African-American left-wing activist and author George Jackson.

George Jackson

(1941 - 1971)

Having been arrested for attempted robbery twice, George Jackson before his twentieth birthday was convicted of stealing seventy-one dollars from a gas station and received a one-year-to-life sentence in 1960. When a white guard was killed in 1970, Jackson, along with two other black inmates, was accused of the murder. They became known as the “Soledad Brothers,” their plight resonating with celebrities and grassroots organizations. Jackson was killed one year later, either in an armed insurrection or an assassination.

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An electoral choice of ten different fascists is like choosing which way one wishes to die.

—George Jackson, 1971

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