On this day, August 21, in 1971

Black Panther member and political prisoner George Jackson was shot dead by prison guards while attempting to escape from San Quentin Prison. At the time he was killed, Jackson was incarcerated for the murder of a white prison guard. The killing of the guard had been in retaliation for the earlier murder of three black activists in a nearby prison, in which case the guard was acquitted and the murders ruled 'justifiable homicide'. Jackson had become politicized the first time he was locked up at age 18, and he quickly earned a reputation as a black revolutionary. There are even some speculations that the FBI was involved in assassination of George Jackson as part of their COINTELPRO mission to eliminate all radical black social resistance.