This month I am enduring my annual, solo, sojourn of self-sacrifice to not eat meat or drink coffee. Some days I fast while adhering to a strict regimen of exercise, political education, study of Black history, and the observation of spiritual unity. It is a renewal of my will to resist the indignity of incarceration and the overall prison industrial complex.
These are some of the tenants of the month-long “Black August” I have come to understand and embrace inside the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR).
During my 28 years of imprisonment, I have faithfully undertaken the practice of paying homage to my ancestors. This year marks the 24th time I have participated alone in this call to awareness, rebellion, and resistance to repression and the injustices inside the United States prison industrial complex.
This year marks the 45th anniversary of Black August, created to honor Black prisoners cut down inside California, and so many others beyond the gates and walls of prison who would otherwise remain forgotten. They are George Jackson, who was assassinated by prison guards at San Quentin. Then there was W.L. Nolen, Fred Billingsley, Khatari Gaulden, and the late Ruchell Magee. The latter was the only survivor of what has been termed the Courthouse Slave Rebellion in Marin County on August 7, 1970. Three revolutionaries perished on that day. They were Jonathan Jackson, James McClain, and William Christmas. In recent
years, Hugo “Yogi” Pinell was assassinated inside prison, weeks after being released from solitary confinement as one of the longest held prisoners in California’s SHU (Security Housing Unit).
The idea of Black August is an outgrowth of the Blacks’ need to acknowledge their own heroes for posterity, irrespective of the system’s attempts to vilify and erase them from history.
“I met Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Engles and Mao when I entered prison and they redeemed me,” George Jackson wrote in his critically acclaimed book Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson.
Why is any of this important to me? It is because as a Black man, born in 1963, and imprisoned for so long by the politics of the day, it is my firm belief that my ancestors and history admonish me to fulfill a duty that is greater than myself. If I forget them, I forget me.
Today I stand on their shoulders and in the very place where history was made: San Quentin State Prison, where I have been confined for the last 13 years. It is one of the state’s 32 gulags where schemes are hatched to create false narratives such as that of the San Quentin
Six: David Johnson, Hugo Pinell, Johnny Spain, Luiz Talamantez, Willie Sundiata Tate, and Fleeta Drumgo. They were accused and charged with assault and murder inside the prison’s Adjustment Center (the hole) stemming from the violent events on August 21, 1971, when George Jackson, three prison guards and two white prisoners were murdered.
For the first eight years after my arrival San Quentin attempted to connect me with the defunct Black Guerilla Family prison gang simply because of the reading and writing I did in the past and present.
“Black August material and other revolutionary documents referencing George Jackson, indicative of membership or association with the Black Guerilla Family prison gang,” was placed on a receipt inside a box of what was left of my confiscated writings.
In proximity of their vision for me, I resisted, muted my pain, and concealed my rage. The power structure underestimated me. I was supposed to be incapable of expression. When all grievances fell on deaf ears and no communication was possible, Sawyer v. MacDonald (768 Fed-Appx-669 9th Cir. (2019)) settled the matter. It seems they are no longer interested in me any more.
Black liberation in August is a recurring theme that has manifested itself in a myriad of revolutionary actions. In August, freedom fighter Harriet Tubman started her Underground Railroad. On August 21, 1791, enslaved Africans in Haiti rebelled and freed themselves from bondage. August 21, 1831, Nat Turner’s slave rebellion started.
“Their sacrifice, their despair, their determination and their blood has painted the month for all time,” the imprisoned Mumia Abu-Jamal stated.
So, it is August that we honor our fallen heroes and prepare ourselves emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually for the time when our predicament may worsen. We do not shrink. We do not allow bodies to become immobile figures on a prison yard. We do not allow our mental interior to become an inexpressive feature, corroded by the ravages of time in our existence.
Instead, we succeed with an abiding conviction to communicate with each other, love each other and pass the torch to the next generations. George Jackson did the same and left us with: “Settle your quarrels, come together, understand the reality of our situation, understand that fascism is already here, that people are dying who could be saved, that generations more will live poor butchered half-lives if you fail to act. Do what must be done; discover your humanity and your love of revolution.”
One day I too will show up in history. There will be those who consult my writings, follow in my footsteps, and write stories about me and the movements of this epoch. Until we are free, this is Black August!
Bio: Kevin D. Sawyer is an African American native of San Francisco, California, born in 1963. Sawyer is the former associate editor of San Quentin News and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists. He has written numerous unpublished short stories, memoirs, essays, poems, and journals on incarceration and many other subjects.
Some of Sawyers published work appears in the San Francisco Chronicle, Oakland Post, UCLA Law Review (Discourse), Columbia Journalism Review, Prison Journalism Project, Cal Matters, Bay City News, the News Station, El Tecolote, Filter Magazine, Harvard Journal of African American Policy, Iron City Magazine, Street Spirit, Journal of Prisoners on Prisons, PEN America, San Quentin News, San Francisco Bay View, Solitary Watch, the Davis Vanguard, the Guardian, the Life of the Law, the Pioneer, Wall City, 580 Split, Apogee Journal, Mercury News, Palo Alto Online, SF Gate, Davis Enterprise, Mountain View Voice, American Prison Writing Archive, Brothers in Pen, California Prison Focus, and the Harbinger (New York University Review of Law & Social Change).
Sawyer is the former associate editor of San Quentin News. He is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists. He is a 2024 Stillwater Award recipient for a Best News story, a 2019 PEN America Honorable Mention for nonfiction, a 2016 recipient of the James Aronson Award for Exemplary Community Journalism, and he was on the SQ News team that won SPJ’s 2014 James Madison Freedom of Information Award.
Prior to incarceration, Sawyer worked 14 continuous years in the telecommunications industry, at several corporations. He is a certified electrician through the National Center for Construction Education and Research, a trained audio engineer through the Last Mile, and a practiced guitar and piano player. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in mass communication, with a special broadcasting option from California State University Hayward; and a Diploma as a paralegal/legal assistant from Blackstone Career Institute. In April 2023, he was offered admission to the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California Berkeley.
Co-published with Solitary Watch
Voices from Solitary: The Legacy of Black August at San Quentin Prison
