
Blood In My Eye was completed only days before its author was killed. George Jackson died on August 21, 1971, at the hands of San Quentin prison guards during an alleged escape attempt. At eighteen, George Jackson was convicted of stealing seventy dollars from a gas station and was sentenced from one year to life. He was to spent the rest of his life -- eleven years-- in the California prison system, seven in solitary confinement. In prison he read widely and transformed himself into an activist and political theoretician who defined himself as a revolutionary.
This work investigates the systemic nature of the American prison industrial complex and the necessity of revolutionary action to dismantle it. George Jackson, writing from within the California prison system, utilizes his personal experience of incarceration and extensive political study to argue that the prison is a microcosm of a larger, oppressive capitalist state. He posits that the struggle for liberation is inseparable from the broader fight against institutionalized racism and economic exploitation.
What You Will Find
Scope Limits
Scholars and activists frequently identify this text as a foundational document in the study of radical prison literature and anti-imperialist thought. Readers often note the intense, urgent, and uncompromising tone of the prose, which reflects the author's immediate proximity to the state violence he describes.
Page Count:
176
Publication Date:
1975-01-01
Publisher:
Penguin
ISBN-10:
0140038787
ISBN-13:
9780140038781
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