This is my birthday month and people who love me know that I don’t need any gifts. For my birthday, I usually make a pitch to support my favorite organizations and causes. Incidentally, this year I am asking folks to support the Chicago Freedom School, an organization that I co-founded & does incredibly important work.

Anyway, as a birthday gift, a friend sent me a pamphlet about a political prisoner named Wesley Robert Wells.

In 1928, Wesley Wells was arrested at the age of 19 for stealing a suit. He was incarcerated for a time at San Quentin prison. His initial sentence of 1 to 5 years was increased when during a “gang fight” Wells killed another prisoner. He was charged with manslaughter, transferred to Folsom Prison and stayed there until 1941.

He was released from prison and struggled unsuccessfully to make a living. He was re-incarcerated after he was convicted of stealing a car battery. While in prison, Wells had numerous confrontations with guards and fellow prisoners. In 1944, he was convicted of possession of a weapon; his sentence extended to life imprisonment.

Wells contended that he was tormented at San Quentin by guards & prisoners who hurled racial epithets at him and made his life generally miserable. In 1947, after a provocation by guards, Wells threw a cuspidor (spit bucket) at one of them, not injuring the guard but increasing his sentence to the death penalty. Radical attorney Charles Garry took Wells’ case. Garry who would go on to become the chief counsel for the Black Panther Party, was at this time affiliated with the Civil Rights Congress.

The lawsuits that Garry filed attacked many of the racist policies of the prison system, including its segregation policies. On January 27 1950, a few hours before Wells was to be executed, Federal Judge Goodman issued a stay.

After many years of organizing and court cases, Wesley Wells’ death sentence was commuted. In 1974, having spent almost his entire life in prison, Wells was released and worked for 18 months before dying of a heart attack. In his 1978 memoir, Charles Garry would call Wells “the first Black Panther.” You can read more about Wells’ case and the support campaign around it in Theodore Hamm’s “Wesley Robert Wells and the Civil Rights Congress Campaign (PDF).”

Anyway, getting back to the 1953 pamphlet that I received, it includes letters written by Wells who addresses the struggle for black people’s rights, the racism of the American criminal legal system and more. I am retyping one letter dated October 14 1950 addressed to the Civil Rights Congress below.

Dear Friend,

I trust that these few lines will find you enjoying the very best of health and happiness.

Thank you very much for your kind and encouraging letter of October 11, 1950, informing me as to what is being done in my behalf of the C.R.C. I assure you that it is really gratifying in these trying days, to know that I have so many friends that are sensitive to my plight, and are leaving no stones unturned to see that justice is done in my case, for which I am deeply grateful. Even though I do not think that Governor Warren will do anything for me, I want you, and all of you, to know that I appreciate your kind intentions and efforts just the same.

Just why Governor Warren is so desirous of having me put to death is something that I am unable to understand. I really do not believe that I am the incorrigible, the anti-social, the mad killer that Governor Warren and other agents of his office have taken such pains to portray me for the public.

I make no pretension to having been a model prisoner, during the many years I’ve spent in prison. It might even be truthfully said that I’ve been “hard,” and perhaps, at one time or another, even savage. I’ve been forced to fight, with every means available, for survival. I have scars on my person, that I will take to my grave, that will testify to some of the brutal treatment I’ve received at the hands of both inmates and … my prison keepers.

And now, after many years of abuse — after, many years of suffering, the Governor says that I am incorrigible, that I am dangerous; that to commute my sentence to life imprisonment would be tantamount to condemning some guard or inmate to death. Now I ask if the Governor is right. If I am the mad dog that he says that I am, I ask this: “How did I become that way…and why?” I certainly wasn’t that way when I entered prison at the age of nineteen. As I’ve said heretofore, I really do not believe that I am the type of man that some say that I am. But I do say that I am the result of what inhuman, brutal and ignorant treatment can do and cause.

Let the Governor give me all the blame…if the blame be placed somewhere. But I say that I am the product of “man’s inhumanity to man”: the answer to “might” is “right”. I am the result of a cruel and inhuman system: a system that operates on — or did in yesteryears — the theory that “break the will” of the inmate: a system that pitted prisoner against prisoner. A system that considered the Negro less than the dirt under one’s foot.

I remember the words of the Captain, when I was brought before him, shortly after I entered this prison, 1928, for fighting with an inmate who had called me out of my name. When the Captain asked me what the fight was about, I told him. To my great surprise, and humiliation, he said: “Well, that’s what you are, aren’t you?” How about that! Then, when I was transferred to Folsom, three years later, and was brought before the Captain for a job assignment, he said to me, “So you think you are a tough n—-r, eh? well, I’ll be having you eating out of my hand before you leave here.”

Well, after better than twenty years in prison, I’ve yet to “eat out of anyone’s hand”: nor has my spirit been broken. I still resent mistreatment, and I will still fight if I am abused, and will continue to do so as long as I live. So much for that! (Smile)

I enjoyed your visit very much, and I hope I will have the pleasure again soon. Thank you very much for arranging for the paper. I have not yet received it, but perhaps I will next week.

Please communicate my sincere thanks to all the members of the Delegation. Hoping to see you all next week. Until then I will close with best personal regards.

Yours very sincerely,

Wesley Robert Wells.

There are so many more incredible letters in the pamphlet. I’ll probably share more in the future. A huge thank you to my friend who sent me the publication. I’ll treasure it. I can’t believe how many such stories are out there and pretty much unknown to us. I’m glad that I have a space on this blog where I can share some of these stories with others.