Soledad Brother

"The power of George Jackson's personal story remains painfully relevant to our nation today, with its persistent racism, its hellish prisons, its unjust judicial system, and the poles of wealth and poverty that are at the root of all that. I hope the younger generation, black and white, will read Soledad Brother."  —Howard Zinn, author, A People's History of the United States

A collection of Jackson's letters from prison, Soledad Brother is an outspoken condemnation of the racism of white America and a powerful appraisal of the prison system that failed to break his spirit but eventually took his life.
Jackson's letters make palpable the intense feelings of anger and rebellion that filled black men in America's prisons in the 1960s. But even removed from the social and political firestorms of the 1960s, Jackson's story still resonates for its portrait of a man taking a stand even while locked down.

George Lester Jackson was an African-American left-wing activist, Marxist, author, a member of the Black Panther Party, and cofounder of the Black Guerrilla Family while incarcerated. Jackson achieved fame as one of the Soledad Brothers and was later shot to death by prison guards in San Quentin Prison during an escape attempt. Jean Genet was a prominent and controversial French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. His major works include the novels Querelle of Brest, The Thief's Journal, and Our Lady of the Flowers, and the plays The Balcony, The Blacks, The Maids and The Screens.Jonathan Jackson Jr. is the nephew of George Jackson, the author of Soledad Brother.