisons across the
nation, and led the move to politicize Black prisoners (such as in the
case of - perhaps most notably - George Jackson himself). See Akinyele
Omowale Umoja, “Set Our Warriors Free: The Legacy of the BPP and
Political Prisoners” in Charles E. Jones, ed. <i>The Black Panther Party
(Reconsidered)</i> (Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 1998).<br>
<a name="_ftn3"></a>* Editor’s Note: At the time of this interview, Bobby
Seale was Chairman of the Black Panther Party. In May 1969, he, Erica
Huggins, and twelve members of the New Haven, Connecticut chapter of the
BPP, the “New Haven 14”, were charged in the murder of an alleged police
informant. The incarceration of these members forced the New Haven BPP to
shut down. Although Seale and Huggins were eventually exonerated of the
charges, several other New Haven defendants were convicted in the case.
See Jones, ed. and Angela Y. Davis (with Bettina Aptheker), <i>If They
Come in the Morning: Voices of Resistance</i> (New York: Third Press,
1971).<br>
<a name="_ftn4"></a>* Editor’s note: “Tiger cages” were the five feet by
nine feet cement cells of the Con Son prison in South Vietnam. The cells,
built by the French in the 1940s, were used to hold political prisoners
in the 1960s. (Stanley I. Kuntler (Ed.), <i>Encyclopedia of the Vietnam
War </i>(New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan, 1996) 543-544.) Under
South Vietnamese U.S. supported leader Ngo Dinh Diem, U.S. Special Forces
instituted the “strategic hamlet” program in 1962. The program, based on
a tactic used to suppress anti-colonial movement-building by the British
in Malaya, relocated the South Vietnamese rural population into
fortified, heavily policed hamlets in an attempt to cut off the spread of
Communist support and destroy the infrastructure of the National
Liberation Front. The program created deep, widespread resentment among
the population. (Gabriel Kolko, <i>Anatomy of a War: Vietnam, the
United States, and the Modern Historical Experience</i> (New York: The
New Press, 1994) 132-137.) <br>
<a name="_ftn5"></a>* Editor’s note: On August 7, 1970, Jonathan Jackson,
George Jackson’s younger brother, age seventeen at the time, stormed into
the Marin County Courthouse in California in an attempt to free Ruchell
Cinque Magee, William Christmas, and James McClain. Jackson, the
prisoners, the trial judge, the prosecutor, and several jurors (whom
Jackson had taken hostage) were fired upon by police and prison guards
while inside a van. Jackson, McClain, Christmas and the judge were
killed, the prosecutor was paralyzed for life, and Magee and the jurors
were wounded but survived. See Bettina Aptheker, <i>Morning Breaks:
The Trial of Angela Davis</i> (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
1999).<br><br>
<br><br>
</font><x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
<font size=3 color="#FF0000">Freedom Archives<br>
522 Valencia Street<br>
San Francisco, CA 94110<br><br>
</font><font size=3 color="#008000">415 863-9977<br><br>
</font><font size=3 color="#0000FF">
<a href="http://www.freedomarchives.org/" eudora="autourl">
www.Freedomarchives.org</a></font><font size=3> </font></body>
</html>