By: Lucaiah Smith-Miodownik, News Writer

Content warning: mentions of police brutality and homicides.

On February 24, SFU Students of African and Caribbean Ancestry (SOCA), Simon Fraser Public Interest Research Group (SFPIRG), and Canada-Phillipines Solidarity for Human Rights (CPSHR) joined together to host a screening of Black August. Beginning in the 1970s, Black August became a time when people commemorate “the lives and deaths of Black political prisoners killed by the state, bring awareness to prison conditions, and honour the radical tradition of Black resistance against anti-Black state violence systemic oppression.” The film follows the true story of George Jackson, an American Black man jailed at age 18 for the alleged theft of $70 from a gas station in the early ‘60s. Despite his original sentence of one year to life, he remained behind bars for over 10 years as a political prisoner due to his integral role in the Black Power movement. Jackson co-founded Black Guerrilla Family, a “radical political organization” intertwined with the Black Panther Party. 

The Black Power movement, most prominent in the 1960s and ‘70s, emerged in response to white supremacy and emphasized “Black pride and self-determination” through cultural, economic, political, and legal means. The Black Panther Party, officially the Black Panther Party for Self–Defense, grew through the ‘60s as a prominent organization within the movement, dedicated to empowering Black people by combatting police brutality through self-defence, while also promoting ideas of socialism and Black nationalism. The Black Guerilla family, while espousing many similar ideas to the Black Panther Party, operated primarily within the confines of prison.

Muna Mavhima, Noëll Cousins, and Luthfi Mawarid were at the screening representing SOCA, SFPIRG, and CPSHR respectively. SOCA is committed to providing a “welcoming space for people of the varied African and Caribbean Heritages and their descendants,” while also welcoming all students to advance their fight against oppression and systemic racism. One of their more recent efforts was in 2021 when they “helped advocate for the Black Faculty Cluster Hiring of at least 15 Black Faculty, the first institutional SFU-Black Student Center, more Black mental health resources on campus, and also the signing of the National Charter Anti-Black Racism.” SFPIRG is “a student-funded and student-directed resource centre dedicated to social and environmental justice.” One initiative they are involved in is “Letter for the Inside” — “a nationally-recognized project where student researchers respond to research requests from prisoners.” CPSHR is a “Vancouver-based anti-imperialist organization in support of National Democracy in the Philippines,” not connected to SFU. They recently advocated for the release of Marklen Maojo (Maoj) Maga — a political prisoner — and all 755 other Filipino political prisoners on the seventh anniversary of Maga’s “wrongful incarceration.”

In a joint Instagram post, the three organizations wrote that Jackson “was a brilliant revolutionary whose legacy is too often forgotten on the imperialist airways.” According to Cousins, the director of engagement at SFPIRG, Black August isn’t streamed on many platforms, “which is intentional” as Jackson’s “ideas were very threatening to the state apparatus.” The film is co-directed and produced by the late TCinque Sampson, whose family granted permission for the SFU screening.

“A brilliant revolutionary whose legacy is too often forgotten on the imperialist airways.” — SOCA, SFPIRG, and CPSHR

The film chronicles the last 14 months of Jackon’s life in Soledad Prison, California while also exposing events on the outside involving those close to him. From 1896, “Plessy v. Ferguson,” a US court decision,  segregated Black and white people by law, with racial segregation in prisons continuing today. On January 13, 1970, when a racially mixed group of prisoners at Soledad Prison were brought to the prison yard together, an altercation quickly ensued. Prison authorities “made no moves to prevent violence.” One guard stationed above in a gun tower fired into the yard, “killing three Black prisoners and wounding one white.” Three days later, the guard was found innocent and the murders were deemed “justifiable homicide.”

Later that day, a guard in Soledad Prison was found dead. Jackson, along with prisoners Fleeta Drumgo and John Wesley Clutchette were accused of the murder, despite a lack of evidence. The three came to be known as the Soledad Brothers. Six months later, with the case still ongoing, Jackson’s younger brother Johnathon Jackson was shot and killed by law enforcement in a botched hostage attempt designed to force authorities to free the three men. 

Soon after, George Jackson’s book titled Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson was published with the help of Gregory Armstrong, an editor with Bantam Books. The work contains letters from Jackson from 1964–70 and is “an outspoken condemnation of the racism of white America and a powerful appraisal” of the prison system he was in. Soledad Brother includes writings to Angela Davis, who was also heavily involved in the Black Panther Party. Today, Davis remains a prominent political activist and scholar whose writings on intersectional feminism laid the groundwork for current activism. She also founded Critical Resistance, “an organization working to abolish the prison-industrial complex.” Less than a year later, in 1971, Jackson himself was shot and killed by a guard in an alleged attempt to escape prison.

After the film screening, the hosts led a brief discussion of Jackson’s legacy. Cousins spoke about how the aftermath of Jackson’s death saw prison riots, notably the Attica prison uprising. Inmates, inspired by Jackson’s revolutionary thoughts, revolted against inhumane conditions. Arthur Harrison, an Attica inmate “sentenced to five years in Attica in 1971,” told NPR that “Black prisoners were treated especially severely,” reminding him “of the things [he] used to hear about on plantations in slavery.” She also explained how the film preceded the War on Drugs that began in the 1970s, a federal initiative which utilized law enforcement and the legal system to penalize those in possession of drugs, disproportionately affecting Black communities. 

For more upcoming events, you can visit SFPIRG, SOCA, and CPSHR on Instagram.