Thursday, June 25, 2015
Marvin X interviewed by Ishmael Reed for The Complete Muhammad Ali book
Marvin X at his Academy of da Corner, 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland
photo Adam Turner
If you want motivation and inspiration, don't spend all that money going to workshops and seminars, just go stand at 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland and watch Marvin X at work. He's Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland.... His play One Day in the Life is the most powerful drama I've seen.--Ishmael Reed
Chapter 28
Ishmael Reed interviews Marvin X on Ali As A Black Nationalist
San
Francisco, January 2004 Black Liberation Book Fair
Some of the pioneers of the 1960s Black
Nationalist movement are gathered at a book fair organized by Marvin X, a
writer who is much venerated in Black Nationalist circles. Some of those
gathered are die heart Maclolmites who are cool to Ali and attribute mainstream acceptance of Ali as
the white public gloating over the fact that the man once called “ The
Louisville Lip,” has been muzzled by a disability.
Though still regarded with respect, some
black nationalists will never forgive Muhammad Ali, their one time hero, for
turning his back on Malcolm X, their idol. Some of those who dismissed Joe
Frazier as an Uncle Tom are giving Frazier a second look. He is no longer
regarded as the usurper who deprived the exiled champion of his glorious
comeback. As an example of Joe Frazier’s lack of sophistication was his
mistaking “Uncle Tom,” for “Peeping Tom.”
“Malcolm gave me
political consciousness. He stood up against America. Ali on the other hand is
now speaking on behalf of America.”—Marvin X
Marvin X provides further evidence of the
influence that the Nation of Islam had on Muhammad Ali’s decision to forfeit
his duty to serve in the armed forces. He provided a biography, which gives a
historical background to the presence of African-American Muslims in this
country.
Marvin X
“I
would like to delineate my lineage. As a spiritual descendant of West African
Muslims, I begin my literary biography in the Mali Empire, among those
scholar/poet/social activists of Timbuktu: Ahmed Baba, Muhammad El-Mrili, Ahmed
Ibn Said, Muhammad Al Wangari, and the later Sufi poet/warriors of Senegal and
Hausal and, Ahmedu Bamba and Uthman dan Fodio.
“In
America, this literary tradition continued under the wretched conditions of
slavery with the English/Arabic narratives of Ayub Suleimon Diallo, Ibrahima
Abdulrahman Jallo, Bilali Mohammad, Salih Bilali, Umar Ibn Said. (Note:There is
some suggestion that David Walker, Frederick Douglas, Booker T. Washington and
Benjamin Banneker may have been
descendants of Muslims.) In 1913,Noble Drew Ali,established his Moorish Science
Temple in Newark, New Jersey, later Chicago, and created his Seven Circle
Koran, a synthesis of Qur’anic, Masonic, mystical and esoteric writings.
“And most importantly, Master Fard Muhammad
arrived in Detroit, 1930, to deliver his Supreme Wisdom, mythological Sufi
teachings, to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, later summarized in Elijah's
primers of mystical Islamic theology and Black Nationalism, Message To The Black Man and The Theology of Time.
“The
next major work is Malcolm X's Autobiography,
with the assistance of Alex Haley. This neo-slave narrative bridged ancient and
modern Islamic literature in America. Let us also include Louis Farrakhan’s
Off-Broadway drama “Organa” and his classic song “A White Man’s Heaven is The
Black Man’s Hell,” anthem of the Black revolution of the 60s. Amiri Baraka
utilized the Muslim myth of Yacub in his play ‘A Black Mass,’ one of his most
powerful works, an examination of the cloning of the white man. Askia Muhammad
Toure must be credited for his Islamic writings, along with poetess Sonia
Sanchez (Laila Mannan) who served a brief tenure in the Nation of Islam. Yusef
Rahman and Yusef Iman created powerful Islamic poetry as well.
Marvin X continued (Black Liberation
Book Fair, January 31, 2004)
“Well,
you know we both had the draft problem as Muslims. Ali followed Elijah
Muhammad’s directive to go to prison instead of going into exile like I did. I
went to Canada. I was there about six months. Well because I got tired of
Canada. There is an expression, ‘Racism is as Canadian as Hockey.’ First I went
to Chicago and linked up with the group around Black World, which was edited by Hoyt Fuller, Haki Madhubuti and
others. I was in Chicago when Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed. After I left
Chicago, I went to Harlem. This is now ‘68. I went to New York to work
with Ed Bullins at the New Lafayette.
“I
went to Montreal for a visit. I had met a girl from Montreal. At the same time
there was a struggle at Sir George Williams University. Bobby Seale was up
there and a brother from Dominique, I think it was Dominique, Rosy Douglas.
There was a student struggle going on; I got busted coming back from Montreal.
Coming across the border without papers. And so I [was] put in jail in Plattsburg,
New York, and then released on OR [Own Recognizance] and then they gave me a
trial date, a court date in San Francisco, for the draft. I was invited to
lecture at Fresno State in the Black Studies Department. Richard Keyes was the
chair. So actually I was going to two trials. One with Reagan at Fresno
Superior Court and one in San Francisco at the Federal Court.
“In 1967, I
had met Eldridge Cleaver upon his release from Soledad Prison, who was then working for Ramparts magazine. He was supposed to interview Muhammad Ali, but
he couldn’t go because he was under house arrest, so he arranged for me to
do the interview. I went to Chicago to wait around for the interview. Muhammad
Ali was in Detroit. He finally came back to Chicago. We were at Elijah
Muhammad’s house. I saw Elijah Muhammad’s
wife, Clara, and Muhammad Ali, but I didn’t see Elijah. Before we got ready to
do the interview, Elijah Muhammad called him into a room, and when he came out
he said, ‘Elijah Muhammad said not to do the interview.’ That he had said
enough about the draft. This was like ’67. Well, we were probably in the house
for about an hour. He said that Elijah was ‘the man I am willing to die for so I
do what he says.’ Well that’s how most Muslims felt.
Both Black Panther and NOI
attitudes about the draft influenced me. That’s why I was in Canada. What I’m
saying is that Elijah said, ‘Resist the draft.’ The Panthers said, ‘Resist
arrest.’ So I resisted the draft and I resisted arrest. That’s where I was
coming from.
“Ali
asked me if I needed any money, and I said, ‘Yeah.’ He gave me a hundred
dollars. Why did he? I don’t know. I guess maybe it was his personality.
I was
at Merritt College with Huey [Newton] and Bobby [Seale] from 1962 to ’64 and we
identified with Malcolm X and so I didn’t join the Nation until ’67. I think I
was looking for something more than what the Panthers were offering, because I
could have easily gone to the Panther Party because they were my friends. It
was a spiritual dimension that I was looking for. But I also got some Marxist
material from the Panthers. But, you know their Ten Point Program was just a
rehashing of the Muslim Program and put into Marxist language.
“Malcolm
gave me political consciousness. He stood up against America. Ali on the other
hand is now speaking on behalf of America. That’s not really strange for him to
do that and I think I say that about him in my review of the movie ‘Ali’ in my
book In The Crazy House Called America.
He became a follower of Wallace Deen and Wallace Deen has an American flag on
his newspaper. So Wallace accepted his American identity and I guess his
followers follow that. Wallace left his father before Malcolm. He never came
back. Ali said he followed Wallace after Elijah made his transition, because as
far as he was concerned, Wallace came with the true Islam, the spiritual Islam,
after the Nation had become corrupted. And then Norman Brown told me last night
that as far as he was concerned Wallace just bought into Arab Nationalism and
Arab racism and turned Negroes into Arabs.”
In his book, In The Crazy House Called America, Marvin X is far more critical of
Ali’s move to the right. He blames it on the champion following the teachings
of the late Wallace Muhammad. In the
book he writes,
“We understand that
he [Ali] has been requested to make public service announcements supporting
America’s war on terrorism. Would this be a more dramatic ending: the people’s
champ who fought against oppression, finally broken down to a servant of the
oppressor… the tragic truth is that Ali is a member of Warith Din Muhammad’s
sect that was known for flag waving before 9/11. Warith had rejected the
teachings of his father, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, in favor of orthodox
Islam, dismissing the Black Nationalism of Elijah for Americanism, so it is not
whack for President Bush to call upon Ali to be the ‘voice of America’ to the
Muslim world, nor for Ali to accept. If indeed, our hero has been co-opted, let
us be mature enough to realize humans are not made of stone and we know in real
life people change, not always for the good—thus the danger of hero worship and
thus the Islamic dictum: nothing deserves to be worshipped except Allah.”
In 1998 I received a three-year grant from the Lila Wallace Foundation, which required
me to accompany adults, who were learning English at Oakland’s Second Start Literacy Program, to the
theater. In the course of three years,
I saw a number of plays and musicals, many of which were overrated, and quite a number of which were insulting to
minorities, like “Ms. Saigon” and “Rent” and the most reprehensible of all, “Stonewall’s House,”
a play that tried to clean up the Confederate insurgents’ reputation and which argued that blacks
were better off in slavery, and that
because of political correctness, white male playwrights were oppressed. In
other words, plays by blacks dominate the Great White Way. The play that I
found the most compelling was
produced by the Black Repertory Theater in Oakland. It was called “A Day In The Life,” and it was written by Marvin
X. Like some of the other black revolutionaries of that period, Marvin X turned to drugs after the disillusionment set in,
and the revolution was busted, partially due to a sinister COINTELPRO operation (Counter Intelligence
Program). Some of the more vibrant, charismatic and militant of the activists
were permitted to morph into non-threatening positions as college professors,
where they still engage in correcting those whom they feel are not revolutionary
enough. All one has to do is contrast the swell-headed boastful play, “Big Time Buck White” in which
Muhammad Ali starred, with “A Day In The Life” to determine the corrosion of the sixties optimism and
the pessimism of the current political
climate. Black Nationalists and those on the black left have been among
President Obama’s harshest
critics, while black support for the president has remained in the ninety percent
range. Cornel West, whom
white progressives were agitating for a run in a primary against the president, referred to the president as “a
black mascot for Wall Street,” which makes you wonder why Wall Street backed his opponent, Mitt Romney.
Marvin X has called the president “a
black hangman.” The Marvin X play includes a scene in which the late Black Panther leader Huey Newton with whom
I appeared on an 1988 ABC TV show (https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=VHL7glIcP4o&feature=share)
a year before his assassination over a drug deal gone wrong. In Marvin X’s play
he shares a crack pipe with the man who would later assassinate him.
Inspired by the Harlem Book Fair, Marvin X
decided to organize his own. Thus
the Black Liberation Book Fair was held in the Tenderloin district of San
Francisco, San Francisco’s
Skid Row, on January 31, 2004. This event included a veritable Who’s Who of
Black Nationalist personalities. With the tendency of the segregated media to
tokenize every aspect of African-American life, some of these people are
unknown to the general public, but connoisseurs of black politics and culture
know about them and recognize their
important contribution to the modern slave revolt of the 1960s. If anyone would give an unsparing portrait of
Muhammad Ali, it would be they. For the 1960s, Muhammad Ali was their leader, but some, like Haki
Madhubuti still resent the champion’s
betrayal of Malcolm X, who,
among black nationalists, is regarded as a deity.
The
book fair was held in the basement of Saint John’s Church. While the media of the 1960s made a few Civil Rights
and Black Power personalities famous, some of those who had worked behind the scenes, those who did the
intellectual heavy lifting, were
present at this book fair. Poet Askiá Toure, my 1960s roommate, Nathan Hare,the
late Sam Greenlee, whose
film version of The Spook Who Sat By The
Door, about an armed uprising against the government drew the attention of
the FBI, and the late Reginald Major, the author of The Black Panther Is A Black Cat, which remains one of the
best books on that group’s career.
The Complete Muhammad Ali
“…it will become the truly definitive book on Muhammad Ali.” Professor Sam Hamod, PhD
“twelve solid rounds of writing… stands above its competition.” Ron Jacobs, Counterpunch
More than a biography and ‘bigger than boxing’, The Complete Muhammad Ali is a fascinating portrait of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first. Ishmael Reed calls it The Complete Muhammad Ali because
most of the hundred odd books about the Champion are “either too
adoring or make excessively negative assertions.” They also omit many
voices that deserve to be heard.
Reed, an accomplished poet, novelist, essayist and playwright, casts his inquisitive eye on a man who came to represent the aspirations of so many people worldwide and so many causes. He also brings to bear his own experience as an African American public figure, born in the South in the same period, as well as an encyclopaedic grasp of American history.
People interviewed include Marvin X, Harry Belafonte, Hugh Masakela, Jack Newfield, Ed Hughes, Emmanuel Steward, Amiri Baraka, Agieb Bilal, Emil Guillermo, Khalilah Ali, Quincy Troupe, Rahaman Ali, Melvin Van Peebles, Ray Robinson, Jr., Ed Hughes, Jesse Jackson, Martin Wyatt, Bennett Johnson, Stanley Crouch, Bobby Seale, and many more.
Reed also places the Muhammad Ali phenomenon in the history of boxing and boxers from before the times of Jack Johnson, through Joe Louis and Archie Moore to Floyd Mayweather. He also includes Canadian fights and fighters like Tommy Burns, George Chuvalo and Yvon Durelle.
“The Heavyweight Championship of the World,” wrote Reed in a 1976 Village Voice headline article shortly after third Ali-Norton fight, “is a sex show, a fashion show, scene of intrigue between different religions, politics, classes; a gathering of stars, ex-stars, their hangers-on, and hangers-on assistants.”
The author of the much cited Writin’ is Fightin’ has now produced what will likely be known not only as The Complete Muhammad Ali but also “the definitive Muhammad Ali.”
Praise
“great book, a lot of hard work, and I know that it will become the truly definitive book on Muhammad Ali.” Professor Sam Hamod, PhD; Former Director of The Islamic Center, Washington, DC
Ishmael Reed is a prize-winning essayist, novelist, poet and playwright. He taught at the University of California-Berkeley for thirty-five years, as well as at Harvard, Yale and Dartmouth. Author of more than twenty-five books, he is a member of Harvard’s Signet Society and Yale’s Calhoun Society. He lives in Oakland, California.
Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Comments on Marvin X's poem Fly Yo Flag, Nigguh
Yo
Brother Marvin X, that poem really hit the spot... that was like a 22
rim fire to the head of the ignorant and their superstitions of
patriotism. We need to get major cases of Citrom the lemon sparkling
laxative and purge our communities of the bullshit and help end the
love-fest of the Black face administrator of imperialism big eared
official mulatto Barack "Buckwheat" Obama...
--Sekou
I love that – Fly Your Flag . . . Now there’s a poem !
--Dr. Neal Hall, India
EXACTLY!
The racist flag is the latest distraction attraction designed to protect racism.
Asante sana!
--Kujichagulia Phavia
  the death of nine people to worrying bout a cracker ass punk bitch flag fly yo own flag, nigguh let the white man southern cracker northern fake smile soda cracker motherfucker fly his stars and stripes yo ass been burned by both flags fly yo flag nigguh let the white man be his white devil self his day is coming soon and very soon fly yo flag North American African ass nigguh! --Marvin X 6/22/15  October 4, 2001 |
| When I'll Wave The Flag |
By Marvin X
|
| I'll wave the flag When the trillions in reparations are paid to the African American Nation For 400 years of terror in America When the bill of the Middle Passage is paid When the bill from the cotton fields is paid I'll wave the flag When the damages due the descendents of mass murder is paid Mass kidnapping Mass rape I'll wave the flag When the police stop terrorizing us for breathing while black Walking while black Loving while black I'll wave the flag When the 2 million men and women in prison are released for petty crimes And those guilty of stealing elections take their place in the cells I'll wave the flag When those guilty of stealing labor, stealing energy, stealing souls of the poor are jailed I'll wave the flag When those guilty of the miseducation of our children are jailed for crimes against humanity I'll wave the flag When those who terrorize the earth, pollute the earth, poison the food, the water, the air Inject animals with hormones Genetically alter vegetables and fruits When these people are taken before the world court for terrorizing the world I'll wave the flag Until then Kiss my motherfuckin' ass. 2001 Marvin X. |
Blacks 7 times more likely than Whites to be arrested in San Francisco, bastion of white liberalism
New BI Report: African-Americans 7 Times More Likely than Whites to Be Arrested in San Francisco
“S.F. study finds big disparity in arrest rates between races”
(From the San Francisco Chronicle – 6/23/15)
Black people are disproportionately represented throughout the criminal justice system in San Francisco, from arrest to booking in jail to conviction and sentencing — and the disparity is growing worse, according to a city-commissioned study set to be released Tuesday.
The study found that black people are 7.1 times more likely to be arrested in the city than white people, 11 times more likely to be booked into jail and 10.3 times more likely to be convicted. Those convicted spend more time on probation or behind bars.
The study, which examined data through 2013, was commissioned by the San Francisco Reentry Council, a multiagency group that includes prosecutors and the mayor’s office and seeks to helps incarcerated people transition back into society.
The findings come as nationwide attention turns toward racial inequity in the criminal justice system, following several high-profile, video-recorded killings of unarmed black people by police officers.
And the report comes as thousands of San Francisco criminal cases and convictions over the past 10 years are under review, following the release of racist and anti-gay text messages sent between at least 14 San Francisco police officers.
“The disparities are stark,” said Laura Ridolfi, Director of Policy at the W. Haywood Burns Institute, the Oakland nonprofit that conducted the research. The organization seeks to redress what it sees as the justice system’s biased treatment of young people of color, whose early brushes with the system hurt their ability to be successful.
“This is a clear statement to the city and county that there is work to be done,” Ridolfi said. “The disparities here undermine the notion of justice.”
According to the study, the over-representation of minorities in San Francisco courts and jails has grown more stark over the past two decades, even as crime rates trend down across all demographics.
In 1994, for every white person arrested, 4.6 black people were taken into custody by police in San Francisco. In 2013, that number jumped to 7.1, according to the study. Though black people represented just 6 percent of the city’s adult population, they made up 40 percent of those arrested.
Once arrested, black people were less likely to make bail or be freed before trial, even though black defendants were more likely to be eligible for pretrial release.
“The report makes it clear: Racial profiling extends beyond the street and into the courthouse,” said Public Defender Jeff Adachi, co-chair of the Reentry Council. “It also shows that San Francisco lags behind the rest of the state in closing the equality gap in its justice system.”
While the racial disparity gap has been closing statewide, it has been growing in San Francisco, the study said.
In 1994, 3.9 black people were arrested in California for every white person, while that number was 4.6 in San Francisco. By 2013, the statewide number had dropped to three black people arrested for every white person, while that number jumped to 7.1 in the city.
While the study’s findings are alarming, Police Chief Greg Suhr said, “We try to do our job as objectively as possible.”
Suhr said socioeconomic factors must be considered in the statistics. Black residents of San Francisco tend to be poorer, live in neighborhoods with higher crime rates and, according to the study, are 10 times as likely as white residents to have a past criminal conviction. Suhr said his department has worked to address these issues through a jobs program that employs city teens, especially from poorer communities, and a recent push to keep kids in school.
“There are so many other things that are part of the conversation,” Suhr said. “But we’re certainly not trying to arrest our way out of this situation.”
Ridolfi said limitations of the data — in many cases the races of suspects and those arrested were not available — made it difficult to analyze the reasons behind the wide discrepancy between racial groups.
The study notes that accurate figures for Latino residents were unavailable due to the disregarding of ethnicity. Moreover, the authors said, the counting of many “Hispanics” as white likely served to understate the disparity between black and non-Hispanic white people.
Max Szabo, a spokesman for the district attorney’s office, said his office is “very supportive” of the study.
“This is important work that we are very supportive of, and we are not shying away from the challenges that this study depicts,” Szabo said. “As the district attorney has noted for some time, we need additional investment in data capacity so we can paint a clearer picture of disparities in the system and begin identifying policy solutions that can have a lasting impact.”
Kale Williams and Vivian Ho are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. E-mail: kwilliams@sfchronicle.com, vho@sfchronicle.comTwitter: @sfkale, @VivianHo
Slavery on the new plantation by Kiilu Nyasha
San Francisco | Police State and Prisons
Longtime San Francisco-based journalist/activist Kiilu Nyasha writes that "Chattel slavery was ended following prolonged guerrilla warfare between the slaves and the slave-owners and their political allies. Referred to as the 'Underground Railroad,' it was led by the revolutionary General Harriet Tubman with support from her alliances with abolitionists, Black and White. It only makes sense that this new form of slavery must produce prison abolitionists."
SLAVERY ON THE NEW PLANTATION (updated March 2012)
By Kiilu Nyasha
"Slavery 400 years ago, slavery today. It's the same, but with a new name. They're practicing slavery under color of law." (Ruchell Cinque Magee)
The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution retained the right to enslave within the confines of prison. “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” Dec. 6, 1865.
Even before the abolition of chattel slavery, America's history of prison labor had already begun in New York's State Prison at Auburn soon after it opened in 1817. Auburn became the first prison that contracted with a private business to operate a factory within its walls. Later, in the post Civil War period, the "contract and lease" system proliferated, allowing private companies to employ prisoners and sell their products for profit.
Today, such prisons are referred to as “Factories with Fences.” (/http://www.unicor.gov/information/publications/pdfs/corporate/CATMC1101_C.pdf)
The Convict-Lease System
In Southern states, Slave Codes were rewritten as Black Codes, a series of laws criminalizing the law-abiding activities of Black people, such as standing around, "loitering," or walking at night, "breaking curfew." The enforcement of these Codes dramatically increased the number of Blacks in Southern prisons. In 1878, Georgia leased out 1,239 convicts, 1,124 of whom were Black.
The lease system provided slave labor for plantation owners or private industries as well as revenue for the state, since incarcerated workers were entirely in the custody of the contractors who paid a set annual fee to the state (about $25,000). Entire prisons were leased out to private contractors who literally worked hundreds of prisoners to death. Prisons became the new plantations; Angola State Prison in Louisiana was a literal plantation, and still is except the slaves are now called convicts and the prison is known as "The Farm." (A documentary of that title is available on DVD.)
The inherent brutality and cruelty of the lease system and the loss of outside jobs sparked resistance that eventually brought about its demise.
One of the most famous battles was the Coal Creek Rebellion of 1891. When the Tennessee coal, Iron and Railroad locked out their workers and replaced them with convicts, the miners stormed the prison and freed 400 captives; and when the company continued to contract prisoners, the miners burned the prison down. The Tennessee leasing system was disbanded shortly thereafter. But it remained in many states until the rise of resistance in the 1930s.
Strikes by prisoners and union workers together were organized by then radical CIO and other labor unions. They pressured Congress to pass the 1935 Ashurst-Sumners Act making it illegal to transport prison-made goods across state lines. But under President Jimmy Carter, Congress granted exemptions to the Act by passing the Justice System Improvement Act of 1979, which produced the Prison Industries Enhancement program, or PIE, that eventually spread to all 50 states. This lifted the ban on interstate transportation and sale of prison-made products, permitting a for-profit relationship between prisons and the private sector, and prompting a dramatic increase in prison labor which continues to escalate.
As the leasing system phased out, a new, even more brutal exploitation emerged -- the chain gang. An extremely dehumanizing cruelty that chained men, and later women, together in groups of five, it was originated to build extensive roads and highways. The first state to institute chain gangs was Alabama, followed by Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Montana, and Oklahoma.
Arizona's first female chain gang was instituted in 1996. Complete with striped uniforms, the women of a Phoenix jail (to this day) spend four to six hours a day chained together in groups of 30, clearing roadsides of weeds and burying the indigent.
Georgia's chain-gang conditions were particularly brutal. Men were put out to work swinging 12 lb. sledge hammers for 16 hours a day, malnourished and shackled together, unable to move their legs a full stride. Wounds from metal shackles often became infected, leading to illness and death. Prisoners who could not keep up with the grueling pace were whipped or shut in a sweatbox or tied to a hitching post, a stationary metal rail. Chained to the post with hands raised high over his head, the prisoner remained tethered in that position in the Alabama heat for many hours without water or bathroom breaks. (Human Rights Watch World Report 1998).
Thanks to a lawsuit settled by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Alabama's Department of Corrections agreed in 1996 to stop chaining prisoners together. A few years later, the Center won a Court ruling that ended use of the hitching post as a violation of the 8th Amendment's ban on "cruel and unusual punishment."
In response to the demands of World War II, the number of both free and captive road workers declined significantly. In 1941, there were 1,750 prisoners slaving in 28 active road camps for all types of construction and maintenance. The numbers bottomed out by war's end at 540 captives in 17 camps.
The Proliferation of Prisons, Jails, and Camps
In the 1940s, California Governor Earl Warren conducted secret investigations into the State's only prisons, San Quentin and Folsom. The depravity, squalor, sadism, and torture he found led the governor to initiate the building of Soledad Prison in 1951.
Prisoners were put to work in educational and vocational programs that taught basic courses in English and math, and provided training in trades ranging from gardening to meat cutting. At wages of 7 to 25 cents an hour, California prisoners used their acquired skills to turn out institutional clothing and furniture, license plates and stickers, seed new crops, slaughter pigs, produce and sell dairy products to a nearby mental institution.
Within a decade this "model prison" at Soledad had become another torture chamber of filthy dungeons, literal "holes," virulently racist guards, officially sanctioned brutality, torture, and murder. Though prison jobs were supposed to be voluntary, if prisoners refuse to work they were often given longer sentences, denied privileges, or thrown into solitary confinement. Forced to work long hours under miserable conditions, in the 1960s, "Soledad Brother," George Jackson, organized a work strike that turned into a riot after white strikebreakers tried to lynch one of the Black strikers.
The Black Movement's resistance, led by George Jackson, W. L. Nolen, and Hugo "Yogi" Pinell, eventually brought Congressional oversight and overhaul of California's prison system. (The Melancholy History of Soledad Prison, by Minh S. Yee.).
California’s prison system rose exponentially to approximately 174,000 prisoners crammed into 90 penitentiaries, prisons and camps stretched across 900 miles of the fifth-largest economy in the world, as Ruth Gilmore's book, "Golden Gulag" reports. That number can be doubled or tripled by those on other forms of penal control, probation, parole, or house arrest.
Since 1984, the California has erected 43 prisons (and only one university) making it a global leader in prison construction. Most of the new prisons have been built in rural areas far from family and friends, and most captives are Black or Brown men, although the incarceration of women has skyrocketed. Suicide and recidivism rates approach twice the national average, and the State spends more on prisons than on higher education. (The seeming contradiction between the official figure of 33 prisons relates to the additional buildings constructed at a given prison complex, and the various camps and county jails.)
Between 1998 and 2009, the CDCR’s budget grew from $3.5 billion to $10.3 billion (the latest figures available). At its peak in August 2007, the department had 72 gyms and 125 dayrooms jammed with 19,618 inmate beds.
"They provided an accurate and extremely graphic example of the crowding and inhumanity that engulfed the entire system," said Don Specter, director of the nonprofit Prison Law Office in Berkeley, which sued to force the state to ease crowding as a way to improve the treatment of sick and mentally ill inmates.
The Privatizing of Federal and State Prisons
Under court order to reduce overcrowding, by 2009, the CDCR had transferred 8,000 prisoners to private prisons in four states –Tennessee, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Arizona, among the most virulently racist states in the country. The rest of the prisoners were transferred to county jails. Currently, the inmate population is about 142,000 and must remove another 17,000 prisoners to reach the June 2013 court deadline.
In 1985, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Warren Burger lauded China's prison labor program: "1,000 inmates in one prison I visited comprised a complete factory unit producing hosiery and what we would call casual or sport shoes... Indeed it had been a factory and was taken over to make a prison." Burger called for the conversion of prisons into factories, the repeal of laws limiting prison industry production and sales, and the active participation of business and organized labor.
Heeding the judge's call, California voters passed Prop 139 in 1990, establishing the Joint Venture Program allowing California businesses to cash in on prison labor. "This is the new jobs program for California, so we can compete on a Third World basis with countries like Bangladesh," observed Richard Holober with the California Federation of Labor.
Currently, California's Prison Industrial Authority (CALPIA) employs, 7000 captives assigned to 5039 positions in manufacturing, agricultural service enterprises, and selling and administration at 22 prisons throughout the state. It produces goods and services such as office furniture, clothing, food products, shoes, printing services, signs, binders, gloves, license plates, cell equipment, and much more. Wages are $.30 to $.95 per hour before deductions.
For the State's highest wage, $1 hour, prisoners provide the "backbone of the state's wild land fire fighting crews," according to an unpublished CDC report. The State Department of Forestry saves more than $80 million annually using prison labor. California's Department of Forestry has 200 Fire Crews comprised of CDC and CYA (California Youth Authority) minimum-security captives housed in 46 Conservation Camps throughout the state. These prisoners average 10 million work hours per year according to the CDCR.
"Their primary function is to construct fire lines by hand in areas where heavy machinery cannot be used because of steep topography, rocky terrain, or areas that may be considered environmentally sensitive." (I.e., the most dangerous fire lines).
Now at least 37 states have similar programs wherein prisoners manufacture everything from blue jeans to auto parts, electronics and toys. Clothing made in Oregon and California is exported to other countries, competing successfully with apparel made in Asia and Latin America.
One of the newest forms of slave labor is the U.S. Army's "Civilian Inmate Labor Program" to "benefit both the Army and corrections systems" by providing "a convenient source of labor at no direct cost to Army installations," additional space to alleviate prison overcrowding, and cost-effective use of land and facilities otherwise not being utilized.
"With a few exceptions," this program is currently limited to prisoners under the Federal Bureau of Prisons (FBOP) that allows the Attorney General to provide the services of federal prisoners to other federal agencies, defining the types of services they can perform. The Program stipulates that the "Army is not interested in, nor can afford, any relationship with a corrections facility if that relationship stipulates payment for civilian inmate labor. Installation civilian inmate labor program operating costs must not exceed the cost avoidance generated from using inmate labor." In other words the prison labor must be free of charge.
The three "exceptions" to exclusive Federal contracting are as follows: (1) "a demonstration project" providing "prerelease employment training to nonviolent offenders in a State correctional facility" [CF]. (2) Army National Guard units "may use inmates from an off-post State and/or local CF." (3) Civil Works projects. Services provided might include constructing or repairing roads, maintaining or reforesting public land; building levees, landscaping, painting, carpentry, trash pickup, etc.
This Civilian Inmate Labor Program document includes in its countless specifications such caveats as "Inmates must not be referred to as employees." A prisoner would not qualify if he/she is a "person in whom there is a significant public interest," who has been a "significant management problem," "a principal organized crime figure," any "inmate convicted of a violent crime," a sex offense, involvement with drugs within the last three years, an escape risk, "a threat to the general public." Makes one wonder why such a prisoner isn't just released or paroled. In fact, the "hiring qualifications" -- makes me suspect the "Civilian Inmate Labor Program" is a backdoor draft, especially in lieu of a military already stretched to its limit.
Note: When I tried to find an updated web page on the Civilian Inmate Labor Program, there was none. The date remains 2005 for its latest report. Could the latest data be classified?
The Federal Prison Industries (FPI), a nonprofit Justice Department subsidiary, that does business as UNICOR, was created in 1935, and began supplying the Pentagon on a broad scale in the 1980s.
The prison privatization boom began in the 1980s, under the governments of Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr., but reached its height in 1990 under Bill Clinton when the Wall Street stocks were selling like hotcakes. In fact, President Clinton accomplished a record $10 billion prison building boom in the 1990s.
His program for cutting the federal workforce resulted in the Justice Department’s contracting of private prison corporations for the incarceration of undocumented workers and high-security inmates. (Global Research, 2008)
By 2003, there were 100 FPI factories working 20,274 prisoners with sales totaling $666.8 million. And currently FPI employs about 19,000 captives, slightly less than 20 percent of the federal prison population, in 106 prison factories around the country. Profits totaled at least $40 million!
In 2005, FPI sold more than $750,000,000 worth of goods to the federal government. Sales to the Army alone put UNICOR on the Army's list of top 50 suppliers, ahead of well-known corporations like Dell Computer, according to Wayne Woolley, Newhouse News Service.
In 2011, the Justice Policy Institute (JPI) released a report that exposes how private prison companies are “working to make money through harsh policies and longer sentences.” The report notes that while the total number of prisoners increased less than 16 percent, the number of people held in private federal and state facilities increased by 120 and 33 percent, respectively.
Government spending on so-called corrections rose to $74 billion in 2007. And last year (2011) the two largest private prison companies — Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and GEO Group — made over $2.9 billion in profits. These corporations use three strategies to influence public policy: lobbying, direct campaign contributions and networking. They succeeded in getting Arizona’s harsh new immigration laws passed, and came close to winning the privatization of all of Florida’s prisons.
A relatively new ordering tool used by BOP (Bureau of Prisons) is GSA Advantage!, the federal government’s premier online ordering system that provides 24-hour access to over 17 million products and services, solutions available from over 16,000 GSA Multiple Award Schedules contractors, as well as all products available from GSA Global Supply. http://www.gsaadvantage.gov
Since the beginning of the war in Afghanistan in 2001, the Army's Communication and Electronics Command at Fort Monmouth, N.J., has shipped more than 200,000 radios to combat zones, most with at least some components manufactured by federal inmates working in 11 prison electronics factories around the country. Under current law, UNICOR enjoys a contracting preference known as "mandatory source," which obligates government agencies to try to buy certain goods from the prisons before allowing private companies to bid on the work. This same contracting restriction applies to state agencies.
The demand for defense products from FPI became so great that "national exigency" provisions were invoked so the 20 percent limit on goods provided in each category could be exceeded. The rules were waived during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Private manufacturers say they've been hurt by such practice, as they are unable to bid on various products.
According to the Left Business Observer, the federal prison industry produces 100% of all military helmets, ammunition belts, bulletproof vests, ID tags, shirts, pants, tents, bags, and canteens. Along with war supplies, prison workers supply 98% of the entire market for equipment assembly services; 93% of paints and paintbrushes; 92% of stove assembly; 46% of body armor; 36% of home appliances; 30% of headphones/microphones/speakers; and 21% of office furniture. Airplane parts, medical supplies, and much more: prisoners are even raising seeing-eye dogs for blind people.
By 2007, the overall sales figures and profits for federal and state prison industries had skyrocketed into the billions. Apparently, the military industrial complex (MIC) and the prison industrial complex (PIC) have joined forces.
The PIC is a network of public and private prisons, of military personnel, politicians, business contacts, prison guard unions, contractors, subcontractors and suppliers all making big profits at the expense of poor people who comprise the overwhelming majority of captives. The fastest growing industry in the country, it has its own trade exhibitions, conventions, websites, and mail-order/Internet catalogs and direct advertising campaigns. Corporate stockholders who make money off prisoners' labor lobby for longer sentences, in order to expand their workforce.
Replacing the "contract and lease" system of the 19th Century, private companies that have contracted prison labor include Microsoft, Boeing, Honeywell, IBM, Revlon, Pierre Cardin, Compaq, Victoria Secret, Macy’s, Target,
Nordstrom, and countless others.
In 1995, there were only five private prisons in the country, with a population of 2,000 inmates; now, private companies operate 264 correctional facilities housing some 99,000 adult prisoners. The two largest private prison corporations in the US, GEO Group (formerly Wackenhut) and Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) are transnationals, managing prisons and detention centers in 34 states, Australia, Canada, South Africa, and the United Kingdom.
A top performer on the New York Stock Exchange, CCA called California its "new frontier," and boasts of investors such as Wal-Mart, Exxon, General Motors, Ford, Chevrolet, Texaco, Hewlett-Packard, Verizon, and UPS. Currently, CCA has 80,000 beds in 65 facilities, and GEO Group operates 61 facilities with 49,000 beds, according to Wikipredia.
Employers (Read: slavers) don't have to pay health or unemployment insurance, vacation time, sick leave or overtime. They can hire, fire or reassign inmates as they so desire, and can pay the workers as little as 21 cents an hour. The inmates cannot respond with a strike, file a grievance, or threaten to leave and get a better job.
On September 19, 2005, UNICOR was commended for its outstanding support of the nation’s military. Deputy Commander of the Defense Supply Center Philadelphia (DSCP), presented the Bureau of Prisons Director with a “Supporting the Warfighter” award. The award recognized UNICOR for its tremendous support of DSCP’s mission to provide equipment, materials, and supplies to each branch of the armed forces. “We at DSCP are very appreciative of UNICOR, especially with our critical need items. With more than $200 million worth of orders during Fiscal Years 2004 and 2005, UNICOR has not had a single delinquency.”
Mass roundups of immigrants and non-citizens, currently about half of all federal prisoners, and dragnets in low-income 'hoods have increased the prison population to unprecedented levels. Andrea Hornbein points out in Profit Motive: "The majority of these arrests are for low level offenses or outstanding warrants, and impact the taxpayer far more than the offense. For example, a $300 robbery resulting in a 5-year sentence, at the Massachusetts average of $43,000 per year, will cost $215,000. That doesn't even include law enforcement and court costs."
Nearly 75% of all prisoners are drug war captives. A criminal record today practically forces an ex-con into illegal employment since they don't qualify for legitimate jobs or subsidized housing. Minor parole violations, unaffordable bail, parole denials, longer mandatory sentencing and three strikes laws, slashing of welfare rolls, overburdened court systems, shortages of public defenders, massive closings of mental hospitals, and high unemployment (about 50% for Black men) -- all contribute to the high rates of incarceration and recidivism. Thus, the slave labor pool continues to expand.
Among the most powerful unions today are the guards' unions. The California Corrections Peace Officers Association (CCPOA) wields so much political power it practically decides who governs the state. Moreover, its members get the State's biggest payouts, according to the L.A. Times. "More than 1600 officers' earnings exceeded legislators' 2007 salaries of $113,098." Base pay for 6,000 guards earning $100,000 or more totaled $453 million with overtime adding another $220 million to wages. One lieutenant guard earned more than any other state official, including the Governor, or $252,570.
California’s per prisoner cost has raised to $49,000, and that figure doubles and triples for elderly and high-security captives. That’s enough money to send a person through Harvard!
The National Correctional Industries Association (NCIA), is an international nonprofit professional association, whose self-declared mission is “to promote excellence and credibility in correctional industries through professional development and innovative business solutions.”
NCIA's members include all 50 state correctional industry agencies, Federal Prison Industries, foreign correctional industry agencies, city and county jail industry programs, and private sector companies working in partnership with correctional industries.
Chattel slavery was ended following prolonged guerrilla warfare between the slaves and the slave-owners and their political allies. Referred to as the “Underground Railroad,” it was led by the revolutionary General Harriet Tubman with support from her alliances with abolitionists, Black and White. It only makes sense that this new form of slavery must produce prison abolitionists.
As George Jackson noted in a KPFA interview with Karen Wald (Spring 1971), "I'm saying that it's impossible, impossible, to concentration-camp resisters....We have to prove that this thing won't work here. And the only way to prove it is resistance...and then that resistance has to be supported, of course, from the street....We can fight, but the results are...not conducive to proving our point...that this thing won't work on us. From inside, we fight and we die....the point is -- in the new face of war -- to fight and win."
Power to the people.
--Kiilu Nyasha is a San Francisco-based journalist and former member of the Black Panther Party. Kiilu hosts a bimonthly TV program, "Freedom Is A Constant Struggle," on BAVC Commons, and many shows are archived here: http://kiilunyasha.blogspot.com/
Professor Jane Landers on South Carolina History
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