Rev Left Radio - The Fight to Free The Pendleton 2!

Episode Date: August 29, 2024

Too Black returns to the show to discuss the case of the Pendleton 2, the story of John “Balagoon” Cole and Christopher “Naeem” Trotter, the leaders of the Indiana prison uprising that rescued Lincoln "Lokmar" Love from being brutalized and killed by prison guards, exposed Pendleton’s dehumanizing conditions, and unleashed the vindictive wrath of the Indiana Department of Correction. Together, he and Breht discuss the backstory, the legal case and trial, the absurdly long prison sentences they recieved, the KKK-affiliated "Sons of Light" operating amongst the prison guards, The Black Dragons, prison organizing, solitary confinement, how you can help the Pendleton 2 directly, the powerful legacy of George Jackson, the unacceptable and inhuman conditions of American prisons, the Black Alliance for Peace's "Black August" events, and more!   You can donate directly to campaign to free the Pendleton 2 HERE Watch the documentary "The Pendleton 2: They Stood Up" for free on YT HERE Check out Too Black's website HERE Here are previous episodes discussed during this converation, including the latest episode of the Black Myths Podcast, which you can find on your preferred podcast app:   Laundering Black Rage: Capitalism, Empire, and The Mechanics of Co-optation All Power to the People: The Kevin Rashid Johnson Interview Myth: Black August is a Celebration (w/ Christopher "Naeem" Trotter)   Follow Rev Left on IG   Outro Song: "Police State" by Dead Prez

Hello everybody and welcome back to Rev Left Radio. On today's episode, we have a really important episode, a sort of call-to-action episode surrounding the story of the Pendleton 2. We have on as our guest, Two Black, who has done a lot of work with the Pendleton 2 and a lot of work with the Black Alliance for Peace, the Defense Committee to free the Pendleton 2, and is a poet, puts together documentaries. We've had them on actually, I think, earlier this year, in May of this year with his co-author, Razuel Mowat, to talk about their book they released this year called Laundering Black Rage, The Washing of Black Death, People, Property, and Profits. So that interview was really important. And I'll link that interview in the show notes, so you can go check that out. Definitely. It was a great episode. And while we're on the topic of political prisoners, I just want to remind people that a couple

years ago in 2021, we did an interview with Kevin Rashid Johnson of the Revolutionary Intercommunalist Black Panther Party from prison, who he's still in prison. And we got the first person sort of perspective of what prison is, how the prison guards behave, the racial dynamics of maximum security prisons, the torture of solitary confinement, etc. So I thought that was an interesting interview that this one sort of reminded me of as the broader critique, the abolitionist and radical revolutionary critique of the racist American political prison system is advanced in this episode as it was in that one. So it's really important to just educate yourself about that, help other people educate themselves

about that. I also wanted to make sure, and I make this clear throughout the episode, but this is a call to action. So he's going to tell you the story of the Pendleton, too, And it's going to be heartbreaking. It's going to be enraging, as these stories always are. But don't just let it stop there. I want people to do whatever they can to directly help the Pendleton 2. And, of course, that comes in the form of donating directly, which I'll link to in the show notes. But it also comes in many other forms.

We talk about the multiple ways that you can help spread the word. You can spread this podcast. There's a documentary that Two Black and his friend King Trill, put out through breakthrough news. We'll probably play a clip of that in the episode itself, but the full documentary will be linked in the show notes. And one of the ways I think that would be cool to help out is to do a screening. And Two Black tells you at the end of this episode exactly how to do that. So if you're in an organization, putting on a screening in your local city or town to educate people in your community about this issue and your organization

about this issue is another way to spread the word, contribute to the cause, etc. So Yes, I want people to learn the story, and I want people to act on it in whatever ways that they can, whether that's sharing, donating directly, organizing something around this issue, et cetera. And huge shout out to the Black Alliance for Peace. They're just wrapping up their Black August events, and we talk about that in the end of the show as well, and how people can either directly join or show support or join the Solidarity Network of the Black Alliance for Peace, which, again, does amazing, amazing. amazing work, and I've had on members of that organization on the show many, many, many times, and I hope to continue to have them on the show many times going forward, because as I say, in almost every episode where they're on, they are one of the most principled, you know, political organizations out there in the United States today, so show them some love for sure.

All right, and without further ado, here is me and Two Black discussing the case of the Pendleton two, Black Alliance for Peace is Black August, and much, much more. Enjoy. Yeah, I go by to Black. I'm a poet, filmmaker, scholar, and organizer, filmmaker, scholar, and organizer based in Indianapolis, Indiana. And I'm here today to speak on the case of the Penalton, too. Some of you may have heard me prior with my co-author, Rasul Moultz, speak on our book that just dropped in April, Laundering Black Rage.

But today we're here to talk about political prisoners, and specifically the Penaltern, too. Yeah, absolutely. And it's a pleasure and an honor to have you back. And I will make sure to link to our previous episode with you and your co-author Launders. black rage in the comments or in the show notes so people can find that episode and listen to it if they if in case they missed it but yes today we're talking about the pendleton two this is a really important case that actually through this engagement with you it was brought to my attention

for the first time i don't know how it slipped through my awareness but if it slipped through my awareness i assume there are many people out there who are also unaware of the situation so we're going to try to correct that today with this episode so let's start with just that the pendleton two John Balagoon Cole and Christopher Naim Trotter. Can you tell us the backstory of the incident that occurred with Lincoln Love and in the 1980s and his brutalization at the hands of correction officers? And just kind of tell us what John and Christopher's role was in the incident, et cetera. Just give us a nice background of what actually occurred and then what can get into more contemporary developments. Right.

So I always try to go back to the, give people a sense of the prison that they were in. and just like kind of the nature of that place because I think that helps people understand more so how the incident that we're going to speak about how that was how that was sparked and how that wasn't really an accident. So this is Indiana reformatory what we now know as the as a Pendleton Correctional Facility in Indiana. It's based in Madison County, Indiana. the biggest city in massac county is and just in for the few people who might be familiar with Indiana is the prison that was built i believe in the 30s um actually in the 20s 1923 yeah and um you know it was it comes in time where you know these prisons are trying to prisoners that used

to just be holding places for basically executions um like death of execution hangings things of that nature and then you know eventually prisons quote reform themselves to be places where people can be rehabilitate or in as is in the name of reformatory so people can be reformed from whatever quote of quote crime they committed right um so by you know the 1960s of the late 1960s you know this prison um has now started to got get a a large share of black a black prisoners and inmates. And there was a protest done by the black prisoners because they were being treated so horribly by the guards

and even by other white prisoners in 1969. This was a silent protest. And it was a nonviolent protest. About 100 black men simply just sat down in the yard and said we're not going back into ourselves until we can end the level of mistreatment and discrimination. we have to deal with and the brutality we have to deal with. And the guards

just to give, again, to get people since the kind of prison were dealing with those guards took that demand and decided to shoot into the crowd of 100 black men that were just sitting in the yard who were not bothering anyone. They shot into the yard. Guards, I think,

is I'm reading here, fired live rounds indiscriminately. And they killed one person and wounded about 47 and just shooting into this crowd. So this is the gone of prison just to get people a sense of what you're dealing with. There was a class action lawsuit that came through in the mid-80s that talked about what was happening in the early 80s. It says by 1982, this is speaking of the space in the prison. It housed

almost 2,000 prisons, but it was twice its intended capacity, it was overcrowded to accommodate the rise of the population. The prison officials placed two prisoners in sales that were intended for one, more than one third of all sales or converted into double sales. So, again, prisons are not great places, period. But now you have people in like basically sardine cans shoved into cells that are, you know, that are half the size they should be in sales that are meant for one person having two people in it. The, the segregation units were so bad. It said they were about 24 square feet net approximately half of those. I'm only 12 square feet sales.

Bridges were kept. We need to be separated from general population. That's what they used to tell before. The siblings were lower and inmates on the top bunks of double cells or were unable to sit up. So people had bad problems because if you were in a double cell in a segregation unit, you couldn't even sit up. So some people couldn't even stand.

There was no space for a chair on the floor. That's how small these places were. The kitchen and the commissary and the food storage areas were unsanitary and infested with mice and roaches and the floor was found uncleanable due the holes, cracks, crevices, missing tile and gross poricity. Some of the ceiling was missing, pots and pans were covered with uncleanable grim. So this is from a lawsuit, French versus all in a class action lawsuit that the prisoners actually hit the Indiana reformatory with.

So I want to always give, I always like to people that had a little bit of a backdrop as to what the prison was because I think sometimes we you know and I know this show was worked through like Lennon and stuff and this this this issue of spontaneity and sometimes people and you know Lennon was very critical people who like to think of spontaneity is this kind of random occurrence now you know he obviously talked about vanguard and things of that nature but also just this idea that folks just randomly get mad one day and conditions are not really a part of it other than maybe one incident like somebody got beat up or something happened.

It's like, no, that's just the best, as I said, the last straw that is not a, that doesn't come out of nowhere. If everything was peaceful and then somebody was abused or something, I don't think everybody would, you know, take over a prison. But when you put people in prison, when you shoot in the crowds of black men sitting in protests when you, you know, serve them slime on plates and you have them stuffed in cells and the cells are unclean and, and, you know, Folks can't get cleaning supplies.

They can't get soaked. They can't get the basic things to take care of themselves. Then on top of it, you have, and we're going to get to this more a racist guard unit that is beating up prisoners and targeting black prisoners. But, you know, it's fairly logical that one day, you know, there was going to be some response to that. That's not really hard to conceive of it.

So that's just to give people a sense. And there's more of it just to give people a sense of what. idiot reformatory was like. So on 1985, February 1st, 1985, this is when the actual uprising takes place. As I said, this is a prison that is already seized with all these, seized with all these, all these plagues and mistreatments, right? So there was a prisoner by the name of Link of Love, aka Lokmar. He was a jailhouse lawyer. He helped fellow prisoners he got people out all the time and he mostly did this a free and he was part of a broader group maybe we can talk about more later that was called the black dragons which i just recently learned

through doing more research talking to more prisoners was actually an offshoot of the uh black gorilla family which is um which was founded by george jackson um so it was a chapter of that so there was Black Juddarkers was a group that protects that protected each other at self-defense at political education classes they actually did the rehabilitation that the prison wasn't doing if you listened to the interview I just did with Naeem

he talks about some of this so you know they had they had organized inside prison in response to these conditions so Lincoln Love was one of the leaders of this group one of the most well-respected prisoners but also was someone who didn't back down who got into it with guards

who would try to beat on him or, you know, he wasn't somebody that just took it laying down. So he ends up and was called the MRU or the maximum restraint unit. And that's where he is at this day, this early morning. So the prison guards, who we later learned, as I was saying, with the racist guards, are actually part of a Splinter Cell Ku Klux Klan group called the Suns of Light. This was confessed to by Michael Richardson, who was there that day and who was part of this incident that I'm about to describe.

And we can we round back to all this? I know there's a lot of information, but I just want to drop these seats to we can expand on them later. So the guards began searching the cells in the embryo. They searched them multiple times. There's a note in the documentary. The guard that normally was over the MRU, who according to testimony, was as fair as you were going to get within this context, did not really indiscriminately targeting

one. He kept the unit pretty cool. he did not work that morning and so these guards come in without the general uh leadership that was that was supposed to be there and they start targeting cells flipping cells everybody stripped down to just shorts and water shoes and um shower shoes excuse me and then um and then there's a lawsuit at the time the scribes the beating they they hover around naked love cell they got on their all their equipment, their billy clubbed and their helmets and their shields. And so they tear gassed his cell.

Then they handcuff him. Then they rush in there. And then according to this lawsuit and eye witness accounts as well, they maliciously held him down and beat him unmercifully stomped and kicked the inmate all over his body and hit the inmate upon and about his upper body. It had with nightsticks. I've even read elsewhere, this is such a small cell. Some of the guards stood on his bed because it wasn't the,

space with them all getting the cell, stood in his bed to beat him, you know, and these were nightclubs that were considered, or nightsticks that were considered illegal at the time. So after he was beating, he's dragged out of his cell by his face on the ground, like dragging him and there are people around are watching this, you know, now they're yelling down to the, the prisoners are yelling down out to the regular population, which is not the same as MRU. saying they're trying to kill us in here. Because this is the understanding that he was either dead or he was about to

be killed because they had beaten him nearly to death. So this is where the Pendleton's two start to come in. So originally it was a Balagoon. Well, here is just because he was already near the unit because he was considered a always forget the term.

Hey, I can't remember the term. I was basically someone who will come and look out for folks who are going, who are trying to, who are being disciplined, a lay advocate. Sorry, I didn't remember. He was a lay advocate at the time. A lay advocate inside prison is somebody who will testify to your conduct and, you know, obviously helped to get you, you know, in good standing.

So he was going up to this unit at the time. He hears this beating and hears him yelling down. Y'all, they're trying to kill us down here. They're trying to kill us down here. So he goes back to, he goes to see where Lincoln Love was. they had taken him to the captain's office and he said there was this curtain that was pulled in the

and the understanding by the prisoners was if this curtain was cool that that meant somebody was getting beat that man somebody was getting beaten up they would pull the curtain and they were welled them and this was verified when you read

Michael Richardson again who was involved in this who was actually the person who handcuffed Lincoln Love he said that they were they continued welling on him and he said the order was to quote kill the son of a bitch so this was this is what was going to happen so bala goon can't really see what's going on and won't let him in so he goes against several other prisoners and comes back and that's

where uh christopher naeem trotter gets involved um and it's important to know at this time bala go only has three years less and i am only had three months left on their sentence so this is they could they easily could not have been involved in this if they didn't they wanted to go home so they go to the captain's officer to see what's going on they are not allowed to see anything they try to push through to see where he's at they are then attacked by the guards um because originally they did not approach this in a violent way they were attacked by the guards they moved to defend themselves um they fight up the guards in this area and then they're and then at this point the prison is being is on red alert they're trying to swarm these prisoners who were you know there's a denounce Now it's an uprising, now there's a melee and there's fights. So they're running towards the infirmary because they're still trying to see where Lincoln Love is. They don't actually know fully where he is.

There's reports that at a certain point he had actually been transferred, but they don't know where he's at. They're thinking he's in the infirmary. As they get to the infirmary, this is already after being chased by trucks after, you know, there was snipers on the roof. And once they get to the infirmary, then they get to the infirmary. get corralled in the infirmary by all the guards and now they said the guards was the order was to kill them not just link in love but they have at least successfully taken the attention off

leaking love who probably would have been killed and now they had to fight their way out of this infirmary they fight their way out of the infirmary they have their weapons they have their knives they had to stab them to get out and this is where the court tries to say that they didn't act in self-defense but they literally did um to to get away from all these guards and guards, Naime takes one of the hostages and gets them to, one takes one of the guards hostage and gets him to open the, what's called cellhouse J at the time. They, he opens it, they slip into the cell house,

take several hostages, and they seal off in there, and there is a lockdown for about 15, 16 hours. During this time, they actually put the hostages in cells. They let all the prisoners out of cells, but the hostages in cells and protect them. So the guards cannot kill the hostages, not just because they care about the lives of the hostages, but they also care about the lives of their fellow prisoners because they understand that if this would have occurred, like if they had killed him, and we'll probably talk about Attica at some point, you know,

Attica, part of what made that go so bad was one guardings of dying in the state under Nelson Rockefeller didn't even care about the other prison guards and shot through them to kill the prisoners, right? like this so they understood that if someone dies like the state we use this possibly as the beings to kill and slaughter everyone yeah they didn't want that to happen so they protected the lives of the guard that's why it's ridiculous that they're still in prison to this day for as if they were attempted to murder someone um they have a list of demands um and grievances that they wanted to share because um they took this as a moment to try to improve the conditions inside the prison so they had um the end of sense

and letters of media, the ability to be politically active without reprisal, the establishment of minimum wage for inmates, the establishment of grievance committees for prisoners to safely ring forward issues to the DOC without fear of intimidation, threats, beatings, or any punishment by guards. And if you look in the documentary, we have the sheet of those original demands. At this time, the media had been called. So the Indianapolis Star and the Indianapolis recorder, which is a black newspaper, were present to help with these negotiations. They had also even called black radio stations. Eventually, they get their demands met, and then one of the ones was no reprisal, which, you know, did not happen.

And they're led back into their cells, and I remember what thing Mika said for a brief moment, it felt like things were going to change. And then, next year, you know, they're all putting lock down. They start transferring some of the different prisoners who were involved. um you know to different prisons they're in the hole for i think mika said mika was not the penalty but he was one of the charles murphy he was one of the people involved in the uprising um he was in there for three years um they get to 1987 they have a trial um and uh john battle was called christopher night trotter we called the penalty two again on trial um the trial was just nonsense the um the prosecutor openly frightened

with the jurors. There's evidence that the jurors were knew some of the guards who were in the prisons. You have a contaminated jury. Any of the evidence that would have proven that this was an act of self-defense was deemed, it was deemed

objectionable or irrelevant to the case. What I stated earlier about the confession by Michael Richardson of these guards being a part of the Ku Klux Klan was not stated in the trial. And the fact of the Lincoln love with the beating up.

If you want to think about law, when you talk about self-defense, it's about the state of, the state of mind of someone is very important to prove me self-defense. Like, was that person acting under the, under the guise of self-defense either are for themselves or what's called the acting in the defense of a third person? But they say since they didn't see the beating, that that didn't justify because they didn't see it. And ultimately, it's an all-white jury. Don't want to forget that.

The all-white jury, there were only two black people in their original pool, and they got kicked out. One of them got kicked out over a parking ticket. So, all-white jury in a county that is a deep clan history, obviously. And ultimately, they did get, Balagoon got 84 years, sentenced to 84 years, and nine was sentenced to 142 years. out of the goons 84 years were four cases of criminal confinement and bodily armed and then naeem got those same four cases of criminal confinement plus attempted murder bodily arm and rioting and you know that's

why we say they have over 200 plus years combined both of them got de facto life sentences in a situation in which no one died in a situation in which they actually went out of the way to protect people in a situation where they saved a man's life because that man's would have died that day, had they not, telling my Lake of Love, had they not intervened. And, you know, they went on to be persecuted afterwards. They were in solitary confinement. They were, they basically, the state of Indiana builds its first supermax prison

four years after their trial, I believe at Westfield Correctional Facility, what's called the Maximum, the MCC. And that's where they were forced to go on hunger strike. and then they were sent to the shoe, the security housing unit. And I think Balagoons spent 32 years in solitary confinement. Oh, my God. And Naim spent over roughly 20 years in solitary confinement. They're both back in population now.

Obviously, these are older gentlemen. We're talking about men in their mid-60s now. They have different health challenges that just come, and if anyone knows about prisons, the medical neglect that comes, prisons cut their their um any kind of health care to a bare minimum to to save costs and in the case of there in the case of these two gentlemen it's also another way of torturing them uh why they wrong so i was they were tortured they were i mean that i could go on and on about what happened in solitary whether it's talking about sensory deprivation uh whether we're talking about

the beatings that go on whether talking about the food being useless um whether we're talking about a windowless cell, talking about people left outside in the cold. I mean, there's all kinds of things we can get into on that. But yeah, that's the case. It's, it's heartbreaking and you hear it. But I don't want people to walk away thinking that

this cannot be transformed. That's not the point here. The point is to advocate for these brothers because, again, this is kind of stuff is allowed to happen because often these things are swept under the rug or people are distracted by other things.

And, you know, we've organized a defense committee to advocate for their release and to raise a broader awareness about political prisoners because we do say they are political prisoners because they clearly got this, this level of sentencing because they rose up against a state because they rose up against clan members because they, that the example that they set is an example that, you know, the state of Indiana and the broader in the U.S. state does not want to be perpetuated. so the punishment had to be steep. So I'll close there because I know that was a lot of information. Yeah, no, it's absolutely heartbreaking. It's not a total surprise to anybody who knows anything about the history of prisons and the racism inherent within them and the torture of solitary confinement, which is by any reasonable measure cruel and unusual punishment. It's a form of medieval torture.

It's a violation of any coherent idea of human rights. And it still goes on to this very day. This third time they came down there, in a matter of hours, they ride gear, you know, and this and that. Now, they lined up outside Lomar's cell. Now, keep in mind, you didn't pass up four or five more cells, but you had Lomar cell. We're in the middle. You got some more cells before you get to us. Why are you lined up outside that brother cell?

As I seen him going to Lomar cell, he didn't see what I've seen on the side of the wall. It was some more guards lined up, sticks, shields, helmets, you know, ready to do battle. They lined up, man, they got, looked like guns and all type of stuff. They went in on the brother, had him to do, had him handcuffed. And what really caused this bribe this particular day, once he was handcuffed, one of the guards took the sticks and hit him in his head. Blood gas out of his head. I'm right there. I got tears in my eye because I tell them, look, give me some of that, just to take them off of him. So one of the gods, say, don't worry about it.

Y'all got something that coming. You know what I mean? You said it was seven. So I look over there, no blood, ditching out of the head, cuff behind his back. They're beating down into a pause with a solid old club. Once they're beating, they drugging by himself, and then drugging down the range of the tear. and doing the tear of the range for all the other prisoners to see. And everybody thought he was dead.

They thought he was dead. Hey man, somebody's going to tell they're trying to kill us down here. Once John Column got the word or what's taking place somewhere down that line, him and his brother named Christopher Trotter met up. So now they come and trying to see

what's going on in this particular unit. We interviewed Black Panther Kevin Rashid Johnson a couple years ago, which I'll link to in the show notes as well. And he was in prison when we're talking to him. And he talks about, yeah, just having like, you know, in the cell having dogs set on him before a bunch of cops in full armor come in and brutalize him. So he's fighting a dog and then getting beaten by all these other cops, talks about the deep racism within it. But I think one of the things that people might, I mean, maybe be surprised. I mean, my audience probably is not, but the general public would be. is that these correction officers, as you mentioned, form gangs themselves.

And the guard unit that you're talking about, the Sons of Light, are a KKK-affiliated gang. And so my follow-up question is, if you can talk a little bit more about that, and then Love, he was targeted explicitly for his work, was there nothing else going on that resulted in this acute situation? Was it just a planned attack by these racist guards against Love? and then what was Love's injuries when everything, when the smoke cleared? How brutalized was that, man?

Yeah, well, if you read the guards account, they'll say it was a retaliation for a prior incident. Like, the Rackle Richardson, again, in the deposition, says, like, one of the guards, I think it was Whicker, slammed something on the table and said this was so-and-so because, because Lincoln Love had got into it with another guard weeks prior.

because again they view this as a war and I think it's important if anyone is familiar with like tip of the spirit or Salmi Burden's work to think about that's what you're you're under siege and you're at war

with these guards who are constantly brutalizing so Lincoln Love he did survive that day despite those despite the brutality that he that he had to live with

he was brought back into the cell and after that was all done they put him back in the maximum restraint unit and nothing was changed in that sense he went on to live for think up until COVID and he passed due to COVID like that was that was how that all it did

in terms of the Suns of Light yeah that that group again it's never been it's never been there was some kind of FBI investigation that we've never been able to recover like that's not a public those aren't public documents whatever the FBI found I mean the FBI you take that with a great assault obviously but whatever the FBI found they did not release

but there was there was someone from prison one guard that did go to prison for violating the civil rights of Lincoln Love but other than that there was no real retribution And obviously nobody got anything equivalent to life like, you know, like, like, like, like, like Balagoda and Naim got in terms of the Sons of Light, just to speak a little bit further, this is, this is directly from the deposition. And, um, Mike Richardson was asked about the, um, the situation. He said everybody, he said everything I've seen on any in May there has been, has been totally on call for. There's never been a weapon. and the ones that have been there that had been beaten only one time I've gotten a combination on my packet where an inmate had a weapon and took it from him and then they may decide he was going to fight so that so then we fought but that's the only time so yeah most of the time there wasn't a direct reason to do this you know even this payback thing I was talking about that's not how this is supposed to work right if you're a guard that works at the prison payback's not supposed to be how you work that to your point shows they're operating like a gang.

He says, this is later in the deposition. They ask him, are you aware of any racially motivated groups of any of the guards that any of the guards belong to? And that's what he says, the sons of light. They said, what do you know about them? He says, it's a group of lieutenants, captains, sergeants that belong to this, that use the KKK literature and the same type of rituals. They're a splinter group.

They're not affiliated. They don't pay dues. It's developed solely for the institution. He said, and the question What's their purpose? He says directly Well, they hate niggers, they hate Jews, they hate Catholics, that's what it was explained to me.

And then he later goes on and talk about how his kid was babysat by Captain Sands, and he said, our children used to be babysitted by him and played with his clan robe. And he carries a card. He's involved in it. That's a captain, which is all, which is over all the captains of the institution.

So it's also important about this It's not a low-level thing because there's this caricature sometimes about this kind of racist that they are stupid and disorganized and ignorant and backwards. And, you know, liberals like to think of, think of that's the only kind of racism that exists. And I think we're wrong when we think of the right wing or the fascists as just these hillbilly idiots. You know, no, these are deeply organized people regardless of what? we obviously we don't agree with their views but these are deeply organized people and and you saw in this case they're heading the entire prison in many cases so it's like um so that was that was the suns of light um and i can't remember if there was any other part of your question

i might have been missing no i need to speak to no no you definitely spoke to all that and i definitely want to emphasize the liberal naivete and the caricature of what a racist is and it's Of course, it comes from this predominant, comfortable, liberal position where they're totally detached from the realities of organized fascist and racial violence in the history of the United States. So they just think it's like these hillbillies out in the middle of nowhere burning a cross and it's not these incredibly snake-like, well integrated into the major institutions of society with some of them. Like any movement will have its rank and file and then we'll also have its intellectual leaders, its organizational, leaders, et cetera. And that's no different on the radical right. And so I think it's important, it's important to bring up. You know, I think the brutality of that, of that beating on, on love, you know, rest in peace. And just after the smoke clears and you have to go back to

solitary and then just spend weeks, just recovering from a brutal, brutal beating. And you know there's no, as you're talking about, no systematic health care, nobody that actually gives a fuck nobody there trying to manage or relieve your pain or have any compassion towards you whatsoever um you're just left to rot in a cell by yourself and just your body slowly heals and just the brutal process of that alone um disgusting but the another question i have is of course cole and and trotter were given these brutal and insane sentences um for doing in any what anybody with a reasonable brain would would conclude is a heroic and completely just act.

Yeah. And you said one guard got a little punishment for violating civil rights. Were there other people that were involved in the uprising that actually got, you know, lengthy sentences but didn't quite reach the length of Cole and Trotter? Yeah, I was talking on Charles Murphy. He's in the documentary under the name Mink. He got, I think, like an additional 10 years or 12. I can't remember the exact number. but so it wasn't just those two but those two were the leaders of it and therefore those two

got like more than just the biggest chump they got basically all this time you know relative to everyone else because they were the ones that took the most risk so they got the most penalties right right but they weren't the only ones involved no i mean that's why i was emphasizing about this black dragons group that was a unit of of um black prisoners that really was trying to unify any prisoners that got with the program. And often they would try to stop other prisoners from fighting each other. They would try to stop other prisoners from, you know, getting into skirmishes because they were like, look, the guards are a real enemy.

This institution is there are a real enemy. And this group, the Black Dragons, the Black Dragons doesn't, if you don't have a group like that, I don't think you have the uprising. I think Lincoln probably just dies. because he's just murdered on that night or that morning because there wouldn't have been a kind of coordinated sense of all we need to do something. It was spontaneous in the sense that it was not planned, but again, I think this is where spontaneity is misunderstood and also Orisovir, and I keep referencing his work, did a good

job of, you know, pushing back about this in terms of Attica. Like, you have to have some kind of free existing organization to even be able to respond, quote-unquote a spontaneous way to a situation like that. If you don't have it, often what happens is that the beady just goes off, goes on and people might be abhorred by it, but they don't know what to do

because they don't have any training. They don't have any bonds. They don't have any love for this person. They're just kind of thrown off by the visceral scene of it. But because these men had established those things in a pre-existing way, they knew to call down to population.

and they knew we need to go check out when Ballard Loon comes and tells people what's going on. They knew they had to go protect their brother. Like those kind of communal bonds that people talk about all the time out here that often is just rhetoric. They actually establish those things.

So they were ready to respond. You know, if you play this out on the other side of the fence, you know, outside of prison, we often don't have that. And that's not solely our fault. Obviously, the state is repressed and bought off a lot of that.

But we don't have that to respect. respond in the same way. So in the documentary, something my call director set up, I think, really well was a question of George Floyd when he was being beaten up and, you know, he asked what I would, what I've been willing to intervene. And I always say,

most people aren't going to intervene in a situation like that because they don't have that kind of pre-established relationship. We're all straighters watching men get beat. We're probably not going to do anything because we don't have any organization in place. These men did. So they knew that's our brother. We're not going to let him

go out like that and we're going to stand up and you know not even about it been led that charge um but but yeah other people did receive you penalties they were like i said they were in the hole and stuff like that but not not for 32 or 20 years yeah yeah and yeah of course given the huge amount of the years in those sentencing those two sentences are still ongoing whereas i'm sure a lot of them have already passed because this happened in 1985 initially but your point about organization is so crucial. The organization is essential before anything pops off because when something pops off, that organization immediately knows how to respond to it in an organized fashion. And when you don't have that, when it's peer spontaneity, then quickly, even if you

could form a mob in a moment, afterwards, it quickly relegates everybody back to their individualism, their individual concerns. You know, I don't want to step out. I don't want to be the one that's taken for this. And an organization is a great way to combat that and to continue the struggle afterwards, right? Because there was the acute act of trying to save love's life. And then there's the political fallout from that that also needs organization to respond to and navigate in the coming months and years afterwards to this very day. Organization is bringing the cause of the Pendleton to the forefront of a brand new generation of organizers and activists and radicals. And so that organization is really ongoing.

You mentioned earlier that the Black Dragons were a organizational. offshoot of the Black Gorilla family founded by George Jackson. Can you say just a little bit about George Jackson and the creation of the Black Gorilla family and what was the sort of idea and goals behind that were? So yeah, George Jackson was a political prisoner of revolutionary and that was based in the California prisoners of San Quentin. He was, he comes to prominence actually after in 1970. There was an assassination. resignation of his friend W. L. Nolan, 21-year-old,

Alvin Jugs, and Cleveland Edwards by prison guards after an altercation with the Aryan Nation. After this altercation, the, these two three brothers who eventually are killed had responded to the area nation and they were basically beating them up. And then the guards killed those three brothers because they were, again, speaking about being in pact with, like, these white supremacist groups. Four days later, there was a prison guard after that that was beaten up and thrown over the tier.

And then this is where George Jackson and two other brothers flee the Drumgole and Glyne Flushit, later known as the Soledad brothers, they were they were accused for this retaliation and now they were they were on they were they were being persecuted so from here there was a defense committee that actually was formed for George Jackson and this is why Angela Davis eventually gets involved we really didn't know much about Angela Davis up to this point other than her being persecuted due to being a communist professor she gets on his case learns about it through her own organizing efforts and then eventually Eventually, Jonathan, or Jonathan Jackson, George Jackson's brother, tries to take over a, he tries to break his brother out of prison. I'm going to shorten this for the sake of time.

I could get into more details. Tries to break his brother out of prison. He's killed by the state as well as the judge. He takes hostage. These guns are then assumed to be Angela Davis is, and they say that she was part of this. And that's how she ends up on the top 10 most wanted and becomes this national or international. figure. That's how we come to know her. She also, I believe, had falling in love with George Jackson. That's that she's admitted to that. And that's in the, if you actually read the letters

in Soledad Brothers, it's in the actual letters. So George Jackson then becomes eventually a field marshal. He would be new and get, I make some of the, of the Black Panther Party from inside prison. And that's where he, so you get Soledatbrother. And you get the blood in your blood in my eye, which was even more direct in its goals. But they say that George Jackson was trying to break out of prison. This story is really hard to believe. But they say he tried to sneak a gun into his afro or a fake afro. He was trying to escape and then he gets shot.

So we say he was assassinated. Absolutely. And to, again, to speed this up, the, well, before we get that, that's, but during this time is when, George Jackson founded the black black gorilla family you know that was that was during the time that he founded it and that was that was directly uh that was directly to have organization within prison because George Jackson you know was deeply deeply studied like Marxist Leninism and understood like we were talking about the need of organization um so prisoners had their own internal

structure and organization and these organizations didn't it just exist in California but they existed across the nation and since that you had an organization internally in prison that if a revolutionary got locked up or something of that nature that organization was there to to receive them take care of them protect them etc right um and they're doing political education classes they're working out you know they're preparing themselves for war they're preparing themselves for struggle that's why during black august you know we talk about study trained fast organized like that's where that tradition comes from. So again, I could go on further, but that's, that's kind of the, that's, that's how we get

George Jackson. And then Black August is founded after he's assassinated, it's founded, uh, eight years later in 1979 when people met outside of California state prisons to, um, have a commemoration. And, and from there, we honor Black Little Prisoners in Black August, as well as the many different, uh, revolutionary dates and activities that occurred. In the month of August, we're talking about the Haitian Revolution, the Watts Rebellion, Marcus Garvey's birthday, James Baldwin was born in August, and so on and so forth. Beautiful.

There's a lot of different dates, but again, for the sake of time, I won't put on all those. Yeah. Yeah, no, George Jackson is absolutely, you know, a hero, somebody that everybody on the radical revolutionary, you know, black liberatory and socialist anti-imperialist left should read. We've done a series in the past on George Jackson's famous book, Blood in My Eye, which is this radical revolutionary analysis of United States society that still resonates and this still rings 100% true to this very day. And it was very much of a perspective shift for me and my own political development when I came across Blood in My Eye and, you know,

imbibed its lessons. But it's beautiful that his legacy still lives on. It's beautiful that Black August still lives on in your work and the work of so many others around the country is, you know, you can trace a direct line back to the Black Panthers, back to George Jackson, et cetera. So it's really cool to see that all these years later and new generations are coming to back to these texts, you know, learning these stories,

learning about these figures and being inspired by them. That's a beautiful, beautiful thing. Well, I want to kind of shift here and talk about, now that we know the backstory, I wanted to say that you've just released an interview with Naim Trotter on your podcast, the Black Myths podcast so people can go listen to that first person account of what happened and hear even more of this backstory, which I highly, highly encourage people to do.

There's a wonderful documentary that you helped produce on, it's free on YouTube, put out by breakthrough news, which I'll link to in the show notes as well and probably play a clip from so people can go and watch a whole documentary and just continue to educate themselves on this situation so that they can contribute to it. And with that in mind, can you let listeners know how they can help, help out or directly contribute to this struggle for the Pendleton 2 and just sort of your work around it and how people can support that. Yeah, just a few things.

The documentary was actually co-directed by myself and King Trill. We put it out through breakthrough news, but that was actually eternally produced by the Defense Committee. I just want to clarify that. In terms of how people can help again, all the links are in the show notes, but we're trying to raise, because they're still in prison and there's more to this story. One thing they've never really had, in my opinion, is sufficient counsel. Actually, it was ruled that Naim had literally insufficient counsel in his first trial that the judge actually ruled that when

he later tried to get his sentence vacated, which was also ridiculous because he got it vacated and they removed the judge, put a new judge on the bench. And he was resenting his honor in 22 years. This is, you know, just ridiculous. But they never really had sufficient legal counsel because a lot of lawyers don't really want to touch cases like this, obviously. So we're trying to raise money to get them sufficient legal counsel. We are making some enrolls on that. I can't say everything right now because of legal reasons, but we need to have the money to on hand to pay them. And for people who maybe can't get involved directly in the defense committee or in, you know, the publicity of their case or anything of that nature.

a donation would be greatly appreciated so you can go to the chuff link that's in the that's in the show notes or you can directly send it through cash app or Venmo we have we have ways of taking up money in from all those different sources so definitely want to don't want to push that because again um we hear a lot of sympathy when we talk about this case and people feel sad and hurt and that's all well and good but you know materially they need things that help them get out so if you can donate if you have it if you don't have it totally understand. If you have it, you know, that would be really helpful. Yeah. Yeah, if you don't have it, you know, you can spread the word. You can, you can share conversations like this. You can

go listen to the Black Miss podcast, share it with friends. If you're in an organization, make sure that that organization maybe centers this issue, especially if you're in the, you know, the area of Indiana and Indianapolis. But yeah, sharing it, perpetuating it, pushing it around, going and watching the documentary, sharing that with comrades is essential. But if you can donate anything at all, I think that is really, really absolutely crucial. and goes towards a great cause because, you know, you're right. This makes you feel heartbroken and anger and rage, and then just to turn away and just turn off the radio

or turn off your phone and go about your day, there's something just that's not right about that. So do whatever you can within your own capacities. Only you know what those are, but helping out is essential. And I will link to the donation and all the ways you can donate prominently in the show notes for people to immediately go and do just that. you did talk about black i will say just real quickly a few other things i didn't say if people want to host screenings like we also like will send so our people out sometimes i'll come out or my

co-director others will come out and will like you want to host the screening and like locally we'll come out through zoom if there's a budget this is another way of raising money if you have access to university budgets or access to organizational budgets that have a little bit of money you can pay us a screening fee. We use that as a way of, you know, raise the money for the campaign as well. And then also people can sign petitions for their release. I just want to make sure I say all the different options that people have. Sorry about that. Yeah, no, really important. And I'll make sure those are laid out in the show notes as obviously and easily to access as possible. What is the exact organization that's doing work around the Pendleton, too? The organizations

named the Defense Committee to free the Pendleton, too, or the Defense Committee for the kind of thing too. Then there's other affiliate organizations like the IDOC watch that's Indiana Department of Corrections watch and then focus families which focuses on reentry programming. Okay. So there's different. And then also Black Blancet Peace just recently, my organization has recently gotten involved in the campaign too. Cool. Yeah, Black Alliance of Peace. Of course, we've had many members on from that organization over the years. One of the, you know, one of the best organizations in the United States, in my opinion. So anybody, that can join that in any way, show solidarity, support the Black Alliance for Peace.

Really, really crucial. And you were mentioning Black August. You were talking a little bit about it. But before we wrap up, we're at the tail end of August. We're going to try to get this out just as August ends. Can you talk about the Black August events of this year, how things went, and then maybe how people can plug in for next year? Yeah, this year, we did a week of Black August events.

We just finished those as a Sunday. We had a book talk, off the book I was on Early Launder of Black Rage, more so that book talk was just to solely raise money for the campaign. So we gave all the books that got sold there and went strictly to the campaign. Then we did a letter writing event. Then we did a Black August art event. Then we had a rally. And then we also were part of a film festival,

though it was in Indianapolis Black documentary film festival. So we showed the film there. So those events, you know, there's always more to be had, but those events I think overall went pretty well. We were able to, you know, sign more positions, raise more money and just bring more awareness to their case, which is, you know, highly important. So we're just trying to base build to a level that, you know, we can build enough support to where as pressure is applied to prosecutors and governors, they recognize that there's

constituencies of people that want to their release. Yeah. That's absolutely crucial. It's essential. How can people join up or support the Black Alliance for Peace? Black Alliance for Peace, you can go to the website, Black Alliance for Peace.com, and just you can sign, if you want to become a member,

you can, you know, black folks can become members and the people who are black can become solidarity members. You can still join just under a different capacity. You can sign up and join through that, or you can donate as well. Awesome. And I'll make sure I throw the links in the show notes as well for that. So, yeah, support that in any way you can. Again, I think Black Alliance for Peace is doing really, really crucial work.

And the more people that are behind it, supporting it in solidarity with it, the better. And every single member of the Black Alliance for Peace that I've ever talked to are some of the most principled, sober-minded, clear-eyed, and truly revolutionary comrades that I've been able to come in contact with. So that says a lot about the organization. Before I let you go to, Black, can you just remind listeners that they can find all of your work,

your book, and your podcast online. Yeah, the book, Wondering Black Brage is available. If you're going to get it right now, it's a pricey book, unfortunately. So it's available on sale right now. Rutledge is running some kind of 20% discount or something. Or I would say, I don't like to push Amazon, but I think it actually is cheap right Amazon,

unfortunately. So I've offered people getting it as cheap as they can So they can find that Just type in laundering black rage The washing of black death people Property and Profits and it will pop up You can read it in whatever capacity

I've heard it's floating out there in other forums But I can't publicly endorse that But you do what you got to do But I can find it there you can find me to to hyphen black.com you can T-O-O-O-I-N-B-L-A-C-K dot com. The books available on there. I'm also a performing poet.

So people can find me through that. And what was it me? What was the other question? Okay, well, sometimes I forget all these things. And did anyone listen to Black Mists podcast, Black Mists podcast? We take myths about. of a social political nature about black people said about them or related to black folks and we debunked them so we just did one that black august is a celebration which that's the myth with naim trotter you know we do various myths we did one a little less a little more lighthearted but actually found some really damaging information so that wasn't very lighthearted in the law room we did one about the the myth that it was about of X-Men. It was about that, Professor X and Magneto were based upon Malcolm X or

the King of Malcolm X, which is not true. But we actually found in that episode when we did the research that they were based, that those characters were actually, they were not based on those civil rights or human rights leaders, but they were based on, on Zionist's heads of state. That's actually what they based them on. Wow. So if you want to, if you're interested in learning about that, go check out that episode. But, yeah, they can find that on any of the, any app you listen to a podcast on. You're also on our Black Liberation Media on YouTube. We're part of a broader collective.

You can find this on YouTube as well. Cool. Yeah, Black Liberation Media on YouTube, go subscribe to it, show some love. And then, yeah, if you haven't already downloaded subscribe to Black Myths podcast, definitely do so. If you're listening to a podcast like this, you're definitely going to be interested in a podcast like that. so go subscribe to that and thank you too black for all your amazing work I really I mean hats off to you

and to all the comrades working on this issue and to everything that you do with political education and organizing it's an honor and a pleasure to have you on and of course you're welcome back here anytime I appreciate it thank you you have the emergence in human society of this thing that's called the state what is the state

the state is this organized bureaucracy it is the police department It is the Army, the Navy. It is the prison system, the courts, and what have you. This is a state. It is a repressive organization. But the state, in three rules, you know you've got to have the police, because if there were no police, look at what you'd be doing to yourselves.

You'd be killing each other if there were no police, but the reality is the police become necessary in human society, only at that judge in human society, where it is spread between those who have the government. I throw a monitor cocktail at the precinct You know how we think Organize the hood under I Ching banners

Red, black and green Instead of gang bandanas FBI spine on us through the radio antennas And I'm hitting cameras in the street Like watch a society With no respect for the people's right The privacy

I take a slug for the calls like Huey P while all you fake niggins Try to copy Master P I want to be free to live Able to have what I need to live Bring the power back to the street Where the people live We're sick of working for crumbs

and filling up the prisons dying over money and relying on religion for help we do for self-like ants in a colony organized a wealth into a socialist economy a way of life based off the common needs and all my comrades is ready we just spreading the seeds

That's blackmail Live a third of his life in a jam cell Because the world is controlled by the white man And the people don't never get justice And the women don't never get respected And the problems don't never get solved and the jobs don't never pay enough So the rent always be late

Can you relate We're living in a police day No more bondage No more political monsters No more secrets space launches Government department started it in the projects Material objects Thousands up in the closets

Could have been invested in the future For my comrades Battle contacts primitive weapons out in combat Many never come back Pretty niggas be running with gas Rather get shot in their back Then fire back We're tired of that

Corporations hiring blacks denying the facts Exploiting us all over the map That's why I write the shit I write in my rap It's documented I meant it Every day of the week I live in it breathing it It's more than just fucking believe in it I'm holling in ones rolling up my sleeves and shit

It's Elo for push-ups now Many headed for one conclusion Liggers ain't ready for revolution You have it's blackmail Live a third of his life in a jail cell Because the world is controlled by the white male And the people don't never get justice and the women don't never get respected

and the problems don't never get solved and the jobs don't never pay enough so the rent always be late can you relate living in a police state I'm going to have to keep I am a politarian, I am the people, I'm not to be. You're learning you are full of shit.

And anybody that's down with you, you could man make things better, and you cutting the welfare. You know a damn well. When you cut the welfare, a person's going to do crime. Thank you.