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Speaker 1: This is the first of two interviews I conducted with

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Speaker 1: scholars of prison radical movements. I spoke with Dan Berger,

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Speaker 1: who is a professor of Comparative Ethnic Studies at the

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Speaker 1: University of Washington Bothel and the author of Captive Nation,

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Speaker 1: Black Prison Organizing in the Civil Rights Era. We talked

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Speaker 1: about viewing prisons as a microcosm of society, the development

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Speaker 1: of the largely black prison radical movement and its ideological

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Speaker 1: under and the forces a raid to suppress the movement.

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Speaker 2: My name is Dan Berger. I'm a professor of Comparative

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Speaker 2: Ethnic Studies at the University of Washington Baffel and a

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Speaker 2: scholar historian studying United States social movements and the curseral state,

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Speaker 2: or what's more commonly referred to as history as of

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Speaker 2: mass incarceration in the twentieth century United States. And into

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Speaker 2: the present.

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Speaker 1: So how do you date sort of the beginning of

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Speaker 1: the prison reform movement or I don't even know if

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Speaker 1: you would call the modern prison reform movement.

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Speaker 2: I think we see a few different trajectories into the

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Speaker 2: modern prison movement, and I would say reform is one angle,

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Speaker 2: But we also have a revolutionary prison movement, right, which

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Speaker 2: is a set of people and ideas and actors who

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Speaker 2: see the prison not just as a site of abuse

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Speaker 2: and injustice, but one that is a microcosm of the

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Speaker 2: broader violence and injustices at the heart of American capitalism

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Speaker 2: and American racism. And so that sees the effort to

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Speaker 2: undermine prisons, to destroy prisons, to abolish prisons as part

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Speaker 2: of a revolutionary challenge to that social, political economic order.

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Speaker 2: And I think the California was a centerpiece for both

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Speaker 2: of those, right, both that kind of reform movement and

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Speaker 2: a revolutionary movement throughout the nineteen sixties. I think there's

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Speaker 2: a longer story that we could tell in a lot

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Speaker 2: of ways. As long as there have been prisons, there

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Speaker 2: have been movements opposed to prisons, coming particularly out of

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Speaker 2: the experiences of incarcerated people. But there's a few dynamics

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Speaker 2: where there are a few issues that kind of collide

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Speaker 2: in the nineteen sixties to make prisons such a central

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Speaker 2: place of radicalism. One thing that's happening is connection to

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Speaker 2: movements outside of prison. So when you look at something

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Speaker 2: like the Civil rights movement, you see mass illegality. Right,

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Speaker 2: segregation was the law of the land, and so people

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Speaker 2: sitting where they wanted on the bus, sitting at lunch

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Speaker 2: counters where they weren't allowed, all of these things challenged

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Speaker 2: the status quo, and people went to jail. Right, People

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Speaker 2: went to prison for these things. One of the things

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Speaker 2: that that did was to show that jails and prisons

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Speaker 2: were not all powerful. That people went to prison and

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Speaker 2: they came out of prison. In some cases in the South,

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Speaker 2: you see people who were incarcerated for activism make common

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Speaker 2: cause with people who are incarcerated for other things. But

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Speaker 2: even where we don't see that, just the fact that

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Speaker 2: people were incarcerated for basic human activity, right going to

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Speaker 2: the bathroom, sitting down, riding a bus, trying to order hamburger,

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Speaker 2: all of those things. Right. I think part of what

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Speaker 2: that gave is this kind of in sipping consciousness that

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Speaker 2: prison was wrong, right, that the legal system was a

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Speaker 2: part of other forms of inequality, and I think that

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Speaker 2: was something that circulated throughout the nineteen fifties. But by

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Speaker 2: the time we get to the nineteen sixties, you see

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Speaker 2: people really try to sharpen that critique. So you have

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Speaker 2: men like Malcolm X and others in the Nation of

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Speaker 2: Islam who talked about their own experiences being incarcerated as

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Speaker 2: educational as part of how they learned about American racism

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Speaker 2: was that they wound up in prison. The fact that

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Speaker 2: they survived prison showed that prison could be overcome. And

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Speaker 2: Malcolm was quite profound about prison as a metaphor of

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Speaker 2: American white supremacy, prison as a metaphor for the kind

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Speaker 2: of problems that black people face in this country. Groups

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Speaker 2: like the Black Panther Party picked up or carry on

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Speaker 2: that tradition. So Malcolm X is assassinated in February nineteen

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Speaker 2: sixty five, the Panther's form in October nineteen sixty six,

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Speaker 2: and a number of members of the Black Panther Party

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Speaker 2: themselves had been incarcerated, sometimes you know, as juveniles. So

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Speaker 2: you have people, you know, like Huey Newton, who's a

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Speaker 2: co founder of the Black Panther Party who had been

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Speaker 2: incarcerated in what was called the California Youth Authority, which

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Speaker 2: is basically the juvenile detension system. Nowadays, it's people maybe

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Speaker 2: heard about this idea of like the school the prison pipeline, right,

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Speaker 2: of these kinds of connections between underfunded schools and contact

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Speaker 2: with the legal systems. People tend to think of this

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Speaker 2: as a kind of recent phenomenon of the last thirty

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Speaker 2: forty years. But actually, if you look at the treatment

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Speaker 2: that black migrants out of the South faced in places

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Speaker 2: like California, you see this exact thing, right, people living

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Speaker 2: in under resourced communities that were heavily policed. That you have,

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Speaker 2: you know, kids thirteen years old, eleven years old, eight

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Speaker 2: years old, going to prison, going to jail, going into

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Speaker 2: the legal system. And I think the movement of the

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Speaker 2: nineteen sixties really helped provide a kind of political context

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Speaker 2: and political explanation for why so many impoverished young black

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Speaker 2: people in particular were incarcerated.

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Speaker 1: I'm interested in the reading I have done is that

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Speaker 1: it seems like there's a strong sort of Marxist element

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Speaker 1: to the intellectual underpinnings of the movement, at least in

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Speaker 1: like the late sixties and into the seventies. Where does

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Speaker 1: that come from?

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Speaker 2: That's not uniformly shared. So that's one thing to keep

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Speaker 2: in mind, right that there is a kind of Marxist

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Speaker 2: thread within the Radical prison movement, but it's not the

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Speaker 2: only thread. But again, I think we have to understand

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Speaker 2: this context as one in which there's a popularity to

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Speaker 2: Marxism and socialism and communism within different left wing movements

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Speaker 2: at the time. So the Black Panther Party is a

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Speaker 2: communist organization. Part of the political education that the Panthers

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Speaker 2: did included readings and Marxism, and the Panthers had a

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Speaker 2: big influence on but also learned a lot from the

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Speaker 2: Radical prison movement. And so we see someone like George Jackson,

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Speaker 2: who is incarcerated in California as a teenager first when

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Speaker 2: he was eighteen in nineteen sixty, who becomes this autodidact

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Speaker 2: intellectual in prison who is reading Marx and Lenin and

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Speaker 2: Trotsky and now as well as some contemporary scholars and

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Speaker 2: others sort of analyzing those movements.

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Speaker 1: George Jackson was a prison revolutionary who was sentenced for

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Speaker 1: an indeterminate period of time for stealing seventy dollars from

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Speaker 1: a gas station. He was a co founder of the

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Speaker 1: Black Gorilla Family, a member of the Black Panthers, and

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Speaker 1: an author, most notably of the influential book Soladad Brother.

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Speaker 1: He was targeted by guards and prison officials for his

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Speaker 1: radical influence among prisoners, and was shot to death by

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Speaker 1: prison guards during an escape attempt on August twenty first,

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three.

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Speaker 2: People often in the US think about the sixties and

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Speaker 2: the radicalism of that time period only in a US context.

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Speaker 2: I think it's important to understand this globally, that this

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Speaker 2: is a time period of revolutionary movements all around the world,

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Speaker 2: some of them quite successful, and many of them were

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Speaker 2: inspired by Marxism in some fashion. So I think particularly

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Speaker 2: to someone like George Jackson, who was such a foundational

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Speaker 2: thinker to the radical prison movement, not just in California

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Speaker 2: but around the country and even around the world. He's

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Speaker 2: very inspired by world events. He's looking around at what's

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Speaker 2: happening in Angola and South Africa and Vietnam and China

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Speaker 2: and engaging with that. He's converson in that. I think

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Speaker 2: that helps usher in a kind of interests in Marxism

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Speaker 2: for some sectors of the radical prison movement.

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Speaker 1: So I was interested. You said that that wasn't sort

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Speaker 1: of universal in that there are other sort of intellectual

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Speaker 1: frameworks that people work within. Can you talk a little

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Speaker 1: bit about those alternatives.

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Speaker 2: Some of them are parallel, some of them are overlapping,

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Speaker 2: some of them maybe antagonistic. But I think you have,

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Speaker 2: particularly by the time we get to the early nineteen seventies,

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Speaker 2: you have a strong contingent of Marxists. You have a

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Speaker 2: much more more popular set of Black nationalists. Some of

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Speaker 2: those Black nationalists were also Marxists, but not all of them,

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Speaker 2: and I would say the maturity we're not Marxist. I

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Speaker 2: think you have other strains of a kind of radical

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Speaker 2: ethnic nationalism. So among some of the Chicano prisoners, for instance,

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Speaker 2: among some of the Indigenous prisoners, I think you see

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Speaker 2: different different kinds of radical nationalisms. And again, this is

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Speaker 2: all very much in conversation with what's happening outside of prison.

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Speaker 2: This is a time period of Chicano nationalism and Pan

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Speaker 2: Indian nationalism as well. I also think you have there's

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Speaker 2: a kind of labor movement inside of prison. I've done

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Speaker 2: a lot of research on California. I know you're focused

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Speaker 2: on California. A lot of what we're talking about is

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Speaker 2: true elsewhere in the nation. We're talking about California, but

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Speaker 2: we could find these dynamics rare least similar dynamics in

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Speaker 2: Texas and New York and Pennsylvania, like in Illinois and

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Speaker 2: lots of other places. But I think within the labor

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Speaker 2: movement in prison, again, some of the Marxist some of

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Speaker 2: the radical nationalists are there, but also do just people

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Speaker 2: who recognize that they're being fucked over and who want

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Speaker 2: things to be different. In some ways, they're not necessarily

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Speaker 2: that ideological. They are just exploited and oppressed and desiring

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Speaker 2: a change. But I also think there's some elements of

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Speaker 2: the prison movement that exceed the kind of ideological classifications.

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Speaker 2: People are mixed, right, There's some kind of liberalism, there's

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Speaker 2: some hyper capitalism right of like, hey, the free market

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Speaker 2: says I should be compensated for my labor, and I'm

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Speaker 2: not being compensated for my name. It only becomes a

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Speaker 2: radical critique because the prison system disallows the remuneration for

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Speaker 2: their labor. It's a kind of potpourri. I have different

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Speaker 2: ideologies at this time period. But the folks who were

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Speaker 2: the most vocal and who tended to be the most

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Speaker 2: conversant with people who are not incarcerated. It tended to

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Speaker 2: be either Marxists or radical nationalists and internationalists, So have

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Speaker 2: one kind or another.

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Speaker 1: So did you in your research do much on Popeye Jackson?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, a little bit.

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Speaker 1: What's your kind of take on him and how he

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Speaker 1: fits within this universe.

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Speaker 2: So one thing that's really important to understand about California

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Speaker 2: in some ways, in particular California at this time period,

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Speaker 2: although it's not exclusive to California, it's how much the

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Speaker 2: prison system is governing through racism. So the prison system

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Speaker 2: uses racism as a way to keep people apart and

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Speaker 2: to either introduce or foster divisions between incarcerated people. And

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Speaker 2: part of that is that prisoners outnumber guards. One way

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Speaker 2: that prisons maintain social order is through cells. There's the

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Speaker 2: physical infrastructure that they use. There is the presence of guards.

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Speaker 2: By guards implified that by pitting prisoners against each other,

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Speaker 2: and race became the way that they did that. And

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Speaker 2: to some extent, geography, so where in California people were from,

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Speaker 2: and so what I think radicals had to do when

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Speaker 2: George Jackson did this, I think pop I tried to

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Speaker 2: do this as well, was to bridge those divides, to

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Speaker 2: try to get people to work with each other at

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Speaker 2: least around some core issues against the prison system. Right,

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Speaker 2: this idea that the prison system was the real enemy, right,

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Speaker 2: whatever differences divide us. Clearly no one was successful in

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Speaker 2: that in any kind of grand totalizing way. Papa Jackson

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Speaker 2: became a labor organizer in prison, right, So his kind

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Speaker 2: of organizing that he was doing was through the prisoners

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Speaker 2: Union within California. The prisoners Union was divided between folks

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Speaker 2: who wanted a kind of revolutionary challenge to the system overall,

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Speaker 2: and folks who wanted compensation and better treatment for themselves

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Speaker 2: for others during their incarceration, but who didn't necessarily contest

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Speaker 2: the legitimacy of the institution. So I fucked that. I'm

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Speaker 2: paying my dues whatever, but I shouldn't be exploited in

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Speaker 2: this way. Right, I'm already in prison. I deserve to

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Speaker 2: be in prison, but I shouldn't be avoided. And I

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Speaker 2: think that was a real profound divide. And there was

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Speaker 2: some racial differences on top of that, Like the latter

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Speaker 2: group was a wider group than the group that was

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Speaker 2: sort of trying to wage this kind of revolutionary challenge

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Speaker 2: against the prison system and the kind of larger social

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Speaker 2: order that it represented. So, you know, I think Popeye

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00:14:40,080 --> 00:14:42,720
Speaker 2: was kind of in that former camp of like trying

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Speaker 2: to be involved in this kind of revolutionary movement. But

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Speaker 2: my understanding was that he was trying to be more

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Speaker 2: conversant with the labor movement or the labor union in

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Speaker 2: ways that might also bring in folks that weren't already there, right,

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Speaker 2: they weren't already committed to a kind of revolutionary project.

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Speaker 1: Can you just kind of expand upon that a little

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Speaker 1: bit about what those sort of fracturing disputes were about.

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Speaker 1: Are the personalities who are involved in.

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Speaker 2: It throughout the decade of the seventies, will put it

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Speaker 2: that way. You can find the exact number, but you know,

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Speaker 2: there's something like two dozen prisoners are killed and about

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Speaker 2: ten guards are killed something like that. That's a lot,

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Speaker 2: I'm particularly given that the prison system is nowhere near

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Speaker 2: as vast as it is today. So you know, California

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Speaker 2: doesn't have but a few prisons in this time period,

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Speaker 2: and so there were a series of divisions by race.

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Speaker 2: As I mentioned, I think a lot of ways the

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Speaker 2: story begins, or at least we can to recognize an

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Speaker 2: origin of the story in the murders of three prisoners

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Speaker 2: at Solidad in nineteen seventy. After a long period of

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Speaker 2: lockdown right where prisoners weren't allowed out of their sets,

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Speaker 2: guards finally let them out, but deliberately let out a

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Speaker 2: group of black prisoners and a group of white prisoners,

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Speaker 2: including several members of the Aryan Brotherhood white supremacist prison gang.

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Speaker 2: Several of the black prisoners were black nationalists who had

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Speaker 2: been involved in different protests against racism and segregation in prison.

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Speaker 2: And so this was a manufactured fight, and this is

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Speaker 2: something that California prison system would become notorious for. Different

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Speaker 2: prisons became known informally as gladiator schools because the guards

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Speaker 2: were just setting up fights between incarcerated people. So guards

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Speaker 2: set up this fight. People have been locked down for months,

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Speaker 2: and then they get on the yard and they start

258
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Speaker 2: brawling with each other, and sniper opens fire and kills

259
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Speaker 2: three black prisoners and wounds either one or two white prisoners.

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Speaker 1: Prisoner, a man named Billy Harris, was shot in the

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Speaker 1: groin but survived.

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Speaker 2: A few days later, a different guard at Solidad is

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Speaker 2: beaten up and thrown off the tier and killed. And

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Speaker 2: this inaugurates this idea essentially, of that some prisoners felt

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Speaker 2: right that prisoners shouldn't be the only people dying. If

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Speaker 2: this is a kind of warlike atmosphere, then prisoners needed

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Speaker 2: to fight back in that way. And you know, the

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Speaker 2: prison system took that threat very seriously. But I also

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Speaker 2: think it entrenched some divisions that already existed. Part of

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Speaker 2: how the prison system governs through racism is for the

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Speaker 2: prison system to determine that black prisoners, white prisoners, and

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Speaker 2: Chicano prisoners hate each other, and Northern Chicano prisoners and

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Speaker 2: Southern Chicano prisoners hate each other. Until the California prison

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Speaker 2: system delineated four groups, right, white, Black, Northern Mexican Southern Mexican,

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Speaker 2: determined that they were at war and treated them as

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Speaker 2: if they were at war with each other, right to

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Speaker 2: these kinds of fights orchestrated ways in which they would disagree.

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Speaker 2: So within that you have these kinds of social formations

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Speaker 2: that take root that also think through rates. Right, the

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Speaker 2: Aryan Brotherhood is a Neo Nazi organization. You have different

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Speaker 2: associations that form among black Mechicano prisoners that are engaged

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Speaker 2: in self defense, that are trying to survive. Some of

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Speaker 2: them also involve themselves in the illicit economy of the

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Speaker 2: prison system. All of those things are grounds for disagreement

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Speaker 2: and hostility if different groups are involved in underground economies. There,

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Speaker 2: it's the economic competition, but also the self defense training

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Speaker 2: that some people are doing gets read as an exacerbation

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Speaker 2: of hostilities, right, or ramping up of threats against other people.

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Speaker 2: And so you know, I think this really comes to

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Speaker 2: define the California prison system of the nineteen seventies in

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Speaker 2: some ways beyond in terms of how the state responds.

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Speaker 2: But I think what's particular about the seventies is how

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Speaker 2: much incarcert people tried to organize themselves. For some people

294
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Speaker 2: that men trying to arm themselves, right, that it wasn't

295
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Speaker 2: just physical you know, the self defense that I could

296
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Speaker 2: do with my body, but you know, trying to fashion

297
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Speaker 2: knives or other weapons that could be used in the

298
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Speaker 2: case of attack. I mean, I interviewed people who were

299
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Speaker 2: participating in study groups right where they're reading books together

300
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Speaker 2: and trying to sharpen their mind, as well as conducting

301
00:19:37,000 --> 00:19:40,119
Speaker 2: self defense classes, right, trying to train their bodies to

302
00:19:40,280 --> 00:19:45,480
Speaker 2: survive that institution. As incarcerator, people became known outside of

303
00:19:45,480 --> 00:19:50,120
Speaker 2: prison and developed support networks who sent letters, sometimes, who

304
00:19:50,160 --> 00:19:53,240
Speaker 2: sent money or other resources, or brought other kinds of attention.

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Speaker 2: I think some people were jealous of that, right, some

306
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Speaker 2: people who were poor and desperate and also wanted connections

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Speaker 2: with the outside.

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Speaker 1: You talked about how this sort of pressured environment led

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Speaker 1: to sort of a fracturing of whatever kind of cohesive

310
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Speaker 1: movement there was, and how that I don't know if

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Speaker 1: it completely fell apart or just transitioned to something different.

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Speaker 2: One of the people who's killed at Solidad that I

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Speaker 2: mentioned is a guy named W. C. Nolan, and Nolan

314
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Speaker 2: was a boxing champ. He had helped kind of bring

315
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Speaker 2: together these different kind of informal organizations. George Jackson was

316
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Speaker 2: a part of that, and George Jackson helped them, you know,

317
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Speaker 2: continue that effort. And after he was killed in August

318
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Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy one, it takes on another form, right,

319
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Speaker 2: and that becomes called the black Ela Family. In the

320
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Speaker 2: late seventies, the Black Erila Family splits, and part of

321
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Speaker 2: the split is folks who want to pursue a more

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Speaker 2: kind of political and politically radical direction and folks who

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Speaker 2: are participating more in the informal economies of the prison system.

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Speaker 2: And that's just within one formation, right, But the Black

325
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Speaker 2: Rula family is also constantly at war with the Aryan Brotherhood.

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Speaker 2: So I think, right there are these sort of constant

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Speaker 2: pressures around leadership and personality even within some of the

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Speaker 2: groups that incarcetrate people form. But then also these kind

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Speaker 2: of external pressures both from other kind of organized groups

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Speaker 2: and then constantly from the guards and from the state.

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Speaker 1: This is just almost sort ofing a side question, but

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Speaker 1: did the Aryan Brotherhood did they have like a political

333
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Speaker 1: program that they were trying to put forward, or were

334
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Speaker 1: they just as sort of defense sort of criminal organization.

335
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think an important part of guns, booze, drugs, sex,

336
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Speaker 2: and probably other weapons in the prison system, certainly all

337
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Speaker 2: of that takes place within a framework of white supremacy,

338
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Speaker 2: so that piece of it is sort of inseparable. But

339
00:22:09,080 --> 00:22:13,720
Speaker 2: whether there is a kind of political perspective, I don't

340
00:22:13,760 --> 00:22:15,960
Speaker 2: know that they're doing study groups, I guess I would say, right,

341
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Speaker 2: the way is that like we see black and some

342
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Speaker 2: of the Chicano and other Latino prisoners are doing steady groups.

343
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Speaker 2: I genuinely don't know. I'm not saying that they that

344
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Speaker 2: they don't, but I haven't seen evidence. That hasn't been

345
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Speaker 2: my purview so much. I think the Arian brother tries

346
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Speaker 2: to recruit white prisoners as soon as they come in,

347
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Speaker 2: so they're not already committed, right. I think they try

348
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Speaker 2: to inculcate white prisoners into being white supremacists, But I

349
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Speaker 2: don't know if there's a kind of political education program

350
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Speaker 2: beyond that.

351
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Speaker 1: I explained to Dan that I'd asked the question because

352
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Speaker 1: of Lynette From's association with the Aryan Brotherhood outside prison

353
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Speaker 1: walls as she tried to help Charles Manson during his InCAR.

354
00:23:01,320 --> 00:23:06,960
Speaker 1: I wondered how they fit into the prison political ecosystem.

355
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Speaker 2: Fair like the main social force in prison that really

356
00:23:10,280 --> 00:23:13,919
Speaker 2: thinks through race and skin color in that way, Like

357
00:23:14,840 --> 00:23:19,840
Speaker 2: the basis of black prison organization is much more three dimensional,

358
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Speaker 2: Like there is a sort of politics there, there is

359
00:23:22,680 --> 00:23:26,080
Speaker 2: a kind of back and forth there. But I think

360
00:23:26,080 --> 00:23:29,119
Speaker 2: the Aaron Brotherhood is much more like the assumption that

361
00:23:29,200 --> 00:23:31,480
Speaker 2: if you're white, you're in this group and trying to

362
00:23:31,560 --> 00:23:34,840
Speaker 2: enforce that quite violently at times. But I know one

363
00:23:34,880 --> 00:23:38,639
Speaker 2: of the white prisoners who was at San Quentin in

364
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Speaker 2: August nineteen seventy one when George Jackson was killed was

365
00:23:42,160 --> 00:23:45,760
Speaker 2: not ideologically a Nazi, but I was told anyway that

366
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Speaker 2: he was close to the Aaron Brotherhood. And I think

367
00:23:48,160 --> 00:23:51,720
Speaker 2: there was just a certain kind of luidity, for lack

368
00:23:51,760 --> 00:23:54,680
Speaker 2: of a better word, right, that there's a defined hierarchy

369
00:23:54,800 --> 00:23:58,000
Speaker 2: to the AB like any structure of its kind, but

370
00:23:58,040 --> 00:24:00,359
Speaker 2: there's also an assumption that white people are going to

371
00:24:00,400 --> 00:24:03,880
Speaker 2: defend and uphold white supremacy in prison that I think

372
00:24:03,960 --> 00:24:06,040
Speaker 2: led people to be sort of close, even if they

373
00:24:06,040 --> 00:24:09,560
Speaker 2: were not official members. But I think, you know, the

374
00:24:09,600 --> 00:24:14,480
Speaker 2: example that you're pointing to is how much the organizations

375
00:24:14,520 --> 00:24:17,960
Speaker 2: and social networks that existed inside of prison tried to

376
00:24:18,080 --> 00:24:21,840
Speaker 2: develop and deepen relationships outside of prison. And I think

377
00:24:21,880 --> 00:24:24,560
Speaker 2: that is it's definitely not unique to this time period,

378
00:24:24,600 --> 00:24:27,040
Speaker 2: but it is an important part of the dynamics of

379
00:24:27,080 --> 00:24:30,040
Speaker 2: that time period. And I think in the late sixties

380
00:24:30,040 --> 00:24:34,720
Speaker 2: early seventies, the Black Panthers give that kind of political

381
00:24:35,680 --> 00:24:39,360
Speaker 2: architecture to that for a lot of black prisoners in California,

382
00:24:39,760 --> 00:24:44,240
Speaker 2: but the Panthers are undergoing their own pressures and assaults

383
00:24:44,240 --> 00:24:47,200
Speaker 2: from the state as well as their own divisions internally

384
00:24:47,720 --> 00:24:51,679
Speaker 2: that make that a lot less possible by the mid seventies.

385
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Speaker 1: It's interesting I was reading a thing about like prisoner celebrity,

386
00:24:58,480 --> 00:25:02,400
Speaker 1: and it did talk about George Jackson, but then also

387
00:25:02,560 --> 00:25:06,919
Speaker 1: like Donald d. Friese as sort of coming out of

388
00:25:07,440 --> 00:25:12,040
Speaker 1: prison with this sort of chrisma of authenticity or something

389
00:25:12,320 --> 00:25:15,400
Speaker 1: for people who sort of ideological bent.

390
00:25:16,280 --> 00:25:19,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's absolutely a dynamic of what's happening

391
00:25:19,600 --> 00:25:22,359
Speaker 2: in this time period. And I think by the time

392
00:25:22,520 --> 00:25:26,080
Speaker 2: like DeFreeze is on the scene, you know, there's a

393
00:25:26,119 --> 00:25:33,120
Speaker 2: good solid decade of formerly incarcerated people serving. It's very visible,

394
00:25:33,280 --> 00:25:37,760
Speaker 2: identifiable political leaders, right, and I think leaders with a

395
00:25:37,800 --> 00:25:41,040
Speaker 2: lot of principle by in large, we're talking about Malcolm X,

396
00:25:41,080 --> 00:25:43,880
Speaker 2: We're talking about Martin Luther King, right, I mean, he's

397
00:25:43,920 --> 00:25:47,200
Speaker 2: someone who's spent a lot of time in jail, if

398
00:25:47,240 --> 00:25:51,600
Speaker 2: not in prison, And so I think that lends itself

399
00:25:51,680 --> 00:25:55,679
Speaker 2: right to this idea that incarcerated people have a certain

400
00:25:55,720 --> 00:26:01,199
Speaker 2: amount of authenticity from the prison experience. I think that

401
00:26:01,280 --> 00:26:06,280
Speaker 2: could open the door to people acting without as much principle,

402
00:26:06,560 --> 00:26:08,919
Speaker 2: and people who did not have the kind of political

403
00:26:09,800 --> 00:26:13,440
Speaker 2: experience in some cases or the political commitments in other

404
00:26:13,520 --> 00:26:16,560
Speaker 2: cases that were still part of the milieu of that

405
00:26:16,640 --> 00:26:19,480
Speaker 2: time period. Right. So place is a high degree of

406
00:26:19,640 --> 00:26:23,119
Speaker 2: power on the written word, right, And again we have

407
00:26:23,320 --> 00:26:28,119
Speaker 2: these profound works of literature that come out of prison

408
00:26:28,160 --> 00:26:30,359
Speaker 2: in this time period. Aldridge Kleeber is a best seller.

409
00:26:30,440 --> 00:26:33,800
Speaker 2: George Jackson is a best seller. Carol Chessman, who was

410
00:26:33,840 --> 00:26:36,440
Speaker 2: a California prisoner who was put to death earlier in

411
00:26:36,520 --> 00:26:40,159
Speaker 2: the sixties, had written several best selling books from prison.

412
00:26:41,040 --> 00:26:45,119
Speaker 2: And so there's this kind of authenticity to the written

413
00:26:45,119 --> 00:26:47,720
Speaker 2: word that comes out of prison in this time period

414
00:26:47,880 --> 00:26:51,800
Speaker 2: that by and large is people are sincere in their

415
00:26:51,840 --> 00:26:55,200
Speaker 2: stated political commitments. You know, George Jackson was very direct

416
00:26:55,240 --> 00:26:59,280
Speaker 2: and very clear about being communists revolutionary, and that's in

417
00:26:59,320 --> 00:27:01,520
Speaker 2: his writings, and I think that's how he tried to live,

418
00:27:01,560 --> 00:27:03,520
Speaker 2: and that's, you know, in a lot of ways, how

419
00:27:03,520 --> 00:27:06,800
Speaker 2: he died. But I think there are some examples that

420
00:27:06,840 --> 00:27:09,200
Speaker 2: people who did not have the same sort of political

421
00:27:09,240 --> 00:27:13,040
Speaker 2: experience or political commitments that they might have presented themselves

422
00:27:13,040 --> 00:27:16,800
Speaker 2: as having. In general, I think people were sincere in

423
00:27:16,840 --> 00:27:18,879
Speaker 2: what they put out for themselves in the world. And

424
00:27:18,920 --> 00:27:24,920
Speaker 2: I think people did build some very meaningful relationships across

425
00:27:24,960 --> 00:27:29,399
Speaker 2: prison walls in this time period. I'm speaking of platonic relationships,

426
00:27:29,400 --> 00:27:32,560
Speaker 2: although there are also romantic relationships as well that come

427
00:27:32,560 --> 00:27:32,959
Speaker 2: out of this.

428
00:27:34,640 --> 00:27:37,320
Speaker 1: So what haven't we talked about that you think is

429
00:27:37,400 --> 00:27:39,840
Speaker 1: important to know about this era?

430
00:27:40,880 --> 00:27:44,040
Speaker 2: I think that there's a lot of the specifics of

431
00:27:44,080 --> 00:27:46,960
Speaker 2: some of these cases that is still kind of shrouded

432
00:27:47,000 --> 00:27:50,520
Speaker 2: in mystery at some level. Right, some people are still incarcerated,

433
00:27:50,600 --> 00:27:54,160
Speaker 2: some people are dead, and some of that is about

434
00:27:54,160 --> 00:27:56,719
Speaker 2: the role of law enforcement. Right that there were a

435
00:27:56,720 --> 00:28:02,080
Speaker 2: lot of police infiltrators and spy and provocateurs that had

436
00:28:02,160 --> 00:28:05,399
Speaker 2: infiltrated the prison movement, you know, particularly outside of prison,

437
00:28:06,040 --> 00:28:09,200
Speaker 2: the ways that people coming out of prison had one

438
00:28:09,240 --> 00:28:11,399
Speaker 2: idea about what they would find in the movement, and

439
00:28:11,440 --> 00:28:15,639
Speaker 2: then trying to navigate some of these complex relationships with

440
00:28:16,160 --> 00:28:19,359
Speaker 2: you know, with some nefarious interventions that's that are harder

441
00:28:19,400 --> 00:28:22,440
Speaker 2: to trace. It I think makes things very complicated. I mean,

442
00:28:22,440 --> 00:28:24,680
Speaker 2: that's very much a part of the George Jackson story.

443
00:28:25,400 --> 00:28:31,000
Speaker 2: I think prison is an isolating institution governed through violence,

444
00:28:31,320 --> 00:28:35,800
Speaker 2: and so the lessons of how political power is accrude

445
00:28:36,119 --> 00:28:39,960
Speaker 2: or established that come out of prison are ones rooted

446
00:28:39,960 --> 00:28:43,320
Speaker 2: in violence. Right, And I think in a context of

447
00:28:43,920 --> 00:28:47,720
Speaker 2: revolutionary movements around the world using violence, the nineteen seventies

448
00:28:47,800 --> 00:28:50,800
Speaker 2: was a time period in which people hoped that armed

449
00:28:50,840 --> 00:28:57,120
Speaker 2: struggle would be a meaningful path toward liberation. And by

450
00:28:57,200 --> 00:29:00,600
Speaker 2: the time you get to the late seventies, you see

451
00:29:01,040 --> 00:29:06,680
Speaker 2: this internaceine warfare that claims a lot of sincere people's lives,

452
00:29:06,720 --> 00:29:09,400
Speaker 2: that claims the lives of a lot of sincere dedicated activists,

453
00:29:09,600 --> 00:29:14,120
Speaker 2: that wounds and injures sincere dedicated activists, and that drives

454
00:29:14,120 --> 00:29:17,000
Speaker 2: people away. In some cases, we are because of that

455
00:29:17,080 --> 00:29:19,920
Speaker 2: violent context. In some cases, it's hard to point out

456
00:29:19,920 --> 00:29:23,240
Speaker 2: what was the state's involvement, right, Where were the police

457
00:29:23,480 --> 00:29:29,239
Speaker 2: informants accelerating violent conflict or pushing for these kinds of

458
00:29:29,640 --> 00:29:34,040
Speaker 2: disagreements and what were people making bad decisions in a

459
00:29:34,200 --> 00:29:37,400
Speaker 2: difficult and bad context. But the end result is that

460
00:29:37,440 --> 00:29:39,560
Speaker 2: we lose a lot of people, literally we lose them,

461
00:29:39,600 --> 00:29:42,680
Speaker 2: and that they are killed or we lose them, and

462
00:29:42,680 --> 00:29:45,200
Speaker 2: that they're they're driven away in some form or another.

463
00:29:45,560 --> 00:29:49,040
Speaker 2: And I think, you know, we get this is the

464
00:29:49,120 --> 00:29:52,160
Speaker 2: kind of second wave of the underground that happens in

465
00:29:52,200 --> 00:29:56,400
Speaker 2: the mid seventies after a kind of earlier wave that

466
00:29:56,560 --> 00:29:58,840
Speaker 2: we get through groups like the Weather Underground under the

467
00:29:58,880 --> 00:30:02,040
Speaker 2: Black Liberation Army. I think, particularly in California in the

468
00:30:02,040 --> 00:30:05,160
Speaker 2: mid seventies, we get this kind of second wave underground

469
00:30:05,160 --> 00:30:07,840
Speaker 2: in the mid seventies that I think has a little

470
00:30:07,880 --> 00:30:11,440
Speaker 2: more like desperation to it for lack of a boat

471
00:30:11,480 --> 00:30:15,360
Speaker 2: a word, because it's more desperate times, right, because it's

472
00:30:15,400 --> 00:30:18,520
Speaker 2: people who are forming these groups or in a time

473
00:30:18,560 --> 00:30:21,440
Speaker 2: period of tremendous loss and violence. And I think that

474
00:30:21,560 --> 00:30:25,040
Speaker 2: adds to the kind of confusion of the time period.

475
00:30:25,440 --> 00:30:28,080
Speaker 1: Just one last question, because you've been great with giving

476
00:30:28,080 --> 00:30:31,240
Speaker 1: me this much time. Was any of this successful? I mean,

477
00:30:31,320 --> 00:30:34,840
Speaker 1: were there successes that came out of this period.

478
00:30:35,880 --> 00:30:38,280
Speaker 2: It's easy to see the failures, right. I talked about

479
00:30:38,280 --> 00:30:40,320
Speaker 2: the failures in terms of the loss of life for

480
00:30:40,400 --> 00:30:43,160
Speaker 2: the people that were scared away. I think there's a

481
00:30:43,240 --> 00:30:47,200
Speaker 2: larger institutional failure of the time period, right, I mean,

482
00:30:48,840 --> 00:30:53,040
Speaker 2: which is the growth of mass incarceration. So think about

483
00:30:53,360 --> 00:30:57,040
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy nineteen seventy one, people like George Jackson

484
00:30:57,040 --> 00:31:01,360
Speaker 2: and Angela Davis look out from prison in Jackson's case

485
00:31:01,840 --> 00:31:06,680
Speaker 2: jail and Davis's case and say the US is on

486
00:31:07,160 --> 00:31:12,520
Speaker 2: the road to fascism. Look at these racist, violent conditions

487
00:31:12,560 --> 00:31:15,480
Speaker 2: inside of its jails and prisons, look at the repression

488
00:31:15,480 --> 00:31:19,600
Speaker 2: of its political movements. This is the path to fascism.

489
00:31:20,040 --> 00:31:23,640
Speaker 2: At that time, the United States incarcerated about two hundred

490
00:31:23,680 --> 00:31:27,120
Speaker 2: thousand people in prisons and jails. Today the United States

491
00:31:27,160 --> 00:31:31,120
Speaker 2: incarcerates two point two million. So there's something very profound

492
00:31:31,520 --> 00:31:35,120
Speaker 2: about their ability. And George Jack and Angel Davis are

493
00:31:35,120 --> 00:31:39,560
Speaker 2: two of many people, but certainly very significant and profound

494
00:31:39,560 --> 00:31:44,680
Speaker 2: spokespeople their ability to reckon with the power of repression.

495
00:31:45,240 --> 00:31:48,600
Speaker 2: Right to see this in an almost prophetic way, that

496
00:31:49,480 --> 00:31:53,120
Speaker 2: prison is bad. Right. Prison is this like violent and

497
00:31:53,160 --> 00:31:57,040
Speaker 2: destabilizing institution that deployed against the most marginalized parts of

498
00:31:57,120 --> 00:32:00,400
Speaker 2: society and if we don't change it to get a

499
00:32:00,440 --> 00:32:05,160
Speaker 2: lot worse. They were right about that. It's hard to

500
00:32:05,440 --> 00:32:08,920
Speaker 2: see that as a victory, but I think there is

501
00:32:08,960 --> 00:32:11,920
Speaker 2: something profound in that element.

502
00:32:16,120 --> 00:32:20,040
Speaker 1: Thank you to Dan Berger, Professor of Comparative Ethnic Studies

503
00:32:20,160 --> 00:32:23,600
Speaker 1: at the University of Washington Bothel. He is the author

504
00:32:23,720 --> 00:32:27,960
Speaker 1: of Captive Nation, Black Prison Organizing in the Civil Rights Era.

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00:32:28,800 --> 00:32:34,560
Speaker 1: I'm Toby Ball. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio, app,

506
00:32:34,960 --> 00:32:39,040
Speaker 1: Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite show.

507
00:32:39,800 --> 00:32:43,160
Speaker 1: For more information on rip Current, visit the show website

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00:32:43,320 --> 00:33:12,480
Speaker 1: at ripcurrentpod dot com