Thus, as Robert Jackson was doomed if he were to remove the mask of conformity behind which he tried to hide his blackness and was doomed if he did not, so was the fate of the California prison system seemingly sealed by Robert Jackson's son. However, the system was still dealing, and the ace of trump was still in the deck.

II

On February of 1970, George Jackson and two other black inmates--Fleeta Drumgo and John Cluchette--were charged with the murder of John Mills, a white, 26-year-old guard at Soledad. Mills's death occurred less than a week after another white guard, O.G. Miller, shot three inmates to death, allegedly in an effort to prevent a race riot in the small exercise yard for Adjustment Center cons at Soledad. All three of the cons Miller killed were black. all three had been classified by prison authorities as militants.

The official announcement of the indictment of Jackson, Drumgo and Cluchette was characterized by the same blend of drama and inconsistency that was later to mark the reports on Attica. According to the reports, when a guard discovered the dead body of John Mills, who allegedly had been beaten with his own flashlight until his face was partially fleshless and then dropped from a three-flight catwalk, he also found a note lying beside the battered corpse. The note read: "One down, two to go."

The implication of the note was that Mills had been killed in an act of revenge. To substantiate their charge that revenge was the motive, prison officials described Jackson. Drumgo and Cluchette in term freighted with references to their potential savagery. The officials claimed that Jackson was known as "Karate Jackson." The monicker was false. Jackson had never carried such an alias. Prison officials later claimed never to have said he did.

Moreover, according to some of the earlier reports. Mills had been killed in a part of the joint into which Jackson was not even allowed at the time.

III

Whether George Jackson was guilty of murder in the death of John Mills is, like the issue of his guilt in the $70 robbery that sent him to prison for one to life, a question without a legal answer. Just as Jackson's confession to the $70 caper prevented the case from going to court, so did his death deny him a trial by jury.

There were and are many who contend that Jackson was being framed for his political views in the Soledad case, just as he has been railroaded into a life sentence ten years before because his ignorance of the law, his poverty, race and previous record marked him expendable. Many of those who claim that Jackson is innocent question the possibility that he could have received--or that Drumgo and Cluchette will receive--a fair trial. It would have been in Jackson's case--and will be in the case of the other two Soledad Brothers--too easy for California officials to manipulate and confect incriminating evidence. Potential defense witnesses could be intimidate by the threat of prolonged confinement if they testify.

Nonetheless the question of Jackson's guilt remains, alleged evil being no more interrable than the actual evil that men do. The answer lies in motivation: To be sure it is possible that Jackson could have killed Mills--but would he?

Homocide, particularly the killing of another human with one's own hand, is always the product of intense and usually uncontrolled emotion. Something or the accumulation of many things strikes so deeply as to summon the ultimate response.

According to the train of thought underlining officials statements about Mills's death, Jackson's motive was revenge. He killed Mills in an attempt to force the system to atone for the deaths of the three black inmates it had killed three days before.

Clearly, there was a component of Jackson's character capable of producing such a reaction. However, it seems highly improbable that the death of the three inmates constituted a situation that could evoke such a response from him. Vulnerable men die, and in the joint, all men are vulnerable. Jackson, as highly aware as he was of his vulnerability, knew this to be the fundamental clause of existence. He once wrote, "The payment for life is death."

Black men, in the yard or on the block, tend to die more easily. Too easily, Jackson often asserted. As it goes in the game, they are always doubly vulnerable. George Jackson often wrote of the necessity of changing this condition. He felt it was imperative that black people become die-hards, going slow and taking as many recognized enemies out with them as possible. He took this as a personal responsibility and trained his mind and body to fulfill it. He expected other black cons to do the same and was willing to help them.

John Mills was a fish. Twenty-six years-old, he had been working as a guard for less than a year. During that time, he had done little more than put in time. Perhaps because he recognized that as a guard he was no less imprisoned than the cons he oversaw, and that most of them were older, bigger, more experience prisoners than he, Mills had acted with tolerance when he had acted at all.