Murder At San Quentin

On February 15, 1963, Booker T. Johnson, a black inmate, was shot to death in a San Quentin prison exercise yard. I related his death as the first in a series of murders that enrage black inmates throughout the California prison system. In January 13, 1970 at Soledad State Prison, three black inmates are shot to death in a maximum security exercise yard. The blacks retaliate by murdering an officer. A group of blacks are charged and become known as the Soledad Brothers. George Jackson is identified as their leader. A shootout at the Marin County Court House in January 1971 takes place. A judge is killed, a District Attorney is seriously wounded and Jackson’s seventeen year old brother, Jonathan, is slain. On August 21, 1971, George Jackson is shot and killed trying to escape from San Quentin Prison. Three officers are murdered. The community is outraged and the prison’s employees are devastated. A trial follows. In the aftermath of the murders, prison officials require procedural changes to reduce violence. New staff members are brought in to alter the prison culture. The struggle between the old guard and the new turns hostile as racial and gang violence continues. Other accounts of murders inside the prison are investigated as the trial of the San Quentin Six proceeds. The last three chapters deal with an episode involving Charles Manson, the Warden and the author At the end of the book, a bonus poem, Helter Skelter in verse, is offered in an elegy on Manson’s life.