It had been about 20 years since I first read Soledad Brother before I picked it up again recently. I am spending part of my summer re-reading and then discussing certain books with a 15 year old young man who befriended me last year. The first book that we discussed last November was “A Time to Die” by Tom Wicker. Our latest book is “Soledad Brother” by George Jackson. We met on Sunday to discuss it.

By now, you might be wondering about the choice of books. There is of course a story there. I met this young man last September when he visited a photo exhibition that I organized about the 40th Anniversary of the Attica Prison Uprising. After I had spoken with him and his peers, he stayed behind for a bit and shyly asked me if I could recommend any books that addressed Attica in greater depth. Well, as you can imagine I was thrilled to offer him several suggestions and then to lend him some of my books. If he were only a couple of years older, I might have considered marrying him 🙂 In the time since then, we have struck up a friendship that revolves around meeting on a monthly basis to discuss the various books that he is reading per my suggestions.

Part of our practice involves each of us bringing five questions from the reading that we can discuss together. I asked my young friend if he would mind if I shared his questions on the blog this week. He gave me permission to do so.

1. George Jackson seemed to have mad respect for Malcolm X. Do you think that he respected Martin Luther King in the same way?
2. Why does Jackson seem to get angrier at his father the longer he is in prison?
3. Does Jackson think that all white people are racists?
4. Jackson seems to be OK with dying. Do you think that this is because he gave up hope in prison because he had been locked up for so long?
5. Do you agree with Jackson that life is basically the same for blacks whether we are in prison or outside in the world?

During our discussion yesterday, I was struck by how focused my friend was on George Jackson’s relationship with his father. The young man noticed that Jackson seems to grow more estranged from his father the longer he spends behind bars and the more radical he becomes. He could relate to the generational divide that existed between Jackson and his parents. He said that he was experiencing his own estrangement from his parents. He has been living with his grandmother for the past two years. It’s always interesting for me to see what other people perceive as the most salient and resonant themes in a book. We talked about the fact that the root of Jackson’s separation from his father (in particular) could be traced to the fact that he felt intellectually unsupported by him as he became increasingly radicalized.

For my part, I talked about Jackson’s belief that it is the environment that impacts man’s nature. At one point in his letters, he makes the case that if one changes the environment, then you can change a man. This is why he put such a premium on the value of education for prisoners. We discussed whether my young friend agreed with this view. Can education change a man? His thoughts on this question were fascinating.

Anyway, I can go on and on but won’t because time is short. I wanted to share this anecdote because to me it illustrates that young people are hungry for knowledge about topics that they find relevant to their lives. My young friend is entering 10th grade in just a couple of weeks and he is just barely making it to the next grade. He failed freshman English, almost failed social studies and had to take summer classes. Does it make any sense to you that he should be failing social studies or English for that matter? In the months that I have known him, he has read eight books. We have discussed 6 of them together. The questions that he offered about Soledad Brother are indicative of how brilliant he is. Yet he is poor and he is black and his teachers are failing him badly. I almost feel like I want to homeschool him. I would if I could find more than a couple of hours of month to spend with him. In a couple of weeks when school begins, I have decided that he and I will be meeting with his principal together. It is clear to me that he needs to be tested so that he can attend honors level classes. He exhibits College level critical thinking skills. I know because I teach College students and he exceeds what I hear from 85% of my students. So I will do my best to advocate for him so that he is able to thrive in rather than just survive school.

In the meantime, below is a short clip from a documentary titled “Death of a Revolutionary” that provides an introduction to George Jackson (for those who are unfamiliar with his story).