Black August

The George Jackson story has now been developed into a movie entitled Black August. It depicts the last 14 months of George Jackson's existence under the subjective and objective conditions of captivity. Sentenced to one year-to-life at age 18, for a $70 gas station robbery in 1960, George Jackson would spend the next 11 years in California's industrial prison complex, 7 years of which were in solitary confinement. The movie encompasses the infamous Soledad Brothers case in which George Jackson, Fleeta Drumgo, and John Clucheette are accused of murdering a Soledad prison guard, in retaliation for the killing of three Black inmates involved in a fight with White inmates on an exercise yard in Soledad State Prison, Soledad, California. The movie also reflects on the general prison movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and the role the Black Panther Party would play in organizing both the outside communities in America as well as their influence on prisoners across the country.