I read all of the time and am always coming across interesting snippets of information including quotes, etc… Sometimes I file them away for a future post. Other times I just lose the information and then kick myself for not taking down some notes.

I’ve decided to share these loose notes on the blog as a way to catalogue them for potential future use or reflection.

Today’s quotes and snippets are from the October 19, 1970 issue of the Liberated Guardian. A friend just mailed a few copies of the newspaper to me because he knew that I would appreciate them. And I do. Thanks Eric!

Below is the opening paragraph of an article titled “Revolt Explodes in City Prisons.” The article covers a series of uprisings that took place at several New York City jails starting on October 2, 1970. Two of the most famous of these revolts are ones that take place at the Queens House of Detention and at the Tombs located in lower Manhattan. [Interestingly several of the key organizers of these prison rebellions are transferred to Attica prison & become leaders of the Attica Uprising less than a year later].

Everyday in New York’s black ghettos, and where unemployed whites hang around bars and get into fights, an occupying army of policemen makes sweeping dragnet arrests. You get busted for carrying a knife, for assaulting a cop, for haggling with storeowners, for punching it out with a guy who cheats at dice, for taking a joyride in someone else’s car. If you don’t get shot or killed by the cops, you are hauled to a precinct house, then booked on some charge and carried in a crowded fetid police van to a city lock-up… to wait for trial. Sometimes you wait for two years. You wait where there is no light and no air, no protein, no real beds. Where there are guards who won’t tell the prison doctor when you need medicine. Rats and roaches and garbage encrust the walls and the halls. Your body stops thinking about nourishment. You are denied access to law books but you don’t have the energy to read them anyway. Your bail is so high you don’t even dream about getting out on bail. If you’re Latin and don’t speak English, you couldn’t understand the law books to begin with. Or talk with your state appointed lawyer if you ever got one. You are at the bottom. You are an animal.

The following excerpt (which I love) also appears in the article:

Q: What is your name?
A. I am a revolutionary.
Q: What are you charged with?
A. I was born black.
Q: How long have you been in?
A. I’ve had troubles since the day I was born.

Robert Black, black prisoner-negotiator in a dialogue with a reporter at the negotiations.