Benny Schaft, Workers World.
“What I do feel is the urge to resist, resist and never stop resisting or even think of stopping my resistance until victory falls to me.” (“Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson,” 1970)
These words, written by revolutionary George Jackson 56 years ago in 1970 while he was being held as a political prisoner of the state, sum up what Black August is to the Black comrade, in the struggle for not only the liberation of the working class, but the liberation of Black people. Since the inception of both capitalism and the creation of the white supremacist structure, Black people have been singled out as an important revolutionary and dangerous section of the working class.
This is why Black August is so important to the Black community. But to truly understand why this is the case, we must look at the history of Black August.
That history goes much deeper than we know now, especially concerning the revolutionary actions of comrades like George Jackson, Jonathan Jackson and so many others. Black August goes back much further than that, with its roots in the tradition of Black resistance and the repression waged against that resistance. This is seen in the history of August, tracing back to Aug. 20, 1619, when the enslavers’ ship, The White Lion, arrived in Virginia bringing with it 20 to 30 kidnapped Black comrades from Africa.
The arrival of Black Africans jump-started the first wave of enslavement in the belly of the beast, which bourgeois historians claim was abolished in 1865 in the aftermath of the Civil War. This is false, because the ruling class found another way to continue enslavement by using the prison-industrial complex to exploit prisoners and keep the institution going. Many of the people currently held in the prison-industrial complex are comrades of color, especially many being Black.
Of course, one of the key things about Black August is that its history is very much centered on two vital moments having to do with the exploitation of prisoners and the racism of the prison system: the cases of Jonathan Jackson and his brother, George Jackson. The latter’s short life was spent as a political prisoner, who was suffering the same fate of being brutalized for being Black, Latine, working-class or part of another oppressed section of the proletariat.
This led to 17-year-old Jonathan Jackson’s Aug. 7, 1970, attempt to liberate his brother and other comrades being held and exploited at the hands of the prison system, which the capitalist class still enthusiastically supports. Jonathan Jackson was murdered on that day.
The state ordered the deaths of both comrades, with George Jackson assassinated in San Quentin prison on Aug. 21, 1971. Yet it was the state that created the conditions that led to George Jackson becoming a political prisoner and Jonathan Jackson leading the attempt to free him. And contrary to propaganda, neither Jonathan nor any of the comrades who took part in what happened at the Marin County courthouse murdered or harmed any of the hostages they took. It was law enforcement who did, ignoring calls not to shoot.
Racist violence a state policy
The killings of Jonathan and George Jackson are not isolated incidents. but the official policy of the state when it comes to Black people becoming revolutionized or resisting the aggression of the capitalist class and its weapon of white supremacy, which continues to superexploit Black workers. An example of this is the Watts Rebellion, which began Aug. 16, 1965, in Los Angeles when Black comrades rebelled against the material conditions they were put under. During the Rebellion, 34 people were killed and thousands more injured or arrested.
The police serve as an occupying force, one meant to stop any type of radicalism or organizing among Black people. It was for this purpose that the state responded the way it did during the Watts Rebellion, just as it did in the case of George Jackson and Jonathan Jackson, with nothing less than violence. This was especially clear when the state called in 14,000 members of the California Army National Guard to suppress the rebellion, which led to the state further increasing its occupation of the Black community in Los Angeles.
From the time of the Rebellion to now, as many Black revolutionaries have said throughout history, the Black community of Los Angeles remains the most heavily policed area in the city.
The Los Angeles Police Department began its terror campaign against the Black Panther Party (BPP) on Aug. 25, 1968, by murdering three party members — Robert Lawrance, Steve Bartholomew and Tommy Lewis — after they, along with Steve Bartholomew’s brother Anthony Bartholomew, were followed by police.
Repression breeds resistance
Whenever there is repression, there will always come resistance and resilience. This was shown on August 14, 1791, when the enslaved people of Saint- Domingue in Haiti rose up against the plantation class and began the steps toward liberation in what would become known as the Haitian Revolution. In winning the Revolution, the Haitian people defeated not only the French but the British and other imperial forces to remain free.
This would go on to inspire many of the rebellions that happened in the U.S. in August, including Gabriel’s Rebellion in 1800 and Nat Turner’s rebellion in 1831. Even before both of those revolts, in 1768, members of the maroon colony in Charleston, South Carolina, successfully defended themselves against enslavers who attempted to capture them.
So now you must wonder: What does all of this have to do with the terror being waged against Black people today, as the state ramps it up? This has everything to do with today, especially with understanding why the state engages in the violence it wages against the Black community. From birth to adulthood, Black people understand that the system and the ruling class are neither friend nor ally to their community, but always oppressor and exploiter.
Oppression is on full display in the number of Black people who have lost their lives this year alone because of the ruling class — especially the youth, who the state has always made it its mission to murder and repress the most. It is the Black youth who inherit the radical Black tradition and have always made it their mission to organize and become more revolutionized and to revolutionize more comrades in the community to help in the struggle for Black liberation.
An example of this was the BPP, a majority of whose members were the youth of the Black community. Many other revolutionaries in the struggle for African liberation and the Pan-African movement, like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) during the Civil Rights Movement, were Black working-class youth.
This is why you see the state engaging in the lynching of young Black people, not because of what the ruling class says in the propaganda they would have people believe, such as crime, or Black people being supposedly more violent, but merely because Black youth will always inherit the Black radical tradition.
This tradition has been passed down from the rebellions carried out by enslaved people and the actions of the maroons to the revolutionary activity of figures like George Jackson, Jonathan Jackson, Fannie Lou Hamer, Walter Rodney, Ella Baker and so many others. The state’s practice of legal lynching is shown by the recent murders of 17-year-old Antoneil Willams II, 19-year-old Kadir Skinner, 16-year-old Juliana Nzita and 18-year-old Nolan Wells. The cops even murdered an infant in the case of one-year-old Kohen Wiley.
So now this begs the question: What do we do? How do we stop these lynchings, these pogroms against our Black people, from continuing? We do what we always do, which is to continue to stress solidarity and organize with Black siblings without any type of paternalism, and allow Black comrades to have more leadership of the anti-racist movement. Comrades who are the most oppressed and vulnerable and who understand how the system functions are the ones who best know what is to be done.
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