George Lester Jackson (September 23, 1941 – August 21, 1971) was an American author, activist and prisoner. While serving an indeterminate sentence for the armed robbery of a gas station in 1961, Jackson became involved in revolutionary activity and co-founded the prison gang Black Guerrilla Family. In 1970, he was charged, along with two other Soledad Brothers, with the murder of Correctional Officer John Vincent Mills in the aftermath of a prison fight. The same year, he published Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson, a combination of autobiography and manifesto addressed to an African-American audience. The book became a bestseller and earned Jackson personal fame. Jackson was killed in prison by prison guards in 1971, during an escape attempt in which 3 prison guards and 2 inmates were killed. Biography Born in Chicago, Illinois, Jackson was the second son of Lester and Georgia Bea Jackson's five children. He spent time in the California Youth Authority Corrections facility in Paso Robles due to several juvenile convictions including armed robbery, assault, and burglary. In 1961, he was convicted of armed robbery – for stealing $70 ($ in current dollar terms) at gunpoint from a gas station – and sentenced to one year to life in prison. During his first years at San Quentin State Prison, Jackson became involved in revolutionary activity. He was described by prison officials as egocentric and anti-social. In 1966, Jackson met and befriended W. L. Nolen, who introduced him to Marxist and Maoist ideology. The two founded the Black Guerrilla Family in 1966 based on Marxist and Maoist political thought. In speaking of his ideological transformation, Jackson remarked: "I met Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Engels, and Mao when I entered prison and they redeemed me." As Jackson's disciplinary infractions grew he spent more time in solitary confinement, where he studied political economy and radical theory. He also wrote many letters to friends and supporters, which would later be edited and compiled into the books Soledad Brother and Blood in My Eye, bestsellers that brought him a great deal of attention from leftist organizers and intellectuals in the U.S. and Western Europe. He amassed a following of inmates, including whites and Latinos, and most enthusiastically with other black inmates. In January 1969, Jackson and Nolen were transferred from San Quentin to Soledad Prison. On January 13, 1970, corrections officer Opie G. Miller shot Nolen and two other black