One of the reasons that I continue to believe in the potential of hip hop to educate and to help transform is because of cultural artifacts like Common’s “A Song for Assata.”

One of the young people who I have been mentoring for some years just discovered this song a few weeks ago. She reached out to me and wanted to discuss it.

“Ms. K, do you know about Assata Shakur?” she asked.
“Yes indeed I do know about her?” I answered

The young woman who I will call Brittany wanted to talk about Shakur’s escape from prison. “How did she get away?” she wanted to know. She also wondered if it was true that Assata was Tupac’s “aunt.” My answers to both questions respectively were “I don’t know” and “no, but she was his Godmother.”

For Christmas, I bought her a copy of Shakur’s autobiography “Assata.” Brittany e-mailed me in early January to say that she had read the autobiography and in her words thought it “was so so real.” She wondered why she hadn’t heard about Assata Shakur before and said that she was going to tell her social studies teacher about her discovery. According to Brittany, school “don’t teach us the important stuff.” Unfortunately, I have to agree.

This episode is another reminder to me that young black people will in fact read books (provided they are engaging and relevant to their experiences and interests). Brittany read over 250 pages in just a few days. This young woman is now scouring the internet for more information about Assata. I find myself smiling as I type this because I am always happy when our young people embrace reading and value literacy.

I have been thinking a lot lately about what Brittany finds so appealing in Shakur’s story. The theme of “escape” has traditionally been a potent one in African-American folklore. So perhaps her fascination in part stems from the fact that Shakur successfully “escaped” prison. Think of our general fascination with the Count of Monte Cristo for example if you doubt the power of such tales!

But I think that it is something more than this too.

“My name is Assata Shakur, and I am a 20th century escaped slave.” — These are the words that begin “An Open Letter” penned by Shakur in 1998.

Assata Shakur stands defiantly in opposition to her oppression and subjugation by the State. Joy James makes a salient point: “Shakur is singular because she is a recognizable female revolutionary, one not bound to a male persona (p.138).” She adds: “Along with Harriet Tubman, Shakur would become one of the few black female figures in the United States recognized as a leader in an organization that publicly advocated armed self-defense against racist violence (p.139).”

Joy James’ characterization of Assata Shakur provides a clue into what might be attractive to a young woman like Brittany. As a young black woman of 16 years old living in poverty, I think that it is easy to feel invisible, overlooked, and yet maligned. The singer Jill Scott lamented in an interview a few years ago that “black women are so out of style.” Yet in reading about Assata, Brittany could imagine a black woman being unapologetically black. Assata Shakur is not “out of style.” She has resisted being commodified like other leaders of the Black Panther Party or Black Freedom Movement. Her call for revolution still rings loudly.

In her autobiography, Assata recalls making tape of an essay that she wrote titled “To My People.” In it, she explains her role in the black revolutionary struggle. That statement ends with these powerful words:

It is our duty to fight for our freedom.
It is our duty to win.
We must love each other and support each other.
We have nothing to lose but our chains.

These are still words to live by in the 21st century. They help to make Assata Shakur still relevant to a 16 years old girl living on the West Side of Chicago…

Update: It looks like my friends at the Black Youth Project also had Assata on their minds today. Here’s a post about her from them.

This was written by Mae Mallory on December 7, 1962. She was jailed for one year and nine months.

As the holiday season draws nigh and newspapers are heavily laden with their gaudy displays for Christmas, I take this moment to write and express my gratitude for the work, thoughts and prayers you have extended.

Perhaps you are interested in how I have fared these many months in Cuyahoga County Jail. I will try to give you a clear picture of what life is like here — not out of self-pity, but so that you may be fully informed. The women are housed on the 7th floor of the building. The 7th floor is divided into three main sections — Cell-Blocks 7A, B, and C. Cell-Blocks 7A and B are large, rectangular enclosures divided into thirteen rooms with two toilets, one shower, four face bowls and one utility sink. The capacity is 13; but often there are as many as 27 women there. Cell-Block C is a row of cells with bunks on the walls. Because of the overcrowded conditions, this particular Cell-Block houses part of the overflow of male prisoners.

My room is in Cell-Block 7A. It is a tiny room approximately six feet by nine. There is a metal bed with a thin mattress. We are allowed one sheet, one limp flat pillow, one pillowcase and one unsanitary reprocessed wool blanket. We are given one bath towel a week — a whole one if you are lucky.

The librarian comes once a week with a very limited selection of books, mostly who-dunnits and westerns; however, I did find John Hersey’s book entitled The Wall. Besides these books, Cuyahoga County Jail furnishes no other form of recreation.

The inmates are allowed to receive packages each day provided that there is someone interested and able to bring the few things which are allowed. Since the jail furnishes no clothing, the inmates must provide their own.

The meals are served in metal dog bowls. A metal cup is given each inmate on entry. A typical menu is the following:

Breakfast
soggy cornflakes (no sugar)
a cup of the poorest coffee and chickory combination (sometimes complete with floating cockroaches).

Lunch
Same dog bowl: a facsimile of baked beans (actually government surplus pea beans) with blobs of tomato sauce (thrown over the beans) and small minute chunks of fat sowbelly
cup of the same brew called coffee
bread

Dinner
bologna
bread
same brew
rolls

If there is anything Cuyahoga County serves plenty of, it’s bread. After a month of this diet, one is almost willing to admit guilt to any crime, since I am told that better food is served in the penitentiary.

We are allowed such fruits as bananas, apples, oranges, an occasional avocado and sometimes tomatoes. These items are often mutilated under the pretense of inspection. What one is expected to conceal in a tomato is beyond me.

The day room or “recreational room” is the space that is left between the rooms on either side of the area taken up by the toilet and shower. In the recreation room is a long rustic table with two make-shift benches, no radio or TV set, only newspapers, if some inmate is fortunate in having the money to buy them. We are allowed playing cards, but strangely, a Monopoly set is forbidden. Having learned that I had two Monopoly sets in the package room, I requested that one be given to me — this request was refused. The Chief explained to me that a Monopoly set contains dice, and the inmates might use the dice to gamble. The jailers fail to understand that the more restrictive measures taken against the inmates, the more ingenious they become in devising ways and means of amusements; amusements often more harmful than a simple game called Monopoly. This seems to make no impression on the jailers; for they appear to be hell-bent on making the inmates as miserable as possible. “After all,” the Chief exclaimed, “we are not interested in rehabilitation; this is not a prison, it is a jail. The prisoners are only here for a short time.”

When I explained that I could hardly be called a “short-time” prisoner, that I am beginning my tenth month here, he readily admitted that my case is the exception, “though not exceptional enough to be permitted a Monopoly set” or a person-to-person visit, even though many of my visitors travel hundreds of miles to visit me. He admits that the state of Ohio has no charge against me; he even hinted that after four months the State of Ohio was willing to let me go. However, it is almost ten months and the State of Ohio is still holding me; the Monopoly set is still in the package room; the food is still terrible; the mattress is still thin; the pillow is still flat and limp.

Last month I read Felix Greene’s book on China. I was particularly interested in what he had to say about the jails in the People’s Republic. Mr. Greene claims that one jail that he visited had only one guard with a rifle. The windows had no bars, and when he asked for the Warden, he was shown a young man with his sleeves rolled up helping an inmate fix a machine. According to Mr. Greene, “If this had been an American prison, the inmates would have been gone in three minutes.” I agree with Mr. Greene wholeheartedly. From what I have read and from personal experience here, only Devil’s Island and the Nazi Concentration Camps can compare with America’s penal system.

I have faith in my friends here in America and throughout the world. For this reason I can bear the barred windows, the stark bare walls and the hard concrete floors; I can bear the snide innuendoes about kidnappers. I can bear the conditions here that are worse than a zoo, and I can even live with the prospect of having to spend Christmas and New Year’s in jail. For if my suffering in jail has contributed toward the liberation of my people, peace on earth and goodwill to all men, then any sacrifice I have been forced to make has not been in vain.”

I usually try to stay away from focusing on February being “Black History Month.” As far as I’m concerned, black history should be discussed every day and so should all other kinds of histories.

Anyway, as regular readers of this blog know, I am an amateur history buff. I am sometimes tempted to re-enroll in school to get a graduate degree in history. Then I catch myself and remember that I can just as easily go to the library and check out a bunch of books for FREE. So no more school for me…

One of my touchstones in life is Dr. Barbara Ransby. I admire her for many personal reasons and I am in awe of her work as a historian. In particular, Barbara is the person who introduced me to the life and legacy of the great Ella Baker in her book “Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement.” If you’ve never heard of Ella Baker before or even if you have, I can’t recommend this book any more highly. After reading about Mrs. Baker, I became sort of obsessed with learning about other unsung black women who have made a significant contribution to history. It was this search that first led me to a woman named Mae Mallory.

Willie Mae Mallory was born in Georgia in 1927. She moved to New York City with her mother in 1939. Ms. Mallory died in 2007 at the age of 80. In between those years, Mae Mallory played an integral role in the black freedom movement in the U.S. Yet she is far from a household name and even those who know something about black U.S. history may never have heard of her contributions. Yet before there was a FREE ANGELA or FREE ASSATA campaign, there was a FREE MAE MALLORY one.

Mae Mallory fled from North Carolina to Ohio in August 1961 in fear for her life. She was a supporter and friend of black radical Robert F. Williams. Williams, who had fought in World War II, returned home to become the leader of his local North Carolina NAACP chapter in the mid-1950s. By the late 1950s, Williams had won the admiration of many black people through his resistance to racist violence by the KKK in Monroe, North Carolina. He was also vocal about the need for black people in the U.S. to practice armed self-defense. His approach was in stark contrast to Dr. King’s advocacy of nonviolent resistance.

During a trip to New York in 1959, Williams met Mae who was already a local community activist. As the mother of two children, she had filed a lawsuit against the New York Public Schools to demand better accommodations for black children. She had been part of a group that became known as the Harlem Nine. Mallory was so impressed with Williams that she established a group of supporters called Crusader Families to help Williams with his work in North Carolina. The group’s name came from Williams’ newsletter called the Crusader which kept people informed about the events taking place in Monroe, North Carolina.

Peniel E. Joseph provides a great glimpse of Mae Mallory’s activism in his book “Waiting Til' The Midnight Hour.” After the African Nationalist leader Patrice Lumumba was assassinated in 1961, a group of black american artists and activists took over the United Nations. On February 15, 1961, demonstrators protested outside the U.N. while artists like Maya Angelou made their way into the Security Council. He describes the incident as follows:

“From the balcony, the screaming voices of protestors could be heard. “Killers!” shouted one. “Murderers!” yelled another. “Lumumba! Lumumba! they chanted in unison. Adlai Stevenson, two-time Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. representative to the United Nations, stood to address the meeting. Leaning toward the microphone, Stevenson removed his glasses and searched for the source of the rapidly escalating commotion.

At 11:35 in the morning, protesters had entered the Security Council meeting where a melee broke out between security guards and demonstrators. Frantic crowds hustled out in a stampede of departing spectators and incoming security guards. LeRoi Jones and Mae Mallory huddled together and, in an instant, were cordoned off by security. Mallory engaged in a heated struggle that required the intervention of several guards. Police officers snatched Jones into a packed police van, banging his head against the paddy wagon’s metal frame doors while other protestors were dragged outside and charged with disorderly conduct. (pp.40-41).”

This account suggests that Mae Mallory considered the U.S. black freedom struggle as intimately connected to the colonial struggles taking place on the Continent. Only a few months after the U.N. demonstration, Mae Mallory would find herself accused of facilitating a kidnapping and aiding in the escape of Robert F. Williams from the United States.

In August 1961, Mae Mallory along with journalist Julian Mayfield were visiting Rob Williams and his family in Monroe. The summer of ’61 in Monroe had been characterized by racial tumult. It ended with Rob Williams being accused of kidnapping an elderly white couple, Mr. and Mrs. Bruce Stegall. He fled the country to Cuba allegedly with the help of Mallory and Mayfield. Mayfield went to Ghana and Mallory found her way to Cleveland Ohio.

Accused of false kidnapping charges, Mae Mallory along with the other Monroe Defendants would face a stiff prison sentence and years of legal troubles. While in Cleveland, Mallory would fight against being extradited to Monroe to face her charges. Mallory described Monroe as a place “where a black man has never been acquitted when accused of a crime against a whiteman, and a whiteman has never been convicted when accused of a crime against a blackman.” Because of her refusal to return to Monroe, Mallory would spend over a year and a half in jail in Ohio. While she was incarcerated at Cuyahoga County Jail, she wrote letters and shared her thoughts about the experience. Tomorrow, I will post “An Open Letter…To My Many Friends in America and Those in Foreign Lands” in which Mae Mallory describes her life in jail. It is my deepest hope that someone is currently working on a book about Mae Mallory’s life. She deserves much more recognition.

I almost lost out on this snapshot in an online auction. But alas, I prevailed against a persistent bidder. This was part of a lot of two rare snapshots (circa 1915) of Black Florida prisoners playing baseball. The unknown photographer took this picture of the prisoners as they camped out on his property during road construction. The second snapshot (not pictured here) shows two convict “travel cages.”

As part of my ongoing series about Laura Scott's life, today I will focus on how women prisoners in San Quentin were treated by staff and how they treated each other in the early 20th century. For this, I am once again relying on the first-hand account of an unnamed ex-San Quentin female prisoner published in the book “Crime and Criminals.” Let’s begin by exploring the apparent corruption of the staff at the prison:

Numerous instances of favoritism in this, as in other regards, are cited, especially where the prisoners were able to do embroidery and other fine needlework for the matron. There is supposed to be a stringent rule forbidding making presents to or doing work for a prison official. “If anyone were so interested as to investigate he would find ‘Buzzard’s Roost’, as the matron designated her abode, literally lined with pillows, table covers, pillow shams and other articles too numerous to mention, forced from the women who hoped by thus catering to her greed to enjoy some of the favors they knew she could and did give to those who worked for her.”

According to the former San Quentin woman prisoner, the matron who oversaw the “Female Department” was capricious and cruel:

“…she is described as having been an incurable gossip, of the foulest kind, showing special partiality to negresses, and completing a day’s work that averaged about five hours by leaving the establishment to itself at 4:30 p.m.”

The matron is alleged to have discouraged church services at the prison in favor of gambling and dancing instead:

“Many a time after the California Club women or the Salvation Army lassies had held their services in the office, the table would be rolled back and the negro women, and those of the white women who were low enough in their tastes to enjoy such a spectacle, would be called in and, while one would strum on a banjo, the rest would raise their clothes and give a leg show. The higher kickers they were the better the matron enjoyed it.” At the same time gambling would be in progress. An attempt to form a bible study class was stopped. No books that could be used for educational purposes were obtainable, and every effort toward self-improvement was discouraged.

It appears that this testimonial was offered by a white female prisoner because it is peppered with allegations of reverse racism while offering racist descriptions of female prisoners of color. For example, “White women who are cleanly and neat are next to some vile-smelling negress, Chinese or Mexican women.” The writer provides some interesting anecdotes that depict “negresses” like a cook who was promoted to “librarian” as terrorizing white female prisoners with impunity while being protected by the white matron of the prison. Here’s an anecdote that was offered:

It is charged that the abuse of the white women by the negresses was deliberately encouraged, and that repeatedly, to the accompaniment of guitars, the matron could be seen waltzing with the big negress cook, whose relations with her were a constantly discussed and most revolting scandal. This negress is said to have ruled the women’s department and, “notwithstanding the fact that she was one of the worst women there, by the matron’s own statement, yet she had the most privileges; she was never punished or even reprimanded for her dreadful statements and wicked talk; she was given the place of cook, which carries with it special privileges, such as warmth, baths, good food, being unlocked at night, and many other favors. The white women were at her mercy.” This is the woman whom the matron, as mentioned previously, appointed librarian.

This seems to be an unusual racial dynamic for that era but I honestly don’t know enough about the history of other women’s prisons to know if this was a unique circumstance or more common. Could it really be possible that a black prisoner like Laura Scott might benefit from her race in prison in 1905? This seems incredible to me. However, the overall account provided about life at San Quentin was corroborated by several other prisoners before it was published by the Prison Reform League. It’s a puzzle.

Some of the most harrowing stories in the account address the abusive treatment that some female prisoners experienced at San Quentin. They were basically tortured.

“A colored woman named Belle N. was serving a term of ten years. At the end of three years, after having been accorded the privileges accorded to all colored women, she turned on the matron and made threats that she would do her bodily harm. This woman was locked in her cell, and for three years, or nearly four, was never allowed to leave it save for one hour every Friday. Just one month before her release should have come she was removed to an insane asylum, and in two weeks was a corpse. A great, healthy animal she was, but dangerous to the matron.

The unnamed female prisoner who offered this testimony ends with these words: “I have not, and I cannot, tell one-hundredth part of the awfulness of the place, which is fitly described by all the women as a ‘veritable hell on earth.'”

Shortly after this account was written, the matron of San Quentin tendered her resignation. Upon hearing about the stories of the horrible conditions for female prisoners at San Quentin, women reformers mobilized to press for improvements and eventually successfully advocated for building a separate facility to house women in California. Hester Griffith (not related to Griffith J Griffith) was part of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). She was a prison reformer who stated at the end of the published account that she had corroborated the allegations about the terrible conditions at the Prison for women. She also highlighted the allegation that in 1904 and 1905 visiting members of the state legislature had used the women’s quarters as a brothel. As Cristina Rathbone writes: “Rape had always been a problem – really the problem — for women in prison in America (p.66).” So we know that female prisoners at San Quentin must have been subjected to sexual abuse especially because they usually shared the same facility as male prisoners and more importantly male guards.

The next edition of Laura’s story recounts her second trial in 1907 for larceny.

Note: I have always appreciated librarians. They ROCK. In particular, the staff at the California Archives have provided me with INVALUABLE help. There is no way that I could write about Laura Scott without the information that they have helped me to unearth. Next time you have a moment, please stop by your local library and thank the librarians on staff for what they contribute to our culture.

From Project Attica:
Background: Make The Road New York (MRNY), a community organization focused on promoting economic justice through education, organization, and direct services, helped sponsor and coordinate the creation of a Know Your Rights Mural (KYR) in Bushwick, Brooklyn. The mural incorporates criminal defense tips for dealing with encounters with the police. Aware of the community from which it springs, the mural includes portions in Spanish, clearly visible to the predominant Latino/a population in that area.

The Artist: Cekis aka Nelson Rivas, originally from Santiago Chile, belongs to the first generation of graffiti writers/artist in Chile in the early nineties. Cekis currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY since 2004.

Take a look at the graph below. This is the result of many bad policy decisions but one stands out in particular…

Some months ago, I wrote about the cowardice of Illinois politicians and the corruption of the media in a post about the suspension of the state’s meritorious good time (MGT) program. Sure enough as many (including me) predicted, this disastrous political decision has had the effect of increasing the Illinois prison population by nearly 4,000 at an additional cost of nearly $100 million. I am of course not Nostrodamus. This was a completely foreseeable consequence of a dumb decision made by our Governor.

I attended a meeting about Illinois prison overcrowding on Monday and Malcolm Young once again spoke about the importance of reinstating MGT. He has written a new white paper (PDF) which is essential reading for anyone who is interested in the background on MGT, the political controversy and the consequences of the suspension of the program.

In the coming days, please look out for an opportunity to help push the Governor to instruct the Department of Corrections to reinstate MGT. I will be sharing the template of a letter that you can send to Governor Quinn as well as other ways that you can make your voice heard on this matter if you live in Illinois.

UPDATE: You can urge Governor Quinn to reinstate MGT by e-mailing, calling, sending a letter or signing a petition. Information is HERE.