fallen comrade: eulogy for George Jackson, 1971

George Jackson had genius. Genius is rare enough and should be treasured, but when genius is combined in a Black man with revolutionary passion and vision, the Establishment will cut him down. Comrade Jackson understood this. He knew his days were numbered and was prepared to die as a true believer in revolutionary suicide. For eleven years he insisted on remaining free in a brutal prison system. All along he resisted the authorities and encouraged his brothers in prison to join him. The state retaliated: parole was continually refused; solitary confinement was imposed on him for seven years; threats on his life were frequent—from guards, from inmates who called themselves “Hitler’s Helpers,” from “knife thrusts and pick handles of faceless sadistic pigs.” And finally they murdered him.

In the months before his death everything began to close in. He was one of the few prisoners who was shackled and heavily guarded for his infrequent trips to the visitors’ room. Attempts on his life became almost daily occurrences. But he never gave in or retreated. Prison was the crucible that shaped his spirit, and George often used the words of Ho Chi Minh to describe his resistance: “Calamity has hardened me and turned my mind to steel.”

I knew him like a brother. At first, I knew him only spiritually, through his writing and his legend in the prison system, when I was at the Penal Colony and he was at Soledad. Then, not long after my arrival, I received through the prison grapevine a request from George to join the Black Panther Party. It was readily granted. George was made a member of the People’s Revolutionary Army, with the rank of general and field marshal. For the next three years we were in constant communication by means of messages carried by friends and lawyers and inmates transferred from one prison to another. Despite the restrictions of the prison system, we managed to transmit our messages on paper and on tapes. Among George’s contributions to the Party were articles he wrote for The Black Panther newspaper, which furthered our revolutionary theory and provided inspiration for all the brothers. In February, 1971, I received this letter from him:

2/21/71

Comrade Huey,

Things are quiet here now, tonight we have discipline and accord, tomorrow all may fly apart again—but that’s us.

I have two articles that I would like to be put in the paper, one following the other by a week. The one on Angela first. Then if you approve, I would like to contribute something to the paper every week or whenever you have space for me.

If yes, let me know if there is any area in particular you would like me to cover (comment on).

Then do I comment as observer or participant?

One favor—please don’t let anyone delete the things I say or change them around, I don’t need an editor, unless what I say is not representative of the Party Line, don’t let anyone change a word. When I make an ideological error of course correct it to fit the party’s position. And don’t let them shorten or condense; if something is too long, part one-part two it.

If you want to use me to say nasty things about those who deserve it, it may be best for me to comment as an observer, that way less contradictions between yourself and people you may have to work with.

You told _______ that you and I had a “misunderstanding” once but that it was cleared up. When was it that we misunderstood each other?

Be very careful of messages or any word that has supposed to have come from me. I really don’t recall any misunderstanding.

People lie for many reasons.

Try to memorize my handwriting, that is how all messages will come in the future (if we have a future).

Did you know that Angela and I were married a while back? And I had almost pulled her all the way into our camp, just before Eldridge made that statement?

I had done so well in fact that C.P. tried to cut our contacts, attacked my sanity in little whispers and looks in conversing with her, and cut off my paid subscription to their two newspapers.

Strange, that they would be afraid of the F.B.I., and not afraid of the Cat. Perhaps they’ve reached an understanding. Some of them anyway.

Is ____ C.P.? Man, what’s happening with her. She has no control at all of her mouth. Or ego.

Arrange for a good contact or write and seal messages with a thumbprint. I have ideas I’d like to leave with you all.

Thanks Brother for helping us. Beautiful, hard, disciplined brothers in here, I’d like to deliver them to you someday.

George

In the last three years of his life Comrade Jackson felt sustained and supported by the Black Panther Party. He had struggled alone for so long to raise the consciousness of Black inmates, and his example encouraged thousands who were weaker and less intrepid than he. But the price he paid in alienation and reprisals was fearsome. Within the Party he was no longer alone; he became part of a burgeoning and invincible revolutionary liberation movement. In his second book, Blood in My Eye, he expressed this faith: “The Black Panther Party is the largest and most powerful political force existing outside establishment politics. It draws this power from the people. It is the people’s natural, political vanguard.”

George asked the Party to publish his first book, Soledad Brother, but in the difficult negotiations between go-betweens and without direct contact, the arrangements fell through. To make sure this mistake would never happen again, he left his estate and all his writings to the Party. More important, he bequeathed us his spirit and his love.

George’s funeral was held in Oakland on August 28, 1971—exactly one week after his murder—at St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church, pastored by Father Earl Neil. A crowd of about 7,000 friends gathered to pay their last respects to our fallen comrade, and the Black Panther Party had a large contingent of comrades on hand to handle the crowd and protect the Jackson family. I arrived at the church shortly before the funeral cortege. The second-floor sanctuary was empty, but from the window I could see the crowd stretching for more than a block in each direction, filling every available space and closing off the streets to motor traffic.

A number of Black Panthers sat talking quietly downstairs. Occasionally they relieved the comrades who were controlling the crowd and directing traffic outside. The children from the Intercommunal Youth Institute were there, and although they had been in the building since early morning, they did not complain of weariness. The children felt the loss of George deeply; when they had learned of his death the previous week, all of them had written messages of condolence to his mother. They loved George, and in their faces I could see their determination to grow up and fulfill his dreams of liberation.

Tensions were high. We had received many threats the previous week, from prison guards, from police, and from many others, stating that the funeral would not be held, and if it was, there would be cause for more funerals of Black Panthers. We were ready for anything. The comrades were angry about the threats, and they were righteously angry about the continued oppression of the poor and Black people who live in this land. You could see it in their faces, in their measured, firm strides, in their clenched fists, and in their voices as they greeted the hearse with shouts of “Power to the People” and “Long Live the Spirit of George Jackson.”

When the funeral cortege arrived, Bobby and I prepared to meet the people in it as they entered the door of the church. It was the first time Bobby and I had shared a public platform in over four years, but there was no cause for rejoicing. We said nothing to each other; we knew only too well what the other was thinking.

As the casket bearing the body of Comrade George was brought into the sanctuary, a song was playing—Nina Simone singing “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free.” Inside the church the walls were ringed with Black Panthers carrying shotguns. George had said that he wanted no flowers at his funeral, only shotguns. In honoring his request we were also protecting his family and all those who were dedicated to carrying on in his spirit. Any person who entered that sanctuary with the purpose of starting some madness would know that he did not stand a chance of going very far. In death, even as in life, George thought about the best interests of his companions.

Father Neil made a short but powerful statement about the lesson of George Jackson’s death, that Black people would have to get off their knees and take their destiny in their own hands. Bobby read some of the many messages from around the world, Elaine Brown sang “One time’s too much to tell any man that he’s not free,” and I delivered the eulogy, which went in part:

George Jackson was my hero. He set a standard for prisoners, political prisoners, for people. He showed the love, the strength, the revolutionary fervor characteristic of any soldier for the people. He inspired prisoners, whom I later encountered, to put his ideas into practice and so his spirit became a living thing. Today I say that although George’s body has fallen, his spirit goes on, because his ideas live. And we will see that these ideas stay alive, because they’ll be manifested in our bodies and in these young Panthers’ bodies, who are our children. So it’s a true saying that there will be revolution from one generation to the next. This was George’s legacy, and he will go on, he will go on into immortality, because we believe that the people will win, we know the people will win, as they advance, generation upon generation.

What kind of standard did George Jackson set? First, he was a strong man, without fear, determined, full of love, strength, and dedication to the people’s cause. He lived a life that we must praise. No matter how he was oppressed, no matter how wrongly he was done, he still kept the love for the people. And this is why he felt no pain in giving up his life for the people’s cause. . . .

Even after his death, George Jackson is a legendary figure and a hero. Even the oppressor realizes this. To cover their murder they say that George Jackson killed five people, five oppressors, and wounded three in the space of thirty seconds. You know, sometimes I like to overlook the fact that this would be physically impossible. But after all George Jackson is my hero. And I would like to think that it was possible; I would be very happy thinking that George Jackson had the strength because that would have made him superman. (Of course, my hero would have to be a superman.) 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’s last statement, the example of his conduct at San Quentin on that terrible day, left a standard for political prisoners and for the prisoner society of racist, reactionary America. He left a standard for the liberation armies of the world. He showed us how to act. He demonstrated how the unjust would be criticized by the weapon. And this will certainly be true, because the people will take care of that. George also said once that the oppressor is very strong and he might beat him down, he might beat us down to our very knees, he might crush 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 kneecaps off….

So we will be very practical. We won’t make statements and believe the things the prison officials say—their incredible stories about one man killing five people in thirty seconds. We will go on and live very realistically. There will be pain and much suffering in order for us to develop. But even in our suffering, I see a strength growing. I see the example that George set living on. We know that all of us will die someday. But we know that there are two kinds of death, the reactionary death and the revolutionary death. One death is significant and the other is not. George certainly died in a significant way, and his death will be very heavy, while the deaths of the ones that fell that day in San Quentin will be lighter than a feather. Even those who support them now will not support them in the future, because we’re determined to change their minds. We’ll change their minds or else in the people’s name we’ll have to wipe them out thoroughly, wholly, absolutely, and completely.

ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE.

All words are inadequate to express the pain one feels over a fallen comrade. But in a poem my brother Melvin came closer than anyone in voicing our feelings about the loss of George Jackson:

We Called Him the General

 

The sky is blue,
Today is clear and sunny.
The house that George once
lived in headed for the
grave,
While the Panther spoke
of the spirit.
I saw a man move catlike
across the rooftops,
Glide along the horizons,
Casting no shadow,
only chains into the sea,
using his calloused hands
and broken feet to
smash and kick down
barriers.
The angels say his name
is George Lester Jackson—
El General.