John,

August 21 is the date the State assassinated George Jackson at San Quentin prison, in 1971. The final bullet ripped through the top of his head. George was the Field Marshal of the Black Panther Party. 10,000 came to his funeral.

We who knew him wept. We who called him Comrade George pledged our lives to his legacy, a legacy Black Panther Party leader and co-founder Huey P. Newton defined in his eulogy for George:

... And we will raise our children to be like George Jackson, to live like George Jackson, and to fight for freedom, as George Jackson fought for freedom...George once said that the oppressor is very strong...and he might beat us down to our very knees, he might push us to the ground, but it will be physically impossible for the oppressor to go on. At some point his legs will get tired, and when his legs get tired, then George Jackson and the People will tear his knee caps off....

George was murdered by San Quentin prison guards, on behalf of the State of California and the United States government and the corporations that control the government, because he had taken center stage in the struggle for the freedom of black and all other oppressed people. Millions of people in the United States and in China and in Cuba and in South Africa and elsewhere in the world were listening to George Jackson. Millions were studying his book Soledad Brother, which magnificently and clearly articulated that prisoners like him, the black and brown and poor, were only living in a prison inside a prison—the racist, capitalist Empire of the United States of America. Millions saw that George was setting the example, that it was the duty of prisoners on both sides of the Wall to “settle our differences” and unite in a struggle, an armed struggle, to liberate ourselves from poverty and hunger and all other forms of our suffering and oppression, and take down the source of our misery, the American Empire, “thoroughly, wholly, absolutely, and completely.”

Lest we forget.

Black Lives Matter imagines a world where Black people across the diaspora thrive, experience joy, and are not defined by their struggles. In pursuing liberation, we envision a future fully divested from police, prisons, and all punishment paradigms and which invests in justice, joy, and culture. Email is the most important way we keep in touch with our supporters. But we know there's a lot going on. If you’d like to receive fewer emails, you can do so by clicking here.

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