Brittany Friedman, “August 21, 1971” (2025)

This excerpt, detailing the Black Guerilla Family's attempt to get Black communist revolutionary George Jackson out of San Quentin State Prison in California, was first published in chapter 5 of Carceral Apartheid: How Lies and White Supremacists Run Our Prisons. Hyperlinks have been added to sources cited in the text, but beyond this no changes have been made except for formatting.

August 21, 1971

The Black Guerilla Family’s next move—and its most famous—was to plan and execute a statewide prisoner rebellion against the Department of Corrections. Once the main organization conquered San Quentin, their newly formed cadres at Folsom, Tracy, and Soledad would receive word and follow suit. The founders of the organization were optimistic, hoping that just maybe, incarcerated people in other parts of the country would see their efforts and be inspired to bring rebellion beyond California.¹ They were also realistic, knowing full well that they could die in the process and never see the future they so ferociously envisioned. Members assured me in interviews that they accepted death as a very real possibility, exemplified by Benjamin’s harrowing words: “I mean it is so enraging. Man you would be so angry, it didn’t make us scared. It made us want to get their ass even at the risk of losing our own. You know that’s what that kind of shit did to us, you know. … George was committed to the point where he was willing to give up his life.”²

Members described themselves as warriors, willing to die in the pursuit of freedom and Black liberation. In order to plan this rebellion, the Black Guerilla Family knew they must first break George out of San Quentin. Shortly before George’s trial for the murder of Officer John Mills, the organization received word that correctional officers at San Quentin were planning to murder George. They planned to kill him using a setup similar to Soledad Officer Opie Miller’s shooting and killing of W. L. Nolen.

George was incredibly valuable to the Black Guerilla Family. A skilled tactician and political theorist, he inspired the incarcerated—and those beyond the walls—to commit to collective action as a counter-death grip.³ George embodied the private and public face of the Black Power Movement’s prison faction.⁴ The Department of Corrections believed his public demise would cripple the movement, inside and out.⁵

The Black Guerilla Family orchestrated an elaborate escape attempt to free George from San Quentin and prevent his extermination. They yearned to subvert the correctional pleasures that the department and its proxies seemed to derive from indefinitely suspending Black militants between life and death. The organization spent months planning, training a secret prisoner army to protect George during the escape, which Hugo was a part of. They secured connections to the Black Liberation Army, entrusting them with transporting George to a safe house in New York City. The Black Guerilla Family relied heavily on the Black Liberation Army and their expertise with guerilla warfare and tactical operations. Prior to August 21st, the Black Guerilla Family practiced the escape scenario numerous times.⁶

Corrupt white correctional officers pretended to be sympathetic to the Black Guerilla Family’s plight, manipulating their desperation, which was being relayed to the department by carefully planted snitches. Indeed, eager and desperate to save George, the organization paid the officers to smuggle C4 into San Quentin and hide the explosives along a carefully plotted escape route. The original plan was for Jackson and a few founders to make it to the end of a side corridor and use C4 to blow the wall. Contrary to popular sources, they did not use nitroglycerin.⁷

What the Black Guerilla Family did not realize was that the seemingly sympathetic officers were actually working with the Department of Corrections and Federal Bureau of Investigation, feeding fellow law enforcement as many details as possible about the upcoming escape attempt. The officers provided the Black Guerilla Family with faulty C4 rigged to stall when ignited, and enlisted the help of incarcerated white supremacists to suppress the escape itself.⁸ It’s important to note that the official state narrative deliberately erases this connection from the story.⁹

End Times

On August 21, 1971, the Black Guerilla Family initiated their escape plot, several months earlier than planned, because they received what they believed to be reliable intelligence that correctional officers were plotting to kill George within days—either by setting him up to be killed by the Aryan Brotherhood or by staging self-inflicted demise.¹⁰

As soon as the plan unfolded, weeks of practice did not prepare them for the way it all fell apart.

Dark paths thought to be open were closed.

Impossible doors meant to be unlocked were sealed.

Unbearable spaces meant to be clear of opposition were guarded by the department’s trusted Aryan Brotherhood. Furtive solidarity with white officers had been exposed as impossible.

Didn’t you know? The founders realized. “White above all” trumps all other social obligations.

Their sweat curdled, dripping forcefully down each triggered brow. Movement ceased to provide meaning. The panic settled nicely in their spirits.

George knew it was over, but he could not bring the words to light. Brothers in captivity or in death, the meaning was the same. Oaths were made, revolutionary suicide likely, though at the time not certain.

Certainty was engulfing. Filling and wrenching like gray clouds, swirling and falling on heavy shoulders.

The weight of a people, battling generations of racist intent, calling.

Continuously reaching for something, the end of the hall came closer with each step.

Was it hope they were feeling when the brown corridor walls became clear?

Even still, their C4 refused to free them. Instead, choosing to deal a dose of soul binding despair.

George and his fellow comrade instinctually turned to the nearest exit, a mere few paces away. Their quivering hands buckled when a last attempt confirmed freedom was bolted shut.

Everything had been a lie. For now at least, it was over. “White above all” had won.

Staring at each other, no words needed, a decision was made in silence. The only way out was to run for their lives across the courtyard. To live free or die trying never before felt so true.

Would they run fast or would they run slow? The choice was theirs.

Both men paused silently, studying the courtyard gates.

After a few moments, they gently exchanged glances—accepting the end.

Together, they crossed to the other side.

George calmly emerged first and ran for his life, appearing to move as though he were suspended underwater, projecting forward with an effortless grace. George’s eyes looked up at the bright sky, fixated on the blue disparate clouds. He was determined to die with his head held high.

Riddled with bullets, George’s eyes fell dark.

As his lifeless body slumped to the ground, Johnny Spain surrendered. Unable to break his gaze upon George, his brother in spirit, he put his hands up to the same azure above.¹¹

The department had purposefully rerouted George’s escape using a sophisticated plot involving correctional officers, colluding Aryan Brotherhood members, and C4 that would not fire. George and Johnny were forced into the courtyard, running straight into a well-placed firing squad that quietly waited for them to open the corridor gates.¹²

If the escape had gone according to plan, Jackson would have assumed leadership of the underground Black liberation movement. Once the C4 blew the corridor wall, the founders would have jumped into a getaway truck and used Black Liberation Army networks to make it to a safe house in New York City. New York City was chosen because it was the main Black Liberation Army stronghold. When the opportunity arose, the organization would smuggle Jackson to Cuba where he would continue to lead the underground movement. If escape to Cuba seemed too risky, Jackson would have continued to hide in plain sight in New York City, running the movement from a safe house.

But according to those involved in the plot, the escape was doomed from the start, poisoned by planted “snitches” and undercover correctional officers who divulged to the Department of Corrections and Federal Bureau of Investigation every move the Black Guerilla Family made.¹³

Ninety-nine books were found in George’s cell after his murder.¹⁴

However, the officers involved were not able to anticipate everything. George’s death planted seeds, and they blossomed in Attica, all the way across the country. The November 3, 1970, Folsom Manifesto drafted by founders of the Black Guerilla Family, and the legacy of the August 21, 1971, rebellion and escape attempt in San Quentin, would eventually inspire the September 9, 1971, Attica Uprising.¹⁵ So much so that the Attica Liberation Faction reproduced the Folsom Manifesto almost verbatim when listing their demands.¹⁶

Two weeks after August 21, on September 9, 1971, the incarcerated at Attica State Prison in New York were inspired by George’s murder, and initiated a revolt against a similar system of longstanding carceral apartheid—a protest against the state’s ordained right to inflict social, civil, and physical death against incarcerated people. On that fateful day, New York state troopers were determined to erase the memory of George Jackson and the Black Guerilla Family as they carried out a brutal public display. They deliberately executed the incarcerated and their hostages, with witnesses reporting them smiling, laughing, and joking as they did so. Their main goal was not to take back the prison, but instead to teach the incarcerated a lesson—never question your place in this world, for each breath you take is only possible because we allow it. The audacity of the incarcerated to claim manhood and humanity and then frame these claims in tandem with Black Power struggles earned them the barrel. And, the state troopers enjoyed every minute of it.¹⁷