The United States of America purports itself as a hub of democracy, wielded by citizens and ever shaped by their activism. Our History textbooks narrate this American exceptionalism, while National holidays celebrate the image of a revolutionary society. The activism around the early 1970’s that rose from the prisoner population has been systematically ignored, confused, and forgotten. We as free citizens in the U.S. are encouraged to forget not only the insidious nature of the prison industry, but also the humanity of those who are imprisoned. In spite of the system that was built to silence their humanity, prisoners have taken meaningful action to advocate for themselves and the communities they represent. The activism of self-advocacy within prison materializes in different forms, from prison uprisings, participation in educational programs, prisoner-built programming, as well as prison artifacts such as writing, newspapers, pod-casts, art, etc. These forms of self-advocacy amplify the voices of those within prison, which answer the call of the American imperative.
Prisoner activism had its origins in the radical politics of the early 1970’s. This can be seen in the impact of global social justice movements on the political consciousness and involvement of prisoners around this time. In the transition between the 1960’s to the 1970’s, the civil rights movement catapulted the U.S. into an intense reckoning between the citizenry and the government. Social activism and protests ranged from pro-racial movements, to anti-war movements, to feminism and more. Particularly around the early 1970’s these movements took on more radical terms. These movements impacted every-day citizens; it should be no surprise, then, that these movements inspired the prison population.
The ethnic minority prisoners, who made up a majority of the prison population by the 1970s, were impacted by the movements of the time because they spoke directly to their experience as black and brown folk. In alignment with these movements, the prisoners found parallels between their imprisonment and the systemic racism which was being actively exposed in the public sphere. Dr. Daniel Glaser, a professor of sociology at USC in 1971, at the time reflected on the rise of the “politcalization of prisoners” in the U.S. in the aftermath of both the San Quentin and Attica prison uprisings in a piece he wrote for the Los Angeles Times. He observed that while trends of an increase in prison riots operated in waves throughout U.S. history, the 1970’s riots were note-worthy due to their connection with the “third-world” activism of the time. Then, an identifier for racial and ethnic minorities in the us, the “third-world” was a movement amongst people of color who wanted to fight against global systems of imperialism. Glaser observes that due to the rise in the popularization of political activism many prisoners begin to claim political motivations. Ethnic minority prisoners do this, he says, because it “reduces their isolation and sense of degradation,” (2). He basically argues that prisoners of the 1970s have taken on what he describes as a political façade, which allows the “minority group inmates” a “stage for playing heroic leadership roles.”
I disagree with Glaser’s observation that the prisoners claim to political activism and agency was not to be taken as serious activism. Although Glaser does recognize historical precedence of marginalized racial groups being imrisoned, “due to generations of poverty and undereducation, plus prejudice in hiring even those who are educated” (1), he denies these systems qualify prisoners as “political prisoners”, because of an assumed oppression that a prisoner can use to re-interpret their punishment. I argue that the prisoner’s adoption of political rhetoric and stances is given too much attention. Although the political nature of prisoner activism is essential, it is often manipulated in ways that draw attention away from the environment of the prison which necessitates a strong response from prisoners.1 The activism which influenced them at the time was the language that helped them articulate the realities of their lives as prisoners. Whether it was the bad conditions of the prisons themselves, or larger systemic issues that linked the prison system to other systems of oppression. The growth in political activism amongst prisoners is valid and should be taken seriously.
The San Quentin and Attica Uprisings
The uprisings at San Quentin and Attica prisons in the summer of 1971 were the violent culmination of the organized and non-violent prisoner activism that preceded them. Although both events involved violence, the conditions and culture of the prison environment pre-determined their violent conclusions. This is especially true since prisoners at San Quentin and Attica had a very recent history of self-advocacy and activism which took the forms of sit-downs, letters to the warden and head of the CDCR, all motivated by overwhelming amounts of prisoner demands for reform. I cite the long negotation period in the beginning of the Attica uprising as evidence.2 There is evidence that points to both the validity of this activism amongst prisoners, as well as life-or-death threats against such activism within prisons. As Karen Wald Explains in her article, The San Quentin Six Case: Perspective and Analysis, prisoners were often controlled through rewards, punishments (both official and unofficial), as well as indirect and direct killings (233). This prison culture of prison control intensified during the late 1960s and early 1970s because of the political organization of prisoners at the time. Wald states that guards would target political prisoners for assassination, “those involved in organizing within prisons. Muslims and militant blacks bore the brunt of this,” (234). The most upsetting part about this is that prisoners had no power to stop this kind of violence against them. Since prisoners lacked the ability to protect themselves through traditional means, they expanded the Convict Code, a self-defense measure created by the prison population.
The evolution of the Convict Code itself applies to the uprisings at San Quentin, since the San Quentin uprising was a reaction to the death of George Jackson. The Convict Code itself originally was only meant to apply to other prisoners, to prevent snitching to higher authorities. The expansion of the convict code around the 1960s united the prisoners themselves against the guards and administrators of the prison. The Convict Code worked the same way, but with different players, Wald states, “If a member of your “class” were injured or killed, you had the right and responsibility to strike out against any member of the opposing “class,” ( 234). It is important to understand that given the existing prison conditions, prisoners felt this action was necessary, and indeed probably the only way to make guards hesitate when harming another inmate (235). There is much debate about the motivations and organized nature of the San Quentin Uprisings, whether it was an escape attempt by Jackson, or a cover-up of his assassination. Given the existence of the Convict Code however, the connection between the killing of George Jackson, a well-known prisoner regarded as a political leader amongst prisoners, the violence which occurred is not coincidental or unprecedented. The impact of Jackson’s death was also felt in Attica, where a large majority of the prisoners fasted for a day after the event at San Quentin.3 Although the motivation of the Convict Code is less direct with the Attica Uprising, the connection between the two is often cited and recognized in the coverage of the uprisings themselves.
Prison Education Programs
Educational programs, and demands for good educational programs, are also a form of self-advocacy for prisoners because they help prisoners develop tools for self-advocacy. In her Journal Article titled “Academics Belong in Prisons” Judy Lewen brings to light the need for quality education programs within American prisons, by detailing her intimate knowledge within San Quentin. When she began to teach as a part of the San Quentin College Program, founded back in 1996, she was surprised by how she was influenced by society’s conditioned outlook on prisoners, “Simply put, I was fascinated by their aliveness and their humanity, because these were the qualities I was conditioned to least expect,” (691). This description of the desire of prisoners to participate in these programs shows their interest in gaining tools and skills that could help them build up their own futures.
Beyond just re-building educational skills, these academic programs build skills in “self-expression, collaboration, disagreement and debate. All these are critical to their future personal and professional success,” (692). Lewen directly identifies the application of these abilities and skills that open up an opportunity for the students to “…interpret and articulate personal and community experiences that have…been felt but hardly expressed or analyzed,” (692). I argue this reference to “personal and community experiences” parallels self-advocacy initiatives. Ultimately these educational programs facilitate the prisoner’s actions towards building futures for themselves, and the larger communities they feel connected to. This is especially important if we consider how the prison system continually builds roadblocks for prisoners to approach such future-building. These educational programs cultivate avenues for them to construct futures for themselves and as an effect promote a form of sustainable self-advocacy.
Prison Writing
Writing within prison is a tool of self-advocacy because such writing can be used to document and critique prison conditions. Doran Larson in “Towards a Prison Poetics” does establish that writing within prison is a tool which prisoners can use to advocate for themselves, their communities, and political causes they fight for or represent. She applies this to the global population of prisoners who, “..by writing each in their own way, by responding both to the fixed schematic of power and to the singular characteristics of their particular conditions and treatment,” manage to expose the failures of the justice system (152). She highlights the validity of prison writing that come from both political activists who were imprisoned for such activism, as well as those who developed their political consciousness while in prison. She chooses to compare multiple writers such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Wole Soyinka, who were prophets of political movements when they were sent to jail, with Eldridge Cleaver and George Jackson who became self-conscious writers while within prison (154). Larson’s observation offers a counter-point to Glasers observations in his news article. Even though men like Cleaver and Jackson developed political consciousness while in prison, they added meaningful insight into the life of the prisoner in relation to their black identities. Their works added to the activism of the time.
The act of writing itself within prison, no matter if it answers to larger political issues or goals, is another form of self-advocacy that is redemptive for the prisoner. As Larson observes, the incarceration system overtakes the prisoner with documents and written word, “The prison writer is a heavily documented and materially mapped writer,” (146). Specifically, prisoners are accounted for in “constitutions, bills of rights, the body of legal theory and practice, and the records of a particular case; after sentencing, s/he is a numbered body…then located…as numbered cell-assignment,” (146). They cease being a person, and instead become a non-entity, something that is talked about and debated but never considered. The physical and, above all, narrative isolation results in a violent rip away from humanity. When the prisoner takes the pen, Larson observes, this action is a return to the self, a return to “an identity separate from that which power seeks at once to impose, to know, and to destroy,” (147). She notes specifically the use of “I” and “we”, in prison writing used to refer to or in reference of “communities larger than the prison author and other than those insisted upon by the prison,” (145). By claiming those communities, or ancestry, the prisoner essentially dismantles the isolation of the prison. Such an environment, dangerous, violent and isolationist, silence the prisoner’s voice. When the prisoner takes on the act of writing, by claiming the “I” or claiming a connection to a community, they are fighting against the narrative imposed upon them. This view of prison writing in particular shows the impact writing has on the prisoner, as a form of reclaimed power, “political resurrection, a re-envisioning of the narrative of justice,” or in other words a tool for self-advocacy (147). The prisoner is taking back their own agency, and bringing their voice back into existence.
Using this interpretation of prison writing, it is possible to understand how the controlling prison system can manage to produce prisoners who use the tools within reach to fight and act against the system itself. As Larson observes, an unintended consequence of the prison itself is that it facilitates the creation of prison writing, a cohesive body of literature, which exists as “resistance proportionate to the severity of that bodily control, and that makes apparent an otherwise invisible apparatus of power,” (157). Essentially prison writing exposes what the prison attempts to keep quiet, and gives back what they take in. In light of the power behind prison writing, it is interesting to then consider the emergence of prison newspapers. If writing has such revolutionary powers, why would prison newspapers even exist?
Prison Newspapers
Prison newspapers that were created in line with reform efforts by wardens around the 1940s, were transformed into tools for prisoner self-advocacy and activism by the 1960s and 1970s. In his book Prison Truth William J. Drummond dedicates a chapter titled “The San Quentin News” to observe the evolution of prison journalism at San Quentin. The San Quentin News was first published on December 10, 1940, created by warden Clinton T. Duffy who wanted to “quell rumors in the cell blocks” page 65. Other penitentiaries also began to start internal newspapers, which covered standard topics of prison life. Topics focused on prisoners, as well as prison staff, and even the warden would contribute to the paper (66). By the 1970s however, the topics and coverage in these newspapers shifted towards exposing the harsh and possibly illegal prison conditions. Drummond observes that the shift in news coverage caused tension between the inmate journalists and the warden’s office (66). With the politicization of the prisoners, they started publishing columns that addressed prison conditions or that spoke against the prison itself.
The topics which prisoners wanted to cover and publish posed a threat to the wardens and superintendents of the prisons, which caused huge efforts by them to censor the newspaper. The California Department of Corrections wardens and superintendents were worried that the newspapers could start riots or potentially expose “any dysfunctional conditions…to the outside world, especially to the governor or the legislature.” (Drummond, 67). Attempts at censorship spurred prisoners to take these issues to the courts, where they fought for freedom of speech. Many lawsuits that fought against the freedom of speech. Inmates won some key cases in court which limited the power of the CDC to censor with as much freedom. Eventually however, by 1982, the San Quentin News was disbanded for twenty years. This was a trend of prison newspapers across the nation, “Journalism behind vars virtually ceased to exist by 1990,” (Drummond, 71). This trend however, did not stop prison journalism from existing in less official forms. At San Quentin for example prison journalists began the underground newspaper called the Outlaw. The paper was considered contraband, and prisoners were disciplined for it if found in their possession. In this case, the prison system recognized the disruptive nature of the prison newspapers themselves and tried to quell them completely. In spite of those efforts, prisoners saw the value in their journalism and wrote to fight against efforts to silence them.
Prisoner Self-Help Programs
Prisoners have also created their own self-help programs which are meant to meet the needs of both themselves and the communities they belong to. An example is the “Black-to-Black” program at San Quentin that was covered in the Los Angeles Sentenial in 1978, organized by the black prisoners themselves to connect black prisoners to their communities. “The program will be designed to meet the needs of both the prisoner and the community, neither of which is currently being adequately met by the present system, as disclosed by the recidivism statistics,” (1). This is a form of self-advocacy because it was started by black prisoners themselves. They recognize that the society which controls the prisons and which controls their neighborhoods has left them behind, and so they created the program to facilitate self-help. A program whose intents are to strengthen the connection between the prisoner and their community to bring down the isolation of the prison system. To also build resources within the community for housing and employment that helps the prisoner from committing crimes again. Such community involvement would in turn revitalize the community itself. They place an emphasis on the project being a “black community project all the way” (1) which reflects sentiments of the Black Power movement of self-determinism. I argue that this program is a product of the prison activism developed in the 1970s. Even if the uprisings ceased in the 70s, the ripple-effect of those ideas and ideologies can be felt through time.
Prisoner Self-Advocacy and Activism Today
Today there is evidence of the development of programs and cultural items from prisoners that show the lasting effects of prison activism of the 1970s. One need look no further than San Quentin itself. The San Quentin News, the newspaper that was revived in 2008 by the warden at the time. The San Quentin News as a newspaper itself works as a form of prisoner self-advocacy, the newspaper often highlights the work of other prisoners and the progress of prison programs that cultivate within San Quentin. They also write and document the prisoner perspective on the California justice system, and the policies and programs which do or do not get passed at the expense of the prisoner. Check out this issue of the San Quentin News which contains an article titled “The astonishing growth of San Quentin News” (5). The Ear Hustle Podcast is another great example of prisoner self-advocacy. It is the first podcast created and produced in prison, and co-founded by persons who were incarcerated at the time. The podcast brings into the public sphere the realities of prisoners at San Quentin State Prison. The podcast breaks the barrier of incarceration between the prisoner and the rest of society by highlighting the voice of the prisoners themselves. The substance of prisoner activism lies in the basic principles of self-advocacy and agency. In spite of the prison system itself, or perhaps due to the conditions of the prison itself, prisoners have shown a resiliency and dedication through their organization, demonstrations, literature, and education. They advocate for themselves, for each other, and the communities they belong to.
Kayla Banks, 2020, History
Notes
- “The Attica Violence,” Los Angeles Times, September 15, 1971, sec. C, ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Los Angeles Times, and John J. Goldman, “Prisoners Demand Foreign Asylum: 33 Held Hostage as Inmates, N.Y. Officials Bargain,” Los Angeles Times, September 11, 1971, ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Los Angeles Times. In these articles in the Los Angeles times the political and radical motivations of the prisoners are emphasized as direct causes or agitators of the violence of the uprisings. In the Attica Violence article specifically, there is a prediction of how the uprisings will affect policy change. The order being first tighter security, better paid guards, more efficient administration, and last “if there is any money left over, for reforms to make the stone and steel somehow more humane, to try to improve rehabilitation record.” I argue that conclusions like these, are consolations are like trying to solve a sympton, instead of trying to solve the cause of issue itself. Such conclusions also promoted the self-fulfilling prophecies that the uprisings would halt prison reform. With the focus on the political and radical aspects, the media somehow managed to miss the real demands and causes for the uprisings. If anything prison reform should be on the top of the list.
- John J. Goldman, “Prisoners Demand Foreign Asylum: 33 Held Hostage as Inmates, N.Y. Officials Bargain,” Los Angeles Times, September 11, 1971, ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Los Angeles Times. This article provides detailed descriptions of the negotations that occured at Attica. Focus on the radical demands, often characterized as unorganized, nonsensical, and opportunistic.
- Jim Stingley, “Guards Blame Court Coddling of Muslims, Panthers for Riot: ATTICA INTERVIEWS,” Los Angeles Times, September 19, 1971, ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Los Angeles Times. This article is a collection of interviews from Attica guards reflecting on what happened with the uprisings. For the most part the guards blame the uprising on the particularly radical inmates, Black Muslims and Black Panthers, who they claim manipulated the wider prison population into forming the uprising. The organizing of prisoners, and the creation of demands were seen as tell-tale signs of an on-coming uprising. They also mention that Attica prisoners were sympathetic to the San Quentin Uprising, and fasted for a day because of it.
For Further Reading:
Doran Larson. “Toward a Prison Poetics.” College Literature 37, no. 3 (2010): 143–66. https://doi.org/10.1353/lit.0.0131.
Drummond, William J. Prison Truth: The Story of the San Quentin News. 1st ed. University of California Press, 2020. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvqr1bhz.
“Free the San Quentin Six.” The Black Scholar 4, no. 2 (October 1972): 1–1. https://doi.org/10.1080/00064246.1972.11431266.
Glaser, Daniel. “Politicalization of Prisoners: A New Challenge.” Los Angeles Times. September 19, 1971, sec. O. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Los Angeles Times.
Goldman, John J. “Prisoners Demand Foreign Asylum: 33 Held Hostage as Inmates, N.Y. Officials Bargain.” Los Angeles Times. September 11, 1971. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Los Angeles Times.
Jackson, Robert L. “U.S. WILL SPONSOR CONFERENCE ON PRISON REFORMS.” Los Angeles Times. September 15, 1971, sec. A. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Los Angeles Times.
Lewen, Jody. “Academics Belong in Prison: On Creating a University at San Quentin.” Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 123, no. 3 (May 2008): 689–96. https://doi.org/10.1632/pmla.2008.123.3.689.
Moore, Winston F. “Wardens Called Blind to Prison Racial Tensions.” Los Angeles Times. September 15, 1971, sec. C. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Los Angeles Times.
“Prisoners Plan Self-Help Program.” Los Angeles Sentinel. September 21, 1978, sec. A.
Queally, James, and Paige St. John. “The San Quentin Six: How a Wig and a Handgun Sent a Prison into Chaos 44 Years Ago.” Los Angeles Times, August 13, 2015.
Stingley, Jim. “Guards Blame Court Coddling of Muslims, Panthers for Riot: ATTICA INTERVIEWS.” Los Angeles Times, September 19, 1971. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Los Angeles Times.
———. “Revolutionaries Keep San Quentin Tense.” Los Angeles Times, September 26, 1971, sec. AA. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Los Angeles Times.
“The Attica Violence.” Los Angeles Times. September 15, 1971, sec. C. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Los Angeles Times.
Wald, Karen. “The San Quentin Six Case: Perspective and Analysis.” Social Justice 40, no. 1/2 (131-132) (2014): 231–51.
