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George Jackson was murdered by prison guards on August 21, 1971. Half a century later, his story deserves to be known by a new generation of activists. Jackson was born on September 23, 1941, in Chicago. He was raised by a loving mother and father, and given particular attention by his grandfather, George “Papa” Davis. But at age 15, Jackson was imprisoned at a youth facility in California after several juvenile convictions. “Capture, imprisonment, is the closest to being dead that one is likely to experience in this life,” Jackson later wrote in his book Soledad Brother . “When told to do something, I simply played the idiot and spent my time reading. The absentminded bookworm, I was in full revolt by the time seven months were up.” At age 18, Jackson was convicted on dubious evidence of a gas station robbery of $70. “I was captured and brought to prison when I was 18 years old because I couldn’t adjust,” he would later write. ...

  The night of September 8, 1971, was a sleepless one for the men of Cell Block A. Hours before, a fight had broken out between guards and two popular inmates, who were later dragged off to solitary confinement - “the box” - as punishment. One man yelled a final promise to the guards: “We’ll get you in the morning, motherfuckers!” And so they did.   The next morning a fight broke out, a strategically placed heavy metal bolt broke, tear-gas launchers and baseball helmets seized, and 40 guards taken hostage. It was September 9, 1971, and the Attica uprising had begun.   Given the horrendous conditions in Attica, and the larger social and political context of the time, the uprising was less than a surprise for all involved. A year earlier, inmates at Auburn prison went on strike, and then took fifty hostages, to protest a number of abuses. All prisoners involved were mercilessly beaten by guards after Auburn was recaptured.   In July, New York Correctio...