Reflecting on the Roots of Black August & George Jackson

This same month a year later, George Jackson was assassinated on August 21, 1971 by prison guards during a prisoner rebellion, and our movement lost one of our most brilliant minds and disciplined revolutionary leaders. 

Years later, prisoners began celebrating Black August by wearing black arm bands and studying events of Black insurgency and liberation to honor Jonathan’s sacrifice in the Marin County shootout, the Soledad Brothers, other political prisoners and freedom fighters. Between sun up and sun down, prisoners began fasting and exercising self-discipline for the entire month to recognize the sacrifice given to and needed for Black Liberation. Overflowing with history of Black-led resistance and insurgency, the month of August holds countless lessons of liberation from the Nat Turner Rebellion, to start of the Haitian Revolution and the abolition of slavery in Jamaica, to the Fugitive Slave Law Convention and the foundation of the Underground Railroad to the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, from the March on Washington to the Watts Uprising, to the arrest of Nelson Mandela, to the Fergusson Rebellion, as well as the births of Marcus Garvey, Russell Maroon Shoatz, Fred Hampton and James Baldwin and the deaths of W.E.B du Bois and the Jackson brothers, and more. 

This Black August many movement organizations and organizers inside and outside of prisons have shared Black Liberation resources for study and reflection all month long.

During this year of pitched collective grief, trauma, anxiety, mass death, righteous rage, and global crisis, we pause to wonder:  If George were still here, what would he say? How would he lead? How would he model unity, self-sacrifice, and discipline for us now? 

As this Black August now comes to a close, Critical Resistance continues our work generating political education and movement resources for abolition inside and outside of prisons, building off our organizing to close jails in the Bay Area and Los Angeles, while fighting to defund and dismantle policing in Oakland and Portland. As we conclude this month of study and reflection, we want to uplift the roots of Black August originating from prisoner resistance and honor the sacrifice prisoners have made for all of our movements.

Let us, whether we are meeting this moment by supporting mutual aid efforts to support people get basic needs met during the COVID crisis, fighting for public health or housing for all, organizing to defund police departments, standing in solidarity with Palestine or the Philippines against colonization and imperialism, hustling to provide some semblance of quality education in remote schooling, or grinding to save the planet from climate disaster—recognize the interconnectedness of our struggles and the centrality of prisoners in generating the strategies, tactics, analyses and sacrifices we use in each fight we wage.

As George Jackson said:

“Right now, we are in a peak cycle. There’s tremendous energy out there, directed against the state. It’s not all focused, but it’s there, and it’s building. Maybe this will be sufficient to accomplish what we must accomplish over the fairly short run. We’ll see, and we can certainly hope that this is the case. But perhaps not. We must be prepared to wage a long struggle. If this is the case then we’ll probably see a different cycle, one in which the revolutionary energy of the people seems to have dispersed, run out of steam. But – and this is important- such cycles are deceptive. Things appear to be at low ebb, but actually what’s happening is a period of regroupment, a period in which we step back and learn from the mistakes made during the preceding cycle.”  

Onward, toward liberation,

Critical Resistance