WEBVTT - Bonus: Prison Radicalism - Part 1 with Dan Berger 0:00:01.880 --> 0:00:04.519 Rip Current is a production of iHeart Podcasts. 0:00:04.680 --> 0:00:08.039 The views and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those 0:00:08.119 --> 0:00:11.880 of the host, producers or parent company. Listener discretion is 0:00:11.880 --> 0:00:17.599 it fine? This is a rip Current bonus episode. You 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:20.040 don't need to listen to follow the Rip Current storyline, 0:00:20.160 --> 0:00:24.040 but it provides more information, context, and analysis to enhance 0:00:24.079 --> 0:00:25.960 the main podcast. Enjoy. 0:00:32.120 --> 0:00:35.000 This is the first of two interviews I conducted with 0:00:35.120 --> 0:00:39.440 scholars of prison radical movements. I spoke with Dan Berger, 0:00:39.720 --> 0:00:42.879 who is a professor of Comparative Ethnic Studies at the 0:00:43.040 --> 0:00:47.440 University of Washington Bothel and the author of Captive Nation, 0:00:47.920 --> 0:00:51.640 Black Prison Organizing in the Civil Rights Era. We talked 0:00:51.640 --> 0:00:56.040 about viewing prisons as a microcosm of society, the development 0:00:56.120 --> 0:00:59.720 of the largely black prison radical movement and its ideological 0:00:59.760 --> 0:01:03.800 under and the forces a raid to suppress the movement. 0:01:07.000 --> 0:01:10.280 My name is Dan Berger. I'm a professor of Comparative 0:01:10.319 --> 0:01:14.080 Ethnic Studies at the University of Washington Baffel and a 0:01:14.160 --> 0:01:21.320 scholar historian studying United States social movements and the curseral state, 0:01:21.640 --> 0:01:24.280 or what's more commonly referred to as history as of 0:01:24.280 --> 0:01:28.320 mass incarceration in the twentieth century United States. And into 0:01:28.319 --> 0:01:28.720 the present. 0:01:30.040 --> 0:01:32.880 So how do you date sort of the beginning of 0:01:33.319 --> 0:01:35.560 the prison reform movement or I don't even know if 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:38.120 you would call the modern prison reform movement. 0:01:39.400 --> 0:01:43.520 I think we see a few different trajectories into the 0:01:43.560 --> 0:01:47.280 modern prison movement, and I would say reform is one angle, 0:01:47.480 --> 0:01:50.920 But we also have a revolutionary prison movement, right, which 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:54.440 is a set of people and ideas and actors who 0:01:54.520 --> 0:01:58.200 see the prison not just as a site of abuse 0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:03.080 and injustice, but one that is a microcosm of the 0:02:03.160 --> 0:02:09.840 broader violence and injustices at the heart of American capitalism 0:02:10.120 --> 0:02:16.520 and American racism. And so that sees the effort to 0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:20.320 undermine prisons, to destroy prisons, to abolish prisons as part 0:02:20.480 --> 0:02:24.720 of a revolutionary challenge to that social, political economic order. 0:02:25.120 --> 0:02:29.880 And I think the California was a centerpiece for both 0:02:29.880 --> 0:02:32.200 of those, right, both that kind of reform movement and 0:02:32.480 --> 0:02:36.919 a revolutionary movement throughout the nineteen sixties. I think there's 0:02:36.960 --> 0:02:39.799 a longer story that we could tell in a lot 0:02:39.840 --> 0:02:42.480 of ways. As long as there have been prisons, there 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:47.200 have been movements opposed to prisons, coming particularly out of 0:02:47.240 --> 0:02:51.919 the experiences of incarcerated people. But there's a few dynamics 0:02:51.960 --> 0:02:54.080 where there are a few issues that kind of collide 0:02:54.160 --> 0:02:58.119 in the nineteen sixties to make prisons such a central 0:02:58.440 --> 0:03:04.480 place of radicalism. One thing that's happening is connection to 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:09.160 movements outside of prison. So when you look at something 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:13.359 like the Civil rights movement, you see mass illegality. Right, 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:16.480 segregation was the law of the land, and so people 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:19.920 sitting where they wanted on the bus, sitting at lunch 0:03:19.960 --> 0:03:23.079 counters where they weren't allowed, all of these things challenged 0:03:23.360 --> 0:03:26.440 the status quo, and people went to jail. Right, People 0:03:26.440 --> 0:03:28.720 went to prison for these things. One of the things 0:03:28.760 --> 0:03:32.239 that that did was to show that jails and prisons 0:03:32.320 --> 0:03:36.520 were not all powerful. That people went to prison and 0:03:36.560 --> 0:03:39.920 they came out of prison. In some cases in the South, 0:03:39.960 --> 0:03:44.200 you see people who were incarcerated for activism make common 0:03:44.240 --> 0:03:46.840 cause with people who are incarcerated for other things. But 0:03:46.920 --> 0:03:49.240 even where we don't see that, just the fact that 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:54.080 people were incarcerated for basic human activity, right going to 0:03:54.120 --> 0:03:56.880 the bathroom, sitting down, riding a bus, trying to order hamburger, 0:03:56.920 --> 0:03:59.360 all of those things. Right. I think part of what 0:03:59.400 --> 0:04:05.000 that gave is this kind of in sipping consciousness that 0:04:05.640 --> 0:04:09.200 prison was wrong, right, that the legal system was a 0:04:09.240 --> 0:04:13.120 part of other forms of inequality, and I think that 0:04:13.280 --> 0:04:17.760 was something that circulated throughout the nineteen fifties. But by 0:04:17.800 --> 0:04:20.400 the time we get to the nineteen sixties, you see 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:24.000 people really try to sharpen that critique. So you have 0:04:24.920 --> 0:04:27.400 men like Malcolm X and others in the Nation of 0:04:27.520 --> 0:04:32.800 Islam who talked about their own experiences being incarcerated as 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:36.880 educational as part of how they learned about American racism 0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:38.760 was that they wound up in prison. The fact that 0:04:38.800 --> 0:04:43.279 they survived prison showed that prison could be overcome. And 0:04:43.320 --> 0:04:48.960 Malcolm was quite profound about prison as a metaphor of 0:04:49.040 --> 0:04:53.520 American white supremacy, prison as a metaphor for the kind 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:56.760 of problems that black people face in this country. Groups 0:04:56.800 --> 0:05:00.280 like the Black Panther Party picked up or carry on 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:04.719 that tradition. So Malcolm X is assassinated in February nineteen 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:08.640 sixty five, the Panther's form in October nineteen sixty six, 0:05:09.160 --> 0:05:13.200 and a number of members of the Black Panther Party 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:18.479 themselves had been incarcerated, sometimes you know, as juveniles. So 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:22.000 you have people, you know, like Huey Newton, who's a 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:24.760 co founder of the Black Panther Party who had been 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:29.120 incarcerated in what was called the California Youth Authority, which 0:05:29.160 --> 0:05:34.000 is basically the juvenile detension system. Nowadays, it's people maybe 0:05:34.040 --> 0:05:36.919 heard about this idea of like the school the prison pipeline, right, 0:05:37.000 --> 0:05:41.479 of these kinds of connections between underfunded schools and contact 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:44.200 with the legal systems. People tend to think of this 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:46.960 as a kind of recent phenomenon of the last thirty 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:50.000 forty years. But actually, if you look at the treatment 0:05:50.120 --> 0:05:54.279 that black migrants out of the South faced in places 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:58.520 like California, you see this exact thing, right, people living 0:05:58.720 --> 0:06:04.360 in under resourced communities that were heavily policed. That you have, 0:06:04.760 --> 0:06:08.200 you know, kids thirteen years old, eleven years old, eight 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:11.640 years old, going to prison, going to jail, going into 0:06:11.640 --> 0:06:16.080 the legal system. And I think the movement of the 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:20.880 nineteen sixties really helped provide a kind of political context 0:06:20.920 --> 0:06:27.920 and political explanation for why so many impoverished young black 0:06:27.960 --> 0:06:30.760 people in particular were incarcerated. 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:34.760 I'm interested in the reading I have done is that 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:37.919 it seems like there's a strong sort of Marxist element 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:42.159 to the intellectual underpinnings of the movement, at least in 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:45.960 like the late sixties and into the seventies. Where does 0:06:45.960 --> 0:06:47.480 that come from? 0:06:47.839 --> 0:06:50.480 That's not uniformly shared. So that's one thing to keep 0:06:50.520 --> 0:06:52.960 in mind, right that there is a kind of Marxist 0:06:53.640 --> 0:06:58.440 thread within the Radical prison movement, but it's not the 0:06:58.480 --> 0:07:01.960 only thread. But again, I think we have to understand 0:07:02.000 --> 0:07:06.479 this context as one in which there's a popularity to 0:07:07.320 --> 0:07:12.160 Marxism and socialism and communism within different left wing movements 0:07:12.160 --> 0:07:15.480 at the time. So the Black Panther Party is a 0:07:15.480 --> 0:07:20.280 communist organization. Part of the political education that the Panthers 0:07:20.280 --> 0:07:26.080 did included readings and Marxism, and the Panthers had a 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:29.280 big influence on but also learned a lot from the 0:07:29.360 --> 0:07:33.800 Radical prison movement. And so we see someone like George Jackson, 0:07:33.960 --> 0:07:39.040 who is incarcerated in California as a teenager first when 0:07:39.040 --> 0:07:45.080 he was eighteen in nineteen sixty, who becomes this autodidact 0:07:45.640 --> 0:07:50.240 intellectual in prison who is reading Marx and Lenin and 0:07:50.280 --> 0:07:55.680 Trotsky and now as well as some contemporary scholars and 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:57.640 others sort of analyzing those movements. 0:07:58.920 --> 0:08:02.600 George Jackson was a prison revolutionary who was sentenced for 0:08:02.640 --> 0:08:06.560 an indeterminate period of time for stealing seventy dollars from 0:08:06.560 --> 0:08:09.600 a gas station. He was a co founder of the 0:08:09.600 --> 0:08:13.200 Black Gorilla Family, a member of the Black Panthers, and 0:08:13.280 --> 0:08:17.880 an author, most notably of the influential book Soladad Brother. 0:08:18.760 --> 0:08:21.600 He was targeted by guards and prison officials for his 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:25.480 radical influence among prisoners, and was shot to death by 0:08:25.520 --> 0:08:29.480 prison guards during an escape attempt on August twenty first, 0:08:30.040 --> 0:08:32.160 nineteen seventy three. 0:08:32.520 --> 0:08:36.360 People often in the US think about the sixties and 0:08:36.800 --> 0:08:40.119 the radicalism of that time period only in a US context. 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:43.200 I think it's important to understand this globally, that this 0:08:43.280 --> 0:08:46.600 is a time period of revolutionary movements all around the world, 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:50.920 some of them quite successful, and many of them were 0:08:51.640 --> 0:08:56.559 inspired by Marxism in some fashion. So I think particularly 0:08:56.559 --> 0:09:00.839 to someone like George Jackson, who was such a foundational 0:09:00.960 --> 0:09:04.480 thinker to the radical prison movement, not just in California 0:09:04.559 --> 0:09:07.480 but around the country and even around the world. He's 0:09:07.720 --> 0:09:12.080 very inspired by world events. He's looking around at what's 0:09:12.120 --> 0:09:17.160 happening in Angola and South Africa and Vietnam and China 0:09:17.960 --> 0:09:21.440 and engaging with that. He's converson in that. I think 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:25.760 that helps usher in a kind of interests in Marxism 0:09:26.120 --> 0:09:29.200 for some sectors of the radical prison movement. 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:32.400 So I was interested. You said that that wasn't sort 0:09:32.440 --> 0:09:36.040 of universal in that there are other sort of intellectual 0:09:36.080 --> 0:09:39.160 frameworks that people work within. Can you talk a little 0:09:39.160 --> 0:09:40.839 bit about those alternatives. 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:45.199 Some of them are parallel, some of them are overlapping, 0:09:45.360 --> 0:09:49.080 some of them maybe antagonistic. But I think you have, 0:09:49.480 --> 0:09:52.880 particularly by the time we get to the early nineteen seventies, 0:09:53.160 --> 0:09:59.480 you have a strong contingent of Marxists. You have a 0:09:59.559 --> 0:10:04.520 much more more popular set of Black nationalists. Some of 0:10:04.559 --> 0:10:09.680 those Black nationalists were also Marxists, but not all of them, 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:12.599 and I would say the maturity we're not Marxist. I 0:10:12.640 --> 0:10:15.680 think you have other strains of a kind of radical 0:10:15.720 --> 0:10:20.839 ethnic nationalism. So among some of the Chicano prisoners, for instance, 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:24.400 among some of the Indigenous prisoners, I think you see 0:10:24.440 --> 0:10:27.640 different different kinds of radical nationalisms. And again, this is 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:31.640 all very much in conversation with what's happening outside of prison. 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:35.040 This is a time period of Chicano nationalism and Pan 0:10:35.120 --> 0:10:39.440 Indian nationalism as well. I also think you have there's 0:10:39.480 --> 0:10:42.800 a kind of labor movement inside of prison. I've done 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:45.120 a lot of research on California. I know you're focused 0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:47.400 on California. A lot of what we're talking about is 0:10:47.440 --> 0:10:49.880 true elsewhere in the nation. We're talking about California, but 0:10:49.920 --> 0:10:53.240 we could find these dynamics rare least similar dynamics in 0:10:53.240 --> 0:10:56.960 Texas and New York and Pennsylvania, like in Illinois and 0:10:56.960 --> 0:10:59.600 lots of other places. But I think within the labor 0:10:59.600 --> 0:11:03.360 movement in prison, again, some of the Marxist some of 0:11:03.360 --> 0:11:06.680 the radical nationalists are there, but also do just people 0:11:06.679 --> 0:11:09.640 who recognize that they're being fucked over and who want 0:11:09.720 --> 0:11:12.480 things to be different. In some ways, they're not necessarily 0:11:12.520 --> 0:11:18.160 that ideological. They are just exploited and oppressed and desiring 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:21.599 a change. But I also think there's some elements of 0:11:21.679 --> 0:11:25.880 the prison movement that exceed the kind of ideological classifications. 0:11:26.320 --> 0:11:29.800 People are mixed, right, There's some kind of liberalism, there's 0:11:29.840 --> 0:11:33.480 some hyper capitalism right of like, hey, the free market 0:11:33.480 --> 0:11:35.679 says I should be compensated for my labor, and I'm 0:11:35.679 --> 0:11:38.719 not being compensated for my name. It only becomes a 0:11:38.800 --> 0:11:44.640 radical critique because the prison system disallows the remuneration for 0:11:44.679 --> 0:11:48.280 their labor. It's a kind of potpourri. I have different 0:11:48.280 --> 0:11:51.320 ideologies at this time period. But the folks who were 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:55.040 the most vocal and who tended to be the most 0:11:55.720 --> 0:12:00.120 conversant with people who are not incarcerated. It tended to 0:12:00.160 --> 0:12:06.840 be either Marxists or radical nationalists and internationalists, So have 0:12:06.920 --> 0:12:07.840 one kind or another. 0:12:09.160 --> 0:12:12.880 So did you in your research do much on Popeye Jackson? 0:12:13.840 --> 0:12:14.800 Yeah, a little bit. 0:12:15.280 --> 0:12:17.200 What's your kind of take on him and how he 0:12:17.280 --> 0:12:18.880 fits within this universe. 0:12:19.880 --> 0:12:23.400 So one thing that's really important to understand about California 0:12:23.679 --> 0:12:26.680 in some ways, in particular California at this time period, 0:12:26.720 --> 0:12:29.720 although it's not exclusive to California, it's how much the 0:12:29.760 --> 0:12:34.560 prison system is governing through racism. So the prison system 0:12:34.880 --> 0:12:39.560 uses racism as a way to keep people apart and 0:12:40.440 --> 0:12:45.760 to either introduce or foster divisions between incarcerated people. And 0:12:45.800 --> 0:12:50.080 part of that is that prisoners outnumber guards. One way 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:54.120 that prisons maintain social order is through cells. There's the 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:58.240 physical infrastructure that they use. There is the presence of guards. 0:12:58.720 --> 0:13:03.400 By guards implified that by pitting prisoners against each other, 0:13:03.880 --> 0:13:06.720 and race became the way that they did that. And 0:13:06.800 --> 0:13:09.880 to some extent, geography, so where in California people were from, 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:13.640 and so what I think radicals had to do when 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:16.000 George Jackson did this, I think pop I tried to 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:20.520 do this as well, was to bridge those divides, to 0:13:20.600 --> 0:13:23.560 try to get people to work with each other at 0:13:23.640 --> 0:13:27.800 least around some core issues against the prison system. Right, 0:13:27.840 --> 0:13:30.520 this idea that the prison system was the real enemy, right, 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:34.480 whatever differences divide us. Clearly no one was successful in 0:13:34.520 --> 0:13:38.480 that in any kind of grand totalizing way. Papa Jackson 0:13:38.880 --> 0:13:42.120 became a labor organizer in prison, right, So his kind 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:46.400 of organizing that he was doing was through the prisoners 0:13:46.480 --> 0:13:51.280 Union within California. The prisoners Union was divided between folks 0:13:51.320 --> 0:13:55.600 who wanted a kind of revolutionary challenge to the system overall, 0:13:56.120 --> 0:14:01.160 and folks who wanted compensation and better treatment for themselves 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:05.120 for others during their incarceration, but who didn't necessarily contest 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:09.920 the legitimacy of the institution. So I fucked that. I'm 0:14:09.920 --> 0:14:14.440 paying my dues whatever, but I shouldn't be exploited in 0:14:14.480 --> 0:14:16.559 this way. Right, I'm already in prison. I deserve to 0:14:16.559 --> 0:14:18.680 be in prison, but I shouldn't be avoided. And I 0:14:18.679 --> 0:14:22.000 think that was a real profound divide. And there was 0:14:22.080 --> 0:14:26.080 some racial differences on top of that, Like the latter 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:29.080 group was a wider group than the group that was 0:14:29.120 --> 0:14:32.080 sort of trying to wage this kind of revolutionary challenge 0:14:32.080 --> 0:14:36.280 against the prison system and the kind of larger social 0:14:36.400 --> 0:14:40.040 order that it represented. So, you know, I think Popeye 0:14:40.080 --> 0:14:42.720 was kind of in that former camp of like trying 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:45.880 to be involved in this kind of revolutionary movement. But 0:14:46.400 --> 0:14:49.800 my understanding was that he was trying to be more 0:14:49.880 --> 0:14:53.880 conversant with the labor movement or the labor union in 0:14:53.960 --> 0:14:57.200 ways that might also bring in folks that weren't already there, right, 0:14:57.400 --> 0:14:59.920 they weren't already committed to a kind of revolutionary project. 0:15:01.440 --> 0:15:04.800 Can you just kind of expand upon that a little 0:15:04.840 --> 0:15:08.600 bit about what those sort of fracturing disputes were about. 0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:10.840 Are the personalities who are involved in. 0:15:10.800 --> 0:15:14.280 It throughout the decade of the seventies, will put it 0:15:14.280 --> 0:15:17.440 that way. You can find the exact number, but you know, 0:15:17.480 --> 0:15:21.440 there's something like two dozen prisoners are killed and about 0:15:21.480 --> 0:15:25.400 ten guards are killed something like that. That's a lot, 0:15:25.800 --> 0:15:29.280 I'm particularly given that the prison system is nowhere near 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:34.560 as vast as it is today. So you know, California 0:15:34.840 --> 0:15:37.720 doesn't have but a few prisons in this time period, 0:15:38.240 --> 0:15:42.040 and so there were a series of divisions by race. 0:15:42.160 --> 0:15:44.680 As I mentioned, I think a lot of ways the 0:15:44.760 --> 0:15:48.400 story begins, or at least we can to recognize an 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:52.480 origin of the story in the murders of three prisoners 0:15:52.560 --> 0:15:57.760 at Solidad in nineteen seventy. After a long period of 0:15:57.760 --> 0:16:00.000 lockdown right where prisoners weren't allowed out of their sets, 0:16:00.960 --> 0:16:05.280 guards finally let them out, but deliberately let out a 0:16:05.320 --> 0:16:09.560 group of black prisoners and a group of white prisoners, 0:16:10.280 --> 0:16:14.640 including several members of the Aryan Brotherhood white supremacist prison gang. 0:16:15.640 --> 0:16:19.240 Several of the black prisoners were black nationalists who had 0:16:19.240 --> 0:16:22.960 been involved in different protests against racism and segregation in prison. 0:16:23.480 --> 0:16:26.880 And so this was a manufactured fight, and this is 0:16:26.880 --> 0:16:32.000 something that California prison system would become notorious for. Different 0:16:32.080 --> 0:16:37.120 prisons became known informally as gladiator schools because the guards 0:16:37.120 --> 0:16:42.120 were just setting up fights between incarcerated people. So guards 0:16:42.160 --> 0:16:45.520 set up this fight. People have been locked down for months, 0:16:46.080 --> 0:16:47.720 and then they get on the yard and they start 0:16:47.720 --> 0:16:52.760 brawling with each other, and sniper opens fire and kills 0:16:52.840 --> 0:16:58.160 three black prisoners and wounds either one or two white prisoners. 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:03.120 Prisoner, a man named Billy Harris, was shot in the 0:17:03.160 --> 0:17:04.560 groin but survived. 0:17:05.640 --> 0:17:09.239 A few days later, a different guard at Solidad is 0:17:09.640 --> 0:17:12.520 beaten up and thrown off the tier and killed. And 0:17:12.560 --> 0:17:18.280 this inaugurates this idea essentially, of that some prisoners felt 0:17:18.359 --> 0:17:20.920 right that prisoners shouldn't be the only people dying. If 0:17:20.960 --> 0:17:25.040 this is a kind of warlike atmosphere, then prisoners needed 0:17:25.040 --> 0:17:27.960 to fight back in that way. And you know, the 0:17:28.000 --> 0:17:31.840 prison system took that threat very seriously. But I also 0:17:31.880 --> 0:17:35.560 think it entrenched some divisions that already existed. Part of 0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:39.080 how the prison system governs through racism is for the 0:17:39.119 --> 0:17:42.399 prison system to determine that black prisoners, white prisoners, and 0:17:42.520 --> 0:17:46.080 Chicano prisoners hate each other, and Northern Chicano prisoners and 0:17:46.119 --> 0:17:49.040 Southern Chicano prisoners hate each other. Until the California prison 0:17:49.080 --> 0:17:54.280 system delineated four groups, right, white, Black, Northern Mexican Southern Mexican, 0:17:54.680 --> 0:17:57.840 determined that they were at war and treated them as 0:17:57.880 --> 0:18:00.199 if they were at war with each other, right to 0:18:00.200 --> 0:18:03.840 these kinds of fights orchestrated ways in which they would disagree. 0:18:04.440 --> 0:18:07.880 So within that you have these kinds of social formations 0:18:07.960 --> 0:18:11.600 that take root that also think through rates. Right, the 0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:15.960 Aryan Brotherhood is a Neo Nazi organization. You have different 0:18:16.240 --> 0:18:20.479 associations that form among black Mechicano prisoners that are engaged 0:18:20.480 --> 0:18:24.879 in self defense, that are trying to survive. Some of 0:18:24.920 --> 0:18:29.919 them also involve themselves in the illicit economy of the 0:18:29.960 --> 0:18:34.760 prison system. All of those things are grounds for disagreement 0:18:35.080 --> 0:18:40.199 and hostility if different groups are involved in underground economies. There, 0:18:40.200 --> 0:18:45.440 it's the economic competition, but also the self defense training 0:18:45.480 --> 0:18:49.800 that some people are doing gets read as an exacerbation 0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:53.919 of hostilities, right, or ramping up of threats against other people. 0:18:54.440 --> 0:18:58.159 And so you know, I think this really comes to 0:18:58.200 --> 0:19:03.239 define the California prison system of the nineteen seventies in 0:19:03.240 --> 0:19:05.560 some ways beyond in terms of how the state responds. 0:19:05.600 --> 0:19:08.919 But I think what's particular about the seventies is how 0:19:09.600 --> 0:19:13.639 much incarcert people tried to organize themselves. For some people 0:19:13.720 --> 0:19:16.399 that men trying to arm themselves, right, that it wasn't 0:19:16.520 --> 0:19:19.880 just physical you know, the self defense that I could 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:22.920 do with my body, but you know, trying to fashion 0:19:23.600 --> 0:19:25.720 knives or other weapons that could be used in the 0:19:25.760 --> 0:19:28.600 case of attack. I mean, I interviewed people who were 0:19:28.920 --> 0:19:33.240 participating in study groups right where they're reading books together 0:19:33.600 --> 0:19:36.960 and trying to sharpen their mind, as well as conducting 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:40.119 self defense classes, right, trying to train their bodies to 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:45.480 survive that institution. As incarcerator, people became known outside of 0:19:45.480 --> 0:19:50.120 prison and developed support networks who sent letters, sometimes, who 0:19:50.160 --> 0:19:53.240 sent money or other resources, or brought other kinds of attention. 0:19:54.000 --> 0:19:57.240 I think some people were jealous of that, right, some 0:19:57.520 --> 0:20:01.760 people who were poor and desperate and also wanted connections 0:20:01.800 --> 0:20:06.160 with the outside. 0:20:09.760 --> 0:20:14.520 You talked about how this sort of pressured environment led 0:20:14.560 --> 0:20:18.600 to sort of a fracturing of whatever kind of cohesive 0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:22.200 movement there was, and how that I don't know if 0:20:22.200 --> 0:20:26.000 it completely fell apart or just transitioned to something different. 0:20:27.040 --> 0:20:28.919 One of the people who's killed at Solidad that I 0:20:28.960 --> 0:20:31.840 mentioned is a guy named W. C. Nolan, and Nolan 0:20:31.960 --> 0:20:35.359 was a boxing champ. He had helped kind of bring 0:20:35.400 --> 0:20:39.960 together these different kind of informal organizations. George Jackson was 0:20:39.960 --> 0:20:43.159 a part of that, and George Jackson helped them, you know, 0:20:43.240 --> 0:20:46.240 continue that effort. And after he was killed in August 0:20:46.280 --> 0:20:49.440 in nineteen seventy one, it takes on another form, right, 0:20:49.480 --> 0:20:53.080 and that becomes called the black Ela Family. In the 0:20:53.200 --> 0:20:56.879 late seventies, the Black Erila Family splits, and part of 0:20:56.880 --> 0:20:59.560 the split is folks who want to pursue a more 0:20:59.680 --> 0:21:04.080 kind of political and politically radical direction and folks who 0:21:04.119 --> 0:21:08.800 are participating more in the informal economies of the prison system. 0:21:09.640 --> 0:21:13.480 And that's just within one formation, right, But the Black 0:21:13.520 --> 0:21:18.840 Rula family is also constantly at war with the Aryan Brotherhood. 0:21:19.119 --> 0:21:21.200 So I think, right there are these sort of constant 0:21:21.359 --> 0:21:26.000 pressures around leadership and personality even within some of the 0:21:26.080 --> 0:21:29.719 groups that incarcetrate people form. But then also these kind 0:21:29.760 --> 0:21:32.919 of external pressures both from other kind of organized groups 0:21:32.960 --> 0:21:36.119 and then constantly from the guards and from the state. 0:21:37.200 --> 0:21:39.639 This is just almost sort ofing a side question, but 0:21:40.080 --> 0:21:43.360 did the Aryan Brotherhood did they have like a political 0:21:43.440 --> 0:21:45.320 program that they were trying to put forward, or were 0:21:45.359 --> 0:21:50.280 they just as sort of defense sort of criminal organization. 0:21:51.520 --> 0:21:57.000 Yeah, I mean, I think an important part of guns, booze, drugs, sex, 0:21:57.280 --> 0:22:01.480 and probably other weapons in the prison system, certainly all 0:22:01.520 --> 0:22:04.919 of that takes place within a framework of white supremacy, 0:22:05.359 --> 0:22:08.960 so that piece of it is sort of inseparable. But 0:22:09.080 --> 0:22:13.720 whether there is a kind of political perspective, I don't 0:22:13.760 --> 0:22:15.960 know that they're doing study groups, I guess I would say, right, 0:22:16.000 --> 0:22:19.560 the way is that like we see black and some 0:22:19.640 --> 0:22:23.879 of the Chicano and other Latino prisoners are doing steady groups. 0:22:24.520 --> 0:22:26.919 I genuinely don't know. I'm not saying that they that 0:22:26.920 --> 0:22:30.800 they don't, but I haven't seen evidence. That hasn't been 0:22:30.840 --> 0:22:34.600 my purview so much. I think the Arian brother tries 0:22:34.640 --> 0:22:36.640 to recruit white prisoners as soon as they come in, 0:22:37.000 --> 0:22:39.400 so they're not already committed, right. I think they try 0:22:39.440 --> 0:22:44.960 to inculcate white prisoners into being white supremacists, But I 0:22:45.000 --> 0:22:47.600 don't know if there's a kind of political education program 0:22:47.640 --> 0:22:48.000 beyond that. 0:22:49.600 --> 0:22:52.439 I explained to Dan that I'd asked the question because 0:22:52.480 --> 0:22:56.679 of Lynette From's association with the Aryan Brotherhood outside prison 0:22:56.760 --> 0:22:59.920 walls as she tried to help Charles Manson during his InCAR. 0:23:01.320 --> 0:23:06.960 I wondered how they fit into the prison political ecosystem. 0:23:06.080 --> 0:23:09.479 Fair like the main social force in prison that really 0:23:10.280 --> 0:23:13.919 thinks through race and skin color in that way, Like 0:23:14.840 --> 0:23:19.840 the basis of black prison organization is much more three dimensional, 0:23:20.600 --> 0:23:22.639 Like there is a sort of politics there, there is 0:23:22.680 --> 0:23:26.080 a kind of back and forth there. But I think 0:23:26.080 --> 0:23:29.119 the Aaron Brotherhood is much more like the assumption that 0:23:29.200 --> 0:23:31.480 if you're white, you're in this group and trying to 0:23:31.560 --> 0:23:34.840 enforce that quite violently at times. But I know one 0:23:34.880 --> 0:23:38.639 of the white prisoners who was at San Quentin in 0:23:38.680 --> 0:23:42.119 August nineteen seventy one when George Jackson was killed was 0:23:42.160 --> 0:23:45.760 not ideologically a Nazi, but I was told anyway that 0:23:45.800 --> 0:23:48.120 he was close to the Aaron Brotherhood. And I think 0:23:48.160 --> 0:23:51.720 there was just a certain kind of luidity, for lack 0:23:51.760 --> 0:23:54.680 of a better word, right, that there's a defined hierarchy 0:23:54.800 --> 0:23:58.000 to the AB like any structure of its kind, but 0:23:58.040 --> 0:24:00.359 there's also an assumption that white people are going to 0:24:00.400 --> 0:24:03.880 defend and uphold white supremacy in prison that I think 0:24:03.960 --> 0:24:06.040 led people to be sort of close, even if they 0:24:06.040 --> 0:24:09.560 were not official members. But I think, you know, the 0:24:09.600 --> 0:24:14.480 example that you're pointing to is how much the organizations 0:24:14.520 --> 0:24:17.960 and social networks that existed inside of prison tried to 0:24:18.080 --> 0:24:21.840 develop and deepen relationships outside of prison. And I think 0:24:21.880 --> 0:24:24.560 that is it's definitely not unique to this time period, 0:24:24.600 --> 0:24:27.040 but it is an important part of the dynamics of 0:24:27.080 --> 0:24:30.040 that time period. And I think in the late sixties 0:24:30.040 --> 0:24:34.720 early seventies, the Black Panthers give that kind of political 0:24:35.680 --> 0:24:39.360 architecture to that for a lot of black prisoners in California, 0:24:39.760 --> 0:24:44.240 but the Panthers are undergoing their own pressures and assaults 0:24:44.240 --> 0:24:47.200 from the state as well as their own divisions internally 0:24:47.720 --> 0:24:51.679 that make that a lot less possible by the mid seventies. 0:24:52.800 --> 0:24:57.880 It's interesting I was reading a thing about like prisoner celebrity, 0:24:58.480 --> 0:25:02.400 and it did talk about George Jackson, but then also 0:25:02.560 --> 0:25:06.919 like Donald d. Friese as sort of coming out of 0:25:07.440 --> 0:25:12.040 prison with this sort of chrisma of authenticity or something 0:25:12.320 --> 0:25:15.400 for people who sort of ideological bent. 0:25:16.280 --> 0:25:19.600 Yeah, I think that's absolutely a dynamic of what's happening 0:25:19.600 --> 0:25:22.359 in this time period. And I think by the time 0:25:22.520 --> 0:25:26.080 like DeFreeze is on the scene, you know, there's a 0:25:26.119 --> 0:25:33.120 good solid decade of formerly incarcerated people serving. It's very visible, 0:25:33.280 --> 0:25:37.760 identifiable political leaders, right, and I think leaders with a 0:25:37.800 --> 0:25:41.040 lot of principle by in large, we're talking about Malcolm X, 0:25:41.080 --> 0:25:43.880 We're talking about Martin Luther King, right, I mean, he's 0:25:43.920 --> 0:25:47.200 someone who's spent a lot of time in jail, if 0:25:47.240 --> 0:25:51.600 not in prison, And so I think that lends itself 0:25:51.680 --> 0:25:55.679 right to this idea that incarcerated people have a certain 0:25:55.720 --> 0:26:01.199 amount of authenticity from the prison experience. I think that 0:26:01.280 --> 0:26:06.280