Black August 21, 2016
I can hardly believe that 46 years have gone by since the August 7,1970, Marin Courthouse Slave
Rebellion. Ruchell is now 77 years
old, same as myself. It's a sin and a shame the fascist state has taken
this brother's whole life, damn near. And he has never seriously injured
anyone. Quite the opposite, Ruchell has been responsible (through his
jailhouse lawyering) for the release of countless prisoners over the decades
he's been incarcerated. Here’s his
story, written years ago, and updated to accommodate the 8-year difference:
Ruchell Cinque Magee and the August 7th Courthouse Slave
Rebellion
By Kiilu Nyasha, 2008
“Slavery 400 years
ago, slavery today, it’s the same but with a new name”.-- Ruchell Cinque
Magee
I first met Ruchell Cinque Magee in the holding cell of the Marin
County courthouse in the summer of 1971. I found him to be soft-spoken, warm
and a gentleman in typically Southern tradition. We’ve been in correspondence
pretty much ever since. [I must say,
regrettably, Ruchell is no longer writing me at this point, 2016.]
I had just returned to California from New Haven,
Connecticut, where I had worked as an organizer and a member of the legal
defense team of three Black Panthers, including Party Chairman Bobby Seale, on
trial for murder and conspiracy. The second trial resulted in a true people’s
victory, May 24, 1971. We had kept the New Haven courtroom jam-packed
throughout the joint trial of Seale and Ericka Huggins that resulted in a hung
jury. But the obviously racist judge had to dismiss it due to the enormous
publicity and state expense incurred due to huge crowds and tight security.
In my correspondence with George Jackson, author of the
bestseller, Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson,
he had advised me to seek a press card in order to visit him at San Quentin. In
so doing, I wound up working for The Sun Reporter, a local Black newspaper
(byline Pat Gallyot), and covering the pretrial hearings of Angela Davis and
Magee.
Already familiar with courtroom injustice, racism and bias
against Black defendants witnessed in two capital trials (the first was that of
Lonnie McLucas), it didn’t come as a surprise that Ruchell was getting a raw
deal in the Marin Courtroom where he was frequently removed for outbursts of
sheer frustration.
By 1971, Ruchell was an astute jailhouse lawyer. He was
responsible for the release and protection of a myriad of prisoners benefiting
from his extensive knowledge of law, which he used to prepare writs, appeals
and lawsuits for himself and many others behind walls.
Now Ruchell was fighting for all he was worth for the right
to represent himself against charges of murder, conspiracy to murder, kidnap,
and conspiracy to aid the escape of state prisoners.
Although critically wounded on August 7, 1970, Magee was the
sole survivor among the four brave Black men who conducted the courthouse slave
rebellion, leaving him to be charged with everything they could throw at him.
“All right gentlemen, hold it right there.we’re taking
over!” Armed to the teeth, Jonathan Jackson, 17, George’s, younger brother, had
raided the Marin Courtroom and tossed guns to prisoners William Christmas and
James McClain, who in turn invited Ruchell to join them. Magee seized the hour
spontaneously as they attempted to escape by taking a judge, assistant district
attorney and three jurors as hostages in that audacious move to expose to the
public the brutally racist prison conditions and free the Soledad Brothers
(John Clutchette, Fleeta Drumgo, and George Jackson).
McClain was on trial for assaulting a guard in the wake of
Black prisoner Fred Billingsley’s murder by prison officials in San Quentin in
February 1970. With only four months before a parole hearing, Magee had
appeared in the courtroom to testify for McClain.
The four revolutionaries successfully commandeered the group
to the waiting van and were about to pull out of the parking lot when Marin
County Police and San Quentin guards opened fire. When the shooting stopped,
Judge Harold Haley, Jackson, Christmas, and McClain lay dead; Magee was
unconscious and seriously wounded as was the prosecutor. A juror suffered a
minor injury.
In a chain of events leading to August 7, on January 13,
1970, a month before the Billingsley slaughter, a tower guard at Soledad State
Prison had shot and killed three Black captives on the yard, leaving them
unattended to bleed to death: Cleveland Edwards, “Sweet Jugs” Miller, and the
venerable revolutionary leader, W. L. Nolen, all active resisters in the Black
Liberation Movement behind the walls. Others included George Jackson, Khatari Gaulden,
Hugo L.A. Pinell (Yogi Bear), Howard Tole, and Warren Wells.
After the common verdict of “justifiable homicide” was
returned and the killer guard exonerated at Soledad, another white-racist guard
was beaten and thrown from a tier to his death. Three prisoners, Fleeta Drumgo,
John Clutchette, and Jackson were charged with his murder precipitating the
case of The Soledad Brothers and a campaign to free them led by college
professor and avowed Communist, Angela Davis, and Jonathan Jackson.
Magee had already spent at least seven years studying law
and deluging the courts with petitions and lawsuits to contest his own illegal
conviction in two fraudulent trials. As he put it, the judicial system “used
fraud to hide fraud” in his second case after the first conviction was
overturned on an appeal based on a falsified transcript. His strategy,
therefore, centered on proving that he was a slave, denied his constitutional
rights and held involuntarily. Therefore, he had the legal right to escape
slavery as established in the case of the African slave, Cinque, who had
escaped the slave ship, Armistad, and won freedom in a Connecticut trial. Thus,
Magee had to first prove he’d been illegally and unjustly incarcerated for over
seven years. He also wanted the case moved to the Federal Courts and the right
to represent himself.
Moreover, Magee wanted to conduct a trial that would bring
to light the racist and brutal oppression of Black prisoners throughout the
State. “My fight is to expose the entire
system, judicial and prison system, a system of slavery.. This will cause
benefit not just to myself but to all those who at this time are being
criminally oppressed or enslaved by this system.”
On the other hand, Angela Davis, his co-defendant, charged
with buying the guns used in the raid, conspiracy, etc., was innocent of any
wrongdoing because the gun purchases were perfectly legal and she was not part
of the original plan. Davis’ lawyers wanted an expedient trial to prove her
innocence on trumped up charges. This conflict in strategy resulted in the
trials being separated. Davis was acquitted of all charges and released in June
of 1972.
Ruchell fought on alone, losing much of the support
attending the Davis trial. After dismissing five attorneys and five judges, he
won the right to defend himself. The murder charges had been dropped, and Magee
faced two kidnap charges. He was ultimately convicted of PC 207, simple kidnap,
but the more serious charge of PC 209, kidnap for purposes of extortion,
resulted in a disputed verdict.
According to one of the juror’s sworn
affidavit, the jury voted for acquittal on the PC 209 and Magee continues to
this day to challenge the denial and cover-up of that acquittal.
Ruchell is currently on the mainline of Lancaster State Prison
doing his 53rd year in California gulags - many of those years spent
in solitary confinement under tortuous conditions, In spite of having no
assault or murder convictions.
Write him at:
Ruchell Magee # A92051, D-5 #1
P.O. Box 4670 Lancaster, CA 93539
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