I usually try to stay away from focusing on February being “Black History Month.” As far as I’m concerned, black history should be discussed every day and so should all other kinds of histories.

Anyway, as regular readers of this blog know, I am an amateur history buff. I am sometimes tempted to re-enroll in school to get a graduate degree in history. Then I catch myself and remember that I can just as easily go to the library and check out a bunch of books for FREE. So no more school for me…

One of my touchstones in life is Dr. Barbara Ransby. I admire her for many personal reasons and I am in awe of her work as a historian. In particular, Barbara is the person who introduced me to the life and legacy of the great Ella Baker in her book “Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement.” If you’ve never heard of Ella Baker before or even if you have, I can’t recommend this book any more highly. After reading about Mrs. Baker, I became sort of obsessed with learning about other unsung black women who have made a significant contribution to history. It was this search that first lead me to a woman named Mae Mallory.

Willie Mae Mallory was born in Georgia in 1927. She moved to New York City with her mother in 1939. Ms. Mallory died in 2007 at the age of 80. In between those years, Mae Mallory played an integral role in the black freedom movement in the U.S. Yet she is far from a household name and even those who know something about black U.S. history may never have heard of her contributions. Yet before there was a FREE ANGELA or FREE ASSATA campaign, there was a FREE MAE MALLORY one.

Mae Mallory fled from North Carolina to Ohio in August 1961 in fear for her life. She was a supporter and friend of black radical Robert F. Williams. Williams, who had fought in World War II, returned home to become the leader of his local North Carolina NAACP chapter in the mid-1950s. By the late 1950s, Williams had won the admiration of many black people through his resistance to racist violence by the KKK in Monroe, North Carolina. He was also vocal about the need for black people in the U.S. to practice armed self-defense. His approach was in stark contrast to Dr. King’s advocacy of nonviolent resistance.

During a trip to New York in 1959, Williams met Mae who was already a local community activist. As the mother of two children, she had filed a lawsuit against the New York Public Schools to demand better accommodations for black children. She had been part of a group that became known as the Harlem Nine. Mallory was so impressed with Williams that she established a group of supporters called Crusader Families to help Williams with his work in North Carolina. The group’s name came from Williams’ newsletter called the Crusader which kept people informed about the events taking place in Monroe, North Carolina.

Peniel E. Joseph provides a great glimpse of Mae Mallory’s activism in his book “Waiting Til' The Midnight Hour.” After the African Nationalist leader Patrice Lumumba was assassinated in 1961, a group of black american artists and activists took over the United Nations. On February 15, 1961, demonstrators protested outside the U.N. while artists like Maya Angelou made their way into the Security Council. He describes the incident as follows:

“From the balcony, the screaming voices of protestors could be heard. “Killers!” shouted one. “Murderers!” yelled another. “Lumumba! Lumumba! they chanted in unison. Adlai Stevenson, two-time Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. representative to the United Nations, stood to address the meeting. Leaning toward the microphone, Stevenson removed his glasses and searched for the source of the rapidly escalating commotion.

At 11:35 in the morning, protesters had entered the Security Council meeting where a melee broke out between security guards and demonstrators. Frantic crowds hustled out in a stampede of departing spectators and incoming security guards. LeRoi Jones and Mae Mallory huddled together and, in an instant, were cordoned off by security. Mallory engaged in a heated struggle that required the intervention of several guards. Police officers snatched Jones into a packed police van, banging his head against the paddy wagon’s metal frame doors while other protestors were dragged outside and charged with disorderly conduct. (pp.40-41).”

This account suggests that Mae Mallory considered the U.S. black freedom struggle as intimately connected to the colonial struggles taking place on the Continent. Only a few months after the U.N. demonstration, Mae Mallory would find herself accused of facilitating a kidnapping and aiding in the escape of Robert F. Williams from the United States.

In August 1961, Mae Mallory along with journalist Julian Mayfield were visiting Rob Williams and his family in Monroe. The summer of ’61 in Monroe had been characterized by racial tumult. It ended with Rob Williams being accused of kidnapping an elderly white couple, Mr. and Mrs. Bruce Stegall. He fled the country to Cuba allegedly with the help of Mallory and Mayfield. Mayfield went to Ghana and Mallory found her way to Cleveland Ohio.

Accused of false kidnapping charges, Mae Mallory along with the other Monroe Defendants would face a stiff prison sentence and years of legal troubles. While in Cleveland, Mallory would fight against being extradited to Monroe to face her charges. Mallory described Monroe as a place “where a black man has never been acquitted when accused of a crime against a whiteman, and a whiteman has never been convicted when accused of a crime against a blackman.” Because of her refusal to return to Monroe, Mallory would spend over a year and a half in jail in Ohio. While she was incarcerated at Cuyahoga County Jail, she wrote letters and shared her thoughts about the experience. Tomorrow, I will post “An Open Letter…To My Many Friends in America and Those in Foreign Lands” in which Mae Mallory describes her life in jail. It is my deepest hope that someone is currently working on a book about Mae Mallory’s life. She deserves much more recognition.

I almost lost out on this snapshot in an online auction. But alas, I prevailed against a persistent bidder. This was part of a lot of two rare snapshots (circa 1915) of Black Florida prisoners playing baseball. The unknown photographer took this picture of the prisoners as they camped out on his property during road construction. The second snapshot (not pictured here) shows two convict “travel cages.”

As part of my ongoing series about Laura Scott's life, today I will focus on how women prisoners in San Quentin were treated by staff and how they treated each other in the early 20th century. For this, I am once again relying on the first-hand account of an unnamed ex-San Quentin female prisoner published in the book “Crime and Criminals.” Let’s begin by exploring the apparent corruption of the staff at the prison:

Numerous instances of favoritism in this, as in other regards, are cited, especially where the prisoners were able to do embroidery and other fine needlework for the matron. There is supposed to be a stringent rule forbidding making presents to or doing work for a prison official. “If anyone were so interested as to investigate he would find ‘Buzzard’s Roost’, as the matron designated her abode, literally lined with pillows, table covers, pillow shams and other articles too numerous to mention, forced from the women who hoped by thus catering to her greed to enjoy some of the favors they knew she could and did give to those who worked for her.”

According to the former San Quentin woman prisoner, the matron who oversaw the “Female Department” was capricious and cruel:

“…she is described as having been an incurable gossip, of the foulest kind, showing special partiality to negresses, and completing a day’s work that averaged about five hours by leaving the establishment to itself at 4:30 p.m.”

The matron is alleged to have discouraged church services at the prison in favor of gambling and dancing instead:

“Many a time after the California Club women or the Salvation Army lassies had held their services in the office, the table would be rolled back and the negro women, and those of the white women who were low enough in their tastes to enjoy such a spectacle, would be called in and, while one would strum on a banjo, the rest would raise their clothes and give a leg show. The higher kickers they were the better the matron enjoyed it.” At the same time gambling would be in progress. An attempt to form a bible study class was stopped. No books that could be used for educational purposes were obtainable, and every effort toward self-improvement was discouraged.

It appears that this testimonial was offered by a white female prisoner because it is peppered with allegations of reverse racism while offering racist descriptions of female prisoners of color. For example, “White women who are cleanly and neat are next to some vile-smelling negress, Chinese or Mexican women.” The writer provides some interesting anecdotes that depict “negresses” like a cook who was promoted to “librarian” as terrorizing white female prisoners with impunity while being protected by the white matron of the prison. Here’s an anecdote that was offered:

It is charged that the abuse of the white women by the negresses was deliberately encouraged, and that repeatedly, to the accompaniment of guitars, the matron could be seen waltzing with the big negress cook, whose relations with her were a constantly discussed and most revolting scandal. This negress is said to have ruled the women’s department and, “notwithstanding the fact that she was one of the worst women there, by the matron’s own statement, yet she had the most privileges; she was never punished or even reprimanded for her dreadful statements and wicked talk; she was given the place of cook, which carries with it special privileges, such as warmth, baths, good food, being unlocked at night, and many other favors. The white women were at her mercy.” This is the woman whom the matron, as mentioned previously, appointed librarian.

This seems to be an unusual racial dynamic for that era but I honestly don’t know enough about the history of other women’s prisons to know if this was a unique circumstance or more common. Could it really be possible that a black prisoner like Laura Scott might benefit from her race in prison in 1905? This seems incredible to me. However, the overall account provided about life at San Quentin was corroborated by several other prisoners before it was published by the Prison Reform League. It’s a puzzle.

Some of the most harrowing stories in the account address the abusive treatment that some female prisoners experienced at San Quentin. They were basically tortured.

“A colored woman named Belle N. was serving a term of ten years. At the end of three years, after having been accorded the privileges accorded to all colored women, she turned on the matron and made threats that she would do her bodily harm. This woman was locked in her cell, and for three years, or nearly four, was never allowed to leave it save for one hour every Friday. Just one month before her release should have come she was removed to an insane asylum, and in two weeks was a corpse. A great, healthy animal she was, but dangerous to the matron.

The unnamed female prisoner who offered this testimony ends with these words: “I have not, and I cannot, tell one-hundredth part of the awfulness of the place, which is fitly described by all the women as a ‘veritable hell on earth.’”

Shortly after this account was written, the matron of San Quentin tendered her resignation. Upon hearing about the stories of the horrible conditions for female prisoners at San Quentin, women reformers mobilized to press for improvements and eventually successfully advocated for building a separate facility to house women in California. Hester Griffith (not related to Griffith J Griffith) was part of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). She was a prison reformer who stated at the end of the published account that she had corroborated the allegations about the terrible conditions at the Prison for women. She also highlighted the allegation that in 1904 and 1905 visiting members of the state legislature had used the women’s quarters as a brothel. As Cristina Rathbone writes: “Rape had always been a problem – really the problem — for women in prison in America (p.66).” So we know that female prisoners at San Quentin must have been subjected to sexual abuse especially because they usually shared the same facility as male prisoners and more importantly male guards.

The next edition of Laura’s story recounts her second trial in 1907 for larceny.

Note: I have always appreciated librarians. They ROCK. In particular, the staff at the California Archives have provided me with INVALUABLE help. There is no way that I could write about Laura Scott without the information that they have helped me to unearth. Next time you have a moment, please stop by your local library and thank the librarians on staff for what they contribute to our culture.

From Project Attica:
Background: Make The Road New York (MRNY), a community organization focused on promoting economic justice through education, organization, and direct services, helped sponsor and coordinate the creation of a Know Your Rights Mural (KYR) in Bushwick, Brooklyn. The mural incorporates criminal defense tips for dealing with encounters with the police. Aware of the community from which it springs, the mural includes portions in Spanish, clearly visible to the predominant Latino/a population in that area.

The Artist: Cekis aka Nelson Rivas, originally from Santiago Chile, belongs to the first generation of graffiti writers/artist in Chile in the early nineties. Cekis currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY since 2004.

Take a look at the graph below. This is the result of many bad policy decisions but one stands out in particular…

Some months ago, I wrote about the cowardice of Illinois politicians and the corruption of the media in a post about the suspension of the state’s meritorious good time (MGT) program. Sure enough as many (including me) predicted, this disastrous political decision has had the effect of increasing the Illinois prison population by nearly 4,000 at an additional cost of nearly $100 million. I am of course not Nostrodamus. This was a completely foreseeable consequence of a dumb decision made by our Governor.

I attended a meeting about Illinois prison overcrowding on Monday and Malcolm Young once again spoke about the importance of reinstating MGT. He has written a new white paper (PDF) which is essential reading for anyone who is interested in the background on MGT, the political controversy and the consequences of the suspension of the program.

In the coming days, please look out for an opportunity to help push the Governor to instruct the Department of Corrections to reinstate MGT. I will be sharing the template of a letter that you can send to Governor Quinn as well as other ways that you can make your voice heard on this matter if you live in Illinois.

UPDATE: You can urge Governor Quinn to reinstate MGT by e-mailing, calling, sending a letter or signing a petition. Information is HERE.

I am currently working with a coalition of other groups in Illinois to pass a bill to reform the juvenile expungement process. Juvenile expungement is intended to provide people with juvenile criminal records with a chance to erase them. This is intended to make it more likely that they can qualify for financial aid, that they can apply and be hired for jobs, and that they can qualify for certain professional licenses (like nursing).

As part of our process to pass the bill, we have been meeting with various stakeholders including legislators and law enforcement representatives. For the most part, folks have been supportive of our common-sense reform measures. Our biggest opponent however is the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office which refuses to adopt any sort of reasonable posture in negotiating with our coalition.

After our latest meeting with a group of stakeholders representing the legal system this morning, I am reflecting on the fact that many people are just downright hostile against young people. The assumption seems to be that if they aren’t getting their records expunged; it’s their fault. In the world that some of these people inhabit, fees are not an obstacle to expungement “because they can afford to pay.” Additionally, the system should remain as onerous as possible because they want youth to “jump through hoops” in order to clear their records. When it is pointed out that thousands of young people are arrested each year and their cases aren’t referred to court. The response remains the same. We don’t care if these are mere arrests (some of which are surely false arrests), we just want to make them “take responsibility” for their actions.

Given the reality that almost 30% of youth in the U.S. will be arrested by the age of 23, I can’t help but think that we will be reaching a tipping point soon. When the main people who were being adversely impacted by arrest records were youth of color, there was no urgency to reform the expungement process. However now that many more young white people find themselves caught in the net of increasing police control, I wonder how much more amenable the powers that be will be to expungement reform in the future.

It’s a sad but true fact that only when they see these as “their” kids too will they find a willingness to make the system more fair, just, and cost-effective. You can learn more about our efforts by visiting the UN-MARKED CAMPAIGN BLOG.

From “An Address on Prisons” in Ramparts Magazine (1968):

“When you focus on the adult penitentiaries, you’re looking at the end of the line, trying to see where a process begins. But if you really want to understand and see what’s behind the prison system, you have to look at Juvenile Hall. You have to do down to Juvenile Hall. That’s where I started my career, at about the age of twelve, for some charge. I don’t know what it was, vandalism. I think I ripped off a bicycle, maybe two or three bicycles. Maybe I had a bicycle business. I don’t remember. But it related to bicycles. They took me to Juvenile Hall, and it took me about six months to get out again. While I was there I met a lot of people. I met a lot of real, nice, groovy cats who were very active, very healthy people, who had stolen bicycles and things like that. Then I moved up the ladder from Juvenile Hall to Whittier Reform School for youngsters. I graduated from that one and they jumped me up to the big leagues, to the adult penitentiary system.

I noticed that every time I went back to jail, the same guys who were in Juvenile Hall with me were also there again. They arrived there soon after I got there, or a little before I left. They always seemed to make the scene. In the California prison system, they carry you from Juvenile Hall to the old folks’ colony, down in San Luis Obispo, and wait for you to die. Then they bury you there, if you don’t have anyone outside to claim your body, and most people down there don’t. I noticed these waves, these generations. I had a chance to watch other generations that came behind me, and I talked with them. I’d ask them if they’d been in jail before. You will find graduating classes moving up from Juvenile Hall, all the way up. It occurred to me that this was a social failure, one that cannot be justified by any stretch of the imagination. Not by any stretch of the imagination can the children in the Juvenile Halls be condemned, because they’re innocent, and they’re processed by an environment that they have no control over.

If you look at the adult prisons, you can’t make head or tail out of them. By the time these men get there, they’re in for murder, rape, robbery and all the high crimes. But when you look into their pasts, you find Juvenile Hall. You have to ask yourself, why is there not in this country a program for young people that will interest them? That will actively involve them and will process them to be healthy individuals and lead a healthy life. Until someone answers that question for me, the only attitude I can have towards the prison system, including Juvenile Hall, is tear those walls down and let those people out of there. That’s the only question. How do we tear those walls down and let those people out of there?

People look at the point in the Black Panther Party program that calls for freedom for all black men and women held in federal, state, county, and municipal jails. They find it hard to accept that particular point. They can relate to running the police out of the community, but they say, “Those people in those prisons committed crimes. They’re convicted of crimes. How can you even talk about bringing them out? If you did get them out, would you, in the black community, take them and put them on trial and send them back again?” I don’t know how to deal with that. It’s just no. NO! Let them out and leave them alone! Let them out because they’re hip to all of us out here now. Let them out. Turn them over to the Black Panther Party. Give them to us. We will redeem them from the promises made by the Statue of Liberty that were never fulfilled. We have a program for them that will keep them active — 24 hours a day. And I don’t mean eight big strong men in a big conspicuous truck robbing a jive gas station for $75. When I sit down to conspire to commit a robbery, it’s going to be the Bank of America, or Chase Manhattan Bank, or Brinks.”

If you didn’t know that this was written in 1968, you would think that it was tailor made for the time that we are currently living in. No? The main thing that we are missing in 2012 is our own version of the Black Panther Party (with some improvements).

“Living For The City”

A boy is born in hard time Mississippi
Surrounded by four walls that ain’t so pretty
His parents give him love and affection
To keep him strong moving in the right direction
Living just enough, just enough for the city…ee ha!

His father works some days for fourteen hours
And you can bet he barely makes a dollar
His mother goes to scrub the floor for many
And you’d best believe she hardly gets a penny
Living just enough, just enough for the city…yeah

His sister’s black but she is sho ’nuff pretty
Her skirt is short but Lord her legs are sturdy
To walk to school she’s got to get up early
Her clothes are old but never are they dirty
Living just enough, just enough for the city…um hum

Her brother’s smart he’s got more sense than many
His patience’s long but soon he won’t have any
To find a job is like a haystack needle
Cause where he lives they don’t use colored people
Living just enough, just enough for the city…
Living just enough…
For the city…ooh,ooh
[repeat several times]

His hair is long, his feet are hard and gritty
He spends his love walking the streets of New York City
He’s almost dead from breathing on air pollution
He tried to vote but to him there’s no solution
Living just enough, just enough for the city…yeah, yeah, yeah!

I hope you hear inside my voice of sorrow
And that it motivates you to make a better tomorrow
This place is cruel no where could be much colder
If we don’t change the world will soon be over
Living just enough, just enough for the city!!!!

I am so excited that Slavery By Another Name will premiere on PBS on Feb 13th at 9 p.m. Eastern. It is one of my favorite non-fiction books…

Can you identify everyone in these mugshots? If yes, you win…. nothing unfortunately.