Soledad Brothers

The Soledad Brothers were three African-American inmates charged with the murder of a white prison guard, John Vincent Mills, at California's Soledad Prison on January 16, 1970.George Jackson, Fleeta Drumgo, and John Clutchette were said to have murdered Mills in retaliation for the shooting deaths of three black prisoners during a prison fight in the exercise yard three days prior by another guard, Opie G. Miller.

George Jackson met W.L. Nolen through the Black Panther Party in Soledad State Prison in 1969. They were transferred together to the O Wing, along with Drumgo and Clutchette, which was considered the worst part of the adjustment center of which Max Row is a part. According to Jackson, in the O Wing "the strongest hold out no more than a couple of weeks. It destroys the logical processes of the mind, a man’s thoughts become completely disorganized. The noise, madness streaming from every throat, frustrated sounds from the bars, metallic sounds from the walls, the steel trays, the iron beds bolted to the wall, the hollow sounds from a cast-iron sink or toilet. The smells, the human waste thrown at us, unwashed bodies, the rotten food. When a white con leaves here he's ruined for life. No black leaves Max Row walking. Either he leaves on the meat wagon or he leaves crawling licking at the pig’s feet.”

What can be verified is that the prison conditions for the inmates were strict, rarely being allowed to leave their cell without first being handcuffed and belted or having the cuffs chained to their waists as well as being subjected to thorough skin searches and random searches through and destroying of personal effects. In Jackson’s letters from the prison he describes the attitude of the staff toward the convicts as both defensive and hostile, apparently out of pure malevolence. His account of life at the prison was used by the Soledad Brothers Defense Committee.

On January 13, 1970, 14 black inmates and 2 white inmates from the maximum-security section of Soledad Prison were released into a recreation yard. It had been several months since they were last released into the yard. The black prisoners were ordered to the far end of the yard, while the white prisoners remained near the center of the yard. Officer Opie G. Miller, an expert marksman armed with a rifle, watched over the inmates from a guard tower 13 feet (4 m) above the yard. A fist fight ensued and Miller opened fire on the prisoners below. No warning shot was fired. Three black inmates were killed in the shooting: W.L. Nolen and Cleveland Edwards died in the yard, while Alvin Miller died in the prison hospital a few hours later. A white inmate, Billy D. Harris, was wounded in the groin by Miller's fourth shot, and ended up losing a testicle. In a letter from June 10, 1970, George Jackson described the scene as seeing three of his brothers having been “murdered [...] by a pig shooting from 30 feet above their heads with a military rifle.”

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