August is the month of Black August; a month of commemoration of slave uprisings, political prisoners, and resistance to colonialism. During this month, the Akata-Tribune and the Shreveport Socialist League have been reading “Blood in My Eye” by George Jackson. A book of increasing importance to self-inspired revolutionaries.
Excellent video by Dr. Jared Ball on the book “Blood in My Eye”.
Background
George Jackson was a Black Panther Field Marshal who was held captive in San Quentin Prison from 1960 to 1971. At the age of 19, George Jackson was sentenced to an indeterminate sentence, meaning an open-ended one. His experience while in prison and growing up in Chicago would push him and his younger brother, Jonathan Jackson, to the politics of black liberation during the rise of the Black Power movement.
During his time in prison, George Jackson wrote Blood in My Eye, a series of letters and political essays written on a plastic typewriter while in and out of solitary confinement. The book is under 200 pages and is clear on its central message. Revolution is possible in the United States; it is necessary for the survival of both the subjugated Black Nation and of humanity.
George Jackson would write extensively on the mentality of the Revolutionary, using his martyred brother Johnathan Jackson as an example. Jonathan Jackson would be slain in a hail of bullets while trying to free his brother from the Marin County Courthouse in 1970. The 17 year old “man child” wrote extensively to his brother George in prison about the conditions of the movement and the conditions of the people around Los Angeles. One formative moment for the young man was the siege of the Black Panther Party Los Angeles Chapter HQ in 1969, seeing the first deployment of the now ubiquitous SWAT team. Much of Jonathan Jackson’s analysis can be read as quoted by George Jackson in the first chapter.
George Jackson would be killed by prison guards in 1971 at San Quentin during an alleged escape attempt. The Black August tradition would be formed in prison by associates of George Jackson in the Black Guerrilla Family years after his death. Black August has now grown into a nationwide commemoration for the Black Liberation movement’s martyrs, political prisoners, and its contemporary struggle.
The Mentality of a Revolutionary
George Jackson and the actions of his brother Johnathan Jackson provide the clearest example of the mentality of a true revolutionary.
“The revolutionary is a doomed man”.
This phrase, quoted by Huey Newton and George Jackson, is essential to understand for those who claim to be revolutionaries. “They have no personal interest, no personal affairs, no business affairs, no feelings, no attachments, no property, not even a name” is attributed to Russian Nihilist Sergey Nechayev. George Jackson would add to this quote, saying that the Black Revolutionary is twice doomed, doomed as a revolutionary and doomed as a black man/woman to endless death within the American empire.
The black man and woman, as a member of the subjugated black nation of the post-industrial urban and rural ghetto, is a nameless and faceless individual who is born somewhere and dies somewhere (Fanon). The internal colonies of the United States- the black, brown, and indigenous colonies- will be the engines of revolutionary change in the territory of the United States. It is the nature of a settler colonial society to have an inherently reactionary culture. The destruction of this reactionary culture and the class that reproduces it, with a revolutionary culture and the class it forms from, should be the immediate goal of self-styled American revolutionaries.
Current Crisis and False Revolutionaries
As the United States moves deeper into its contemporary political crisis, there have been growing calls for revolution from the less serious among the political left. I have heard comparisons of the word revolution to the rapture amongst Christians, a thing constantly evoked yet very few are serious about organizing their lives around it. Most of these left-wingers, mainly white and/or actually liberals, view revolution as a chic and fashionable thing to invoke. These people may even sell knick-knacks invoking it, make podcasts talking about it, or even write books invoking it while also telling people to engage in electoralism.
These self-described “revolutionaries” sip on expensive Starbucks drinks while addicted to the latest consumer slop, comfortable in their niche communities they extract wealth from and use to move up in social status. These people are revolutionaries as long as they are comfortable; quick to criticize any true revolutions or revolutionary movement within the global periphery (the so-called third world) that does not conform to their narrow definition of what a “real revolution” is. The Western left in general (though there are a few exceptions) is not ready for what an actual revolution entails.
Revolution, transformative revolution, is a desperate attempt by the oppressed against their oppressors. “Revolutionary is Bloody. Revolution is hostile. Revolution knows no compromise. Revolution destroys everything in its way”. This was a quote by el Hajj Malik El Shabbaz (Malcolm X), who advocated for revolution, fully knowing what it entailed and willing to pay the price. Revolution isn’t a dinner party, to quote Mao Zedong in his “Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan (1927)”. Revolution is one class of people overthrowing another; it is one species of humanity overthrowing another species. In the colonial context, it is the seizing of humanity by those who have been labeled inhuman.
Many of the contemporary American left do not truly understand what revolution is. Revolution will not come through voting; this is something that George Jackson accepted thoroughly. Revolution is a protracted violent struggle out of desperation generated through a people’s wretched condition. Revolutionary art, dance, song, etc. are parts of building a revolutionary culture to overthrow the established culture, but not in themselves revolutionary. Revolution, like political power, comes only through a rifle by organized men and women.
Black August 2026
The Black nationalist movement, specifically those of us who use scientific socialism as a guide in our political struggles, is at an inflection point this August. The imperial settler system is having elections this November 2026. This midterm comes as the American settler national project is diverging on two paths, one of greater “inclusivity” and one of hardening of the current boundaries of “whiteness”. We should reject the choice of friendly-faced fascism or mean-faced fascism, as George Jackson has rejected. The whole fascist system, established in 1776, born out of the genocide of indigenous peoples and the enslavement of African peoples, needs to be upended. These heightening contradiction in American politics will move from antagonism into open hostility during the 2020s, we must be prepared to handle the fallout and provide an alternative.
The American imperial system, with Donald Trump at its helm, is at a crisis point. American imperialism is in retreat everywhere; suffering a strategic defeat in West Asia against the Islamic Republic of Iran, a coming defeat in the NATO-Russia war in Ukraine, and suffering continuous defeat economically by the People’s Republic of China. The defeat of the American Empire means the internal contradictions managed by Imperialism will come crashing together within the core. The opportunities for the black liberation movement are high, but so are the dangers. The tools of oppression are increasing, but so are the tools for liberation; it is our job to understand both and plan accordingly.
My favorite picture from the Black Power era. I remember watching the news clip that day in Detroit. I was 14 at the time. Jonathan Jackson walked out of the courthouse and told the reporters, “It’s okay to take pictures; we are the revolutionaries.”
Im not gonna lie, I want to be comfortable. But that dont make me no Starbucks sipper.