Jonathan P. Baird

For anyone looking for an accessible history of the Sacco and Vanzetti case, I would recommend Rick Geary’s book, “The Lives of Sacco and Vanzetti”. It is not your standard history. Instead of a dry academic recitation of facts, Geary tells the story in cartoon form. The book is in the tradition of Art Spiegelman, R. Crumb, and Harvey Pekar, serious comic artists who have used their craft to tell a good story.

Geary artfully tells the story of the trial in relatively brief fashion. He describes the crime, the accused, the case for the defense, and the legal history. While Sacco and Vanzetti became a cause celebre, it has been many years since their execution in 1927. If you are like me, you know the names but not much about what crimes they were accused of and what case was made against them.

The book details the crimes. On April 15, 1920, a paymaster and his guard who were carrying a factory payroll were shot without warning by two men who had been hanging on the street. The crime occurred in South Braintree, Ma. The shooters pumped some additional shots into the two men who were down. A car quickly appeared; the bandits jumped in and escaped. The two men who were shot, died. There had also been an earlier failed robbery in Bridgewater Ma. in December 1919. Police initially thought the crimes were linked and the assumption was that they had been the work of professional thieves.

The crimes took place against the backdrop of the Palmer Raids and the Red Scare. The Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 had stirred fears among conservatives. In January 1920, more than 6000 immigrants were rounded up and put on a track toward deportation. Most of the people who were rounded up were concentrated in the Massachusetts cities of Bridgewater, Lawrence, and Lowell.

In considering what happened to Sacco and Vanzetti, it is impossible to overestimate the role of the political climate. Sacco and Vanzetti were both immigrants and anarchists. They was a hysterical atmosphere of fear similar to other periods like the McCarthy period and also more recently, the anti-Muslim hysteria post- 9/11. Sacco and Vanzetti were on trial as much for their political beliefs  as any alleged act.

Three weeks after the April 1920 robbery, Sacco and Vanzetti were arrested as “suspicious characters”. Vanzetti was charged with the attempted December 1919 Bridgewater robbery. Although he had a strong alibi, he was convicted of assault with the intent to rob and murder on the strength of eyewitness testimony. When arrested, both Sacco and Vanzetti were carrying weapons. They were intensely interrogated. Both lied about a number of facts including their anarchist associations. When the police searched their homes, the police found stacks of anarchist literature.

With Judge Webster Thayer presiding, Vanzetti was found guilty of the Bridgewater robbery. A problem for Vanzetti was that his witnesses spoke Italian, with little grasp of English. Although they testified, they had little impact on the jury who did not understand them.

Another big problem was Judge Thayer. He had a reputation even before the trial of disliking immigrants and radicals. After the jury convicted, Judge Thayer sentenced Vanzetti  to 15-20 years in prison. This was an extraordinarily harsh sentence for a first offense. Vanzetti was known in the Italian community as a gentle and poetic soul. As noted, he had never been convicted of any crime and he had worked selling fish from a push cart on the streets of Plymouth.

Sacco was an equally unlikely robber. He was married, had a son and he worked at a shoe factory in Stoughton Ma. In his spare time, he tended a large flower and vegetable garden.

On September 11, 1920, less than three months after Vanzetti’s conviction for the Bridgewater attempted robbery, Sacco and Vanzetti were indicted for murder in the South Braintree robbery. The same trial judge, Judge Thayer, who heard Vanzetti’s case, asked to be assigned to the South Braintree robbery case. He got his wish and he sat on the second trial.

You have to wonder about a trial judge who looks to assign himself to a case, particularly a judge who wants to preside over the same defendant whom he has just played a role in convicting. I think it was improper for Judge Thayer to seek out the case and for the court system to have allowed it. It smells bad. There is both the appearance of partiality and impropriety. Judges should be assigned to sit on the basis of impartial rotation.

The second trial, the famous trial, occurred in the aftermath of a large explosion on Wall Street in New York City. 38 citizens were killed and 200 were wounded. It was suspected that an anarchist associate of Sacco and Vanzetti, upset at their prosecution, had set off the bomb. The trial was held in Dedham Ma. The state created a metal cage which was placed in the center of the courtroom as a place for the defendants to sit during the trial. It is hard to imagine a clearer message. Sacco and Vanzetti were scary.Meanwhile hordes of federal agents, police and state bomb squad members patrolled outside the courtroom.

While there are many aspects to the trial that deserve discussion, I wanted to focus on the behavior of the trial judge, Judge Thayer. Thayer’s reputation for bias was based on an earlier case in 1920 in which a jury had not convicted another immigrant anarchist. His behavior there was unusual in focusing on the literature of the anarchists and their lack of loyalty to the United States. At the Sacco and Vanzetti trial he sneeringly overruled every defense objection. Thayer allowed extensive irrelevant cross examination about whether the defendants loved America, about the fact they avoided military service, and about their subversive literature. He argued with defense counsel about whether the literature in the defendants’ possession was in the interest of the United States.

On July 10, while he was golfing and relaxing at Worcester Country Club, he told a friend, “I’ll get those Bolsheviki bastards good and proper. I’ll get those guys hanged. No bunch of parlor radicals can intimidate Web Thayer.”

When he charged the jury, Thayer summed up the prosecution’s case with care but he said nothing about the defense case. The jury ended up convicting.

After conviction, the defense raised five supplementary motions. Due to a peculiarity in Massachusetts law, the judge who presided over the original trial heard all appeals. On July 1, 1924, Judge Thayer denied all five supplementary motions.

In November 1925, Sacco, who was being held in Norfolk County Jail was slipped a note from another prisoner, Celestine Madieros, a convicted murderer. Madeiros confessed he was part of the gang that did the crimes for which Sacco and Vanzetti had been convicted.

The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts upheld the conviction on appeal and then later denied the Madeiros defense motion. The case was remanded to Judge Thayer who not unsurprisngly sentenced Sacco and Vanzetti to death by electrocution. In August 1927 the Commonwealth of Massachusetts executed Sacco and Vanzetti. Over the next three days, more than 100,000 people lined up outside Joseph Lagone’s funeral parlor on Hanover Street in the North End to pay their respects. Sacco and Vanzetti had inspired a huge international outpouring of support. Demonstrations had been held world wide in the period prior to the executions. Among others, Albert Einstein, Clarence Darrow, Edna St. Vincent Millay, John Dos Passos, H.L. Mencken and George Bernard Shaw threw their support behind Sacco and Vanzetti. Thayer had denied another last minute motion before execution based on his bias.

Harvard Law Professor (and later U.S. Supreme Court Justice) Felix Frankfurter wrote about the case that every reasonable probability pointed away from Sacco and Vanzetti as the perpetrators. Frankfurter ripped Judge Thayer for discrepancies between what the record disclosed and what his opinion conveyed.

On August 23, 1977, Gov. Michael Dukakis proclaimed Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti Memorial Day. The Governor declared that any stigma and disgrace  should be forever removed from the names of Sacco and Vanzetti. He ordered an investigation into the state’s railroading and execution of Sacco and Vanzetti. The report found “that there are substantial, indeed compelling, grounds for believing that the Sacco and Vanzetti legal proceedings were permeated with unfairness”.

My sister Lisa educated me about Sacco and Vanzetti.  In her bedroom as a teenager, she had the Ben Shahn poster protesting their execution. I don’t know how Lisa learned about the case so early except she had unusual antenna for injustice. There have been many poems written about Sacco and Vanzetti. I wanted to close with two poems, only one of which is about the case but both seemed apropos to me.

You Felons on Trial in Courts    by Walt Whitman

You felons on trial in courts,
You convicts in prison-cells, you sentenced assassins chain’d
 and handcuff’d with iron,
Who am I too that I am not on trial or in prison?
Me ruthless and devilish as any, that my wrists are not
 chain’d with iron, or my ankles with iron?

You prostitutes flaunting over the trottoirs or obscene in
  your rooms,
Who am I that I should call you more obscene than myself?

O culpable! I acknowledge – I expose!
(O admirers, praise not me – compliment not me – you make
 me wince,
I see what you do not – I know what you do not.)

Inside these breast-bones I lie smutch’d and choked,
Beneath this face that appears so impassive hell’s tides
 continually run,
Lusts and wickedness are acceptable to me,
I walk with delinquents with passionate love,
I feel I am of them – I belong to those convicts and
 prostitutes myself,
And henceforth I will not deny them – for how can I deny
 myself?

Climbing Milestone Mountain               by Kenneth Rexroth
August 22, 1937

For  a month now, wandering over the Sierras,
A poem has been gathering in my mind,
Details of significance and ryhthm,
The way poems do, but still lacking a focus.
Last night I remembered the date and it all
began to grow together and take on purpose.
  We sat up late while Deneb moved over the zenith
And I told Marie all about Boston, how it looked
That last terrible week, how hundreds stood weeping
Impotent in the streets that last midnight.
I told her how those hours changed the lives of thousands,
How America was forever a different place
Afterward for many.
                                   In the morning
We swam in the cold transparent lake, the blue Damsel flies on all the reeds like millions
Of narrow metallic flowers, and I thought
Of you behind the grille in Dedham, Vanzetti,
saying, “Who would ever have thought we would make this
     history?”
Crossing the brilliant mile-square meadow
Illuminated with asters and cyclamen,
The pollen of the lodgepole pines drifting
With the shifting wind over it and the blue
And sulphur butterflies drifting with the wind,
I saw you in the sour prison light, saying,
“Goodbye comrade.”
                                     In the basin under the crest
Where the pines end and the Sierra primrose begins,
A party of lawyers was shooting at a whiskey bottle.
The bottle stayed on its rock, nobody could hit it.
Looking back over the peaks and canyons from the last lake,
The pattern of human beings seemed simpler
Than the diagonals of water and stone.
Climbing the chute, up the melting snow and broken rock,
I remembered what you said about Sacco,
How it slipped your mind and you demanded it be read
      into the record.
Traversing below the ragged arete,
One cheek pressed against the rock
The wind slapping the other,
I saw you both marching in an army
You with the red and black flag, Sacco with the rattlesnake
        banner.
I kicked steps up the last snow bank and came
To the indescribably blue and fragrant
Polemonium and the dead sky and the sterile
Crystalline granite and final monolith of the summit.
These are the things that will last a long time, Vanzetti,
I am glad that once on your day I have stood among them.
Some day mountains will be named after you and Sacco.
They will be here and your name with them,
“When these days are but a dim remembering of the time
When man was wolf to man.”
I think men wil be remembering you a long time
Standing on the mountains
Many men, a long time, comrade.

On Friday night, I went to see Lucinda Williams play the Capitol Center for the Arts in Concord. I had not intended to write about it but the show grabbed me. Lucinda is the real deal and there is almost nothing better than live music. Lucinda is probably not for everyone but I am a hardcore fan. Judging by the crowd, she does have a substantial adult following.

I suppose Lucinda is an acquired taste. She can be pretty dark and hardbitten although a positive side is woven through. I think I once heard Imus say you might want to kill yourself after listening to too much Lucinda.  I think she is hard to categorize. She is a rocker, a country singer, a folk singer, and a blues singer. Her songs are like poetry. Her lyrics are unusually evocative.

For anyone who has not heard her, I would begin with the album Car Wheels on  a Gravel Road. That is vintage Lucinda and it won a Grammy in 1999 for best contemporary folk album. She did sing a number of songs from that album at the Concord show. She led off with Drunken Angel. Then she sang the title track. Later in the show she sang “I Lost It”. She explained that song by saying that she had lived in Houston in the late 70’s. When there, she saw many car bumperstickers that said “I Found It”. Her response was “I Lost It”. Near the end she sang “Joy” which she dedicated to Occupy Wall Street. The song has a great groove.

The words from Joy, in part, go:

I don’t want you anymore
’cause you took my joy
I don’t want you anymore
You took my joy
You took my joy
I want it back…

My wife Deb joked that the words could have been:

I don’t want you anymore
’cause you took my job
I don’t want you anymore
You took my job
You took my job
I want it back..

Either way, it did seem like an appropriate song for now. Lucinda did sing two songs from West, her 2007 album. Not unexpectedly, she sang “Unsuffer Me” and “Come On”. She rocked out on both and got pretty loud. “Unsuffer Me” is about as bleak as it gets although it includes Lucinda’s desire for bliss. “Come on” is an ultimate revenge put down song. No one can accuse Lucinda of writing sappy love songs.

To add variety, she did a Dylan and then a Greg Allman cover. She definitely showed range as a blueswoman singing Allman’s  “It’s Not My Cross to Bear”. She also did “Get Right with God” and Blessed, the title track from her newest CD. After her encore as she was leaving the stage, she said, “Peace, love and power to the people”. I seriously have not heard anyone say “power to the people” in 40 years. Occupy Wall Street is giving people hope, I guess. It is hard not to love Lucinda. Buy her CDs, check her out on youtube or better yet, go see her live. You won’t be sorry.

After 15 months of living in Anchorage, Alaska, I have returned home to beautiful North Wilmot. While I am delighted to be home, I have to say that Alaska still has allure, almost gravitational pull. There is a reason so many people harbor Alaska fantasies.
Alaska is a surprising and paradoxical place, like New Hampshire except on a much larger scale. While I did not know much about Alaska before I arrived, I have to say it did not turn out to be what I expected. A good way to discuss the real Alaska is to discuss the questions that have been put to me since I returned:
Isn’t Alaska all snow and ice?
No. Everything depends on where in Alaska you are. Watching the extensive weather forecasts on TV in Alaska, you realize there are about seven weather systems going on simultaneously in the humongous state. The weather in downtown Anchorage is probably more moderate and temperate than New Hampshire. Generally temperatures hover between 0 and 20 Fahrenheit in the winter. While Anchorage gets some snow, last winter was very light. I had to smile hearing about all the snow in New Hampshire.
Fairbanks, the largest city north of Anchorage, is another story. You can get a solid two-week run of 40 degrees below in December or occasional 60 below days. You better plug in your car at night or else.
I also spent some time in southeast Alaska, in Juneau and Ketchikan. These places feature rain 250 days a year. They do sometimes get snow but not much. The climate makes Seattle look sunny.
Does Alaska have summer?
Summers in Alaska are not what I would describe as warm, but they are a big draw. Usually, for the tourist influx, we are talking summer temperatures in the balmy 50s in Anchorage. I found the best weather from March to June, which was a positive contrast to our mud season. When I got back to New Hampshire this August, I felt beach-deprived. I made a beeline to the Seacoast. If you are looking for beaches, Alaska is not the place for you. Instead of beaches, there are mudflats with warning signs and freezing water temperatures. The mudflats are like quicksand. Every year there are rescues of misguided people who ignore warning signs and wander out on the mud.
Did you get studded snow tires?
I did not, and I must report that there were only a couple days when driving was dicey in Anchorage. I did overhear many conversations about the need for studded snow tires. Having driven in both Alaska and New Hampshire, I think New Hampshire does a much better job of snowplowing and clearing roads. I am not sure if the poor quality of snowplowing in Anchorage reflected a macho ethic or cuts in the budget. I will say it was a little spooky approaching downtown intersections in Anchorage and wondering if you would slide into traffic. Black ice is for real.
Driving in Fairbanks in the winter was a trip. There was at least an inch of ice coating big chunks of the roads. Mastering stopping and turning was an art I never picked up. The slide factor apparently did not bother people in Fairbanks. They still drove fast. I learned they considered people from Anchorage wussies.
How dark was it?
Let me put it this way: By October the sun is almost a goner. I thought the dark was harder to cope with than the cold. Maybe if you were a vampire, you would find it cool. There is a reason Alaska is a popular locale for horror films featuring zombies and other denizens of the night. In Anchorage around the winter solstice, the sun would come up at 10:30 a.m. and
it would set at 3 p.m. By October, the tourists clear out and Anchorage becomes something of a ghost town.
Of course, the other side of the coin is the light in summer. The light can be confusing – you might think it was 6 p.m. at 11 pm. You have to tell yourself to go to sleep because you cannot tell if it is late from how it looks outside.
The fireworks are better on New Years Eve than the 4th of July. On the 4th, they did not do fireworks until 12:45 a.m.
Do people live in igloos?
I did not see that in Anchorage.
Did you meet Sarah Palin?
No I did not meet Mama Grizzly, Todd, Bristol or Levi Johnston. I must say I was surprised by Palin’s unpopularity in Alaska. A co-worker who was an Aleut Native called her “the quitter queen.” A perception that she quit on the state to cash in was widespread.
Is Alaska an arch-conservative red state?
Not really. Alaska started blue and has evolved red. It is a funny mix. When Alaska first became a state in 1959, conservatives feared its liberalism.
I am old enough to remember the great senator Ernest Gruening, who was one of the first senators to oppose the war in Vietnam and who was one of only two senators to oppose the Gulf of Tonkin resolution.
While Alaska has elected many conservative Republicans, I think the recent senatorial election in which Lisa Murkowski beat Joe Miller is instructive.
Though Murkowski was a long-shot write-in candidate, Miller’s Tea Party extremism deconstructed his Republican base. Miller also roused the Native Alaskan community into almost total opposition to his candidacy.
Alaska can go both ways politically although indisputably there is a strong libertarian tradition in the state.
Alaska has no professional baseball or football teams. Who do people root for?
While there is some preference toward Seattle teams, the Seahawks and the Mariners, I found Alaskans very open on sports team preferences. It is not like New Hampshire with Red Sox and Patriot dominance. The Red Sox, Steelers, Cowboys and Packers all appeared to have a following in Anchorage based on numbers of hats and jerseys. Sports bars opened early since football comes on at 9am on Sundays. One great thing about Alaska was that you could always be up for the finish of games, a benefit of the four-hour time difference.
Are you going back?
I would love to go back. Anchorage is no backwater. It is a vibrant, youthful, ethnically diverse city of 300,000. It is a fun city in its own right. It is also a great jumping off point for numerous vacation destinations. Whether you are driving down the Kenai Peninsula, heading north or south to trek on a glacier, or going to Denali, Alaska is visually spectacular. Probably there is no better place to go for a vacation.
Being away, I did realize though that life is the constellation of important relationships you have. That is not immediately transferable to a new location. New Hampshire is home for me.

On September 3, my son Josh married his girl friend Nancy in New Hope, Pa. They were married in a beautiful ceremony at a beautiful place. The Black Bass, where the ceremony took place, is located right on the Delaware River, north of Philadelphia. The weather cooperated and there could not have been a better day.

I thought the vows that Josh and Nancy exchanged were so expressive and passionate that I wanted to share them. My reason for posting this is solely to share something beautiful. In any wedding I have attended, I do not think I have ever heard such strong and direct mutual declarations of love and caring. As part of his vows, Josh sang Tupelo Honey. Just as a Van Morrison fan I loved that but Josh’s performance was right up there. I think Van himself would have approved.

I asked for permission to post this and Josh and Nancy Have graciously allowed this. Thank you Josh and Nancy! I am posting both their vows and the youtube of Josh singing Tupelo Honey.

I do wish both my parents and my sister Lisa could have been at this event. I know they would have loved it. I feel fortunate I was there.

Josh’s vows:

Never in my life have I met someone who has so naturally embraced and shared in the same ideals and
general perspective on life as I do.

The connection you and I share Nancy, is bigger that the two of us. I believe that the fruition of this
relationship is generations in the making.

If that sounds crazy to you folks, than I’m saying the right words. Crazy is the perfect adjective to
describe the amount of love, personal connection, interest, passion, and adoration I have for this
woman.

Finding you was unexpected. I could have never predicted that I’d find my partner so easily, like it was
meant to be, and it is. When I look at us from a bird’s eye view, I see the same type of love that my
grandparents shared. In my assessment, the kind of affection and care we have for one another seems
to only exist by way of a rare, kindred type of connection. My popup and nana had that connection and
while I’m sorry they can’t be here with us to see today, I knew they could sense that kind of love in us
when they met you.

I’ve always been independent and created a unique path for myself. I know you’ve been the same
way. I take what I want out of life and do my best to appreciate the world around me. I’m grateful for
the experiences I’ve had and the lessons I’ve learned. I believe every door I’ve opened, every path I’ve
chosen has brought me to this moment right now… A gradual but complete transformation.

Nancy, you are my life. I’m so incredibly fortunate to be here right now. Your love and understanding,
your thoughtfulness and care has overwhelmed by very being. I’ve grown from the me I once knew;
to the man I could have never projected but always hoped to be. I’ve done that with you and the love
you’ve brought into my life.

I want to tease on a favorite musician of mine, John Coltrane,

This IS a Love Supreme.

Beyond THAT there are no words.

My feelings for you transcend language or verse.

WE are an improvisational phrase filled with feel, rhythm, texture, substance, tension and release.

This moment is a crescendo in our lives but it is NOT the climax.

That will come every single day after today, for the rest of our lives.

As long as our energy is surging through the universe, I will be your #1. I will be your strength and
support. I’ll be there to make you happy when you’re sad. I’ll even save you from the rogue insects that
come in the house from the yard with Dobby.

I am yours baby and I love you more than I could tell you. I won’t ever be able to fully express myself

in words because, what I’m saying right now is familiar, it’s palatable, easy for you and our family to
understand.

That’s not good enough for me. Not on a day like this. I want everyone here to FEEL the way I feel
about you.

Singing has always been the best way for me to express myself and I felt like it would be the only way to
show everyone how I feel right now.

So, I wanted to play this song because I’ve heard it a million times in my life and I believe that every time
I’ve listened to it, it’s brought me closer to this moment.

I love you.

Nancy’s vows:

I can’t believe this day is here. I’m so thankful to stand with YOU, surrounded by loved
ones to merge our families and our lives. It’s a good day. One in which we are all
healthy, we’re all together. And those who are no longer with us are here in memory,
and in spirit. While I wish our lives could be filled with days like this, I breathe easy
knowing that we’ve built a foundation to weather whatever our days may bring.
Because today, I’m marrying my best friend.

When I met you, Josh I suddenly knew everything I wanted, or at least all the things I
thought I wanted became infused with meaning. Whatever riches I’d hoped to accrue,
were now for the purpose of building a home together. Whatever notoriety I wished for,
became to be respected by you. Whatever day I wake to, is now cherished as another one
I get to spend with you. Whatever truth I offer, is to be wholly honest with you, because
if I am to be truly known and understood in this life, it shall be through you.

To trust you with all the love I have to offer, and feel worthy of accepting all of yours,
has transformed my life in a way I never could have predicted. Your love has shined a
brilliant light into all the dark corners of my soul, so that I am finally awake, fully alive.
Your patience and commitment to understanding all of me, treating it not like a burden,
but appreciating it as a privilege has made me feel less complicated than I know I am.
You are my twin, the other half of me I never knew was missing, until we met, and felt
what it was like to be whole. The truth of that wholeness is now my sail through life, so
that no matter what storms may occur, I will hold tight to it and never give up on your or
us or even myself.

Today I’m entering a commitment to dedicate my whole self in a way I never have
before, with a strength I didn’t know I possessed until I met you. This dedication to us
now defines me, it is my life’s work. All good things, will come from it. And if my life is
blessed with no other good fortunes, I will forever be indebted to the world for bring me
to you, as there’s nothing else I want from this life other than to be with you, to be a good
and loving partner to you, and to deserve you each day. Our love is now my mark upon
the world. It is the validation of my life, and when we are no longer, the sky will read…
Nancy was here… because Josh loved her.

One
For eternity we have been one
But here we breathe as two
In this place where all meant things
Be exactly as they should
In perfect synchronicity
defining perfection
Revealing purpose
Here, we breathe as two
So that the love of one heart for it’s other
As a lost ship for its starlit harbor
As Heloise for Abelard
Must skim the surface of the earth
on it’s way from one to the other,
so the bees have wind
and the flowers pollen
and the world can have its harvest
and I may have you

August 21, 2011 is the 40th anniversary of George Jackson’s death. It is likely not an event that will be noted in any place but obscure left and African American blogs. I am not aware of any public celebration of his life. Weirdly, I was at the Wilmot Public Library for a used book sale and there was a copy of Soledad Brother. I was curious to see how it would read after so many years so I bought it and read it again.

It certainly did evoke a different period. Soledad Brother is a collection of prison letters George Jackson wrote in the period 1964-1970. Most of the letters are to family members but there are also letters to his attorneys and also to Angela Davis.

For those who do not know about George Jackson, at age 18 in 1961 he was convicted of armed robbery of a gas station in which he stole $70. His ridiculous sentence was one year to life. Jackson never got out of prison. Prison officials piled on the disciplinary infractions and the time he served had no relation to the original crime of which he was convicted. Once in jail, he became politically aware. He studied Marxist political thought and later he joined the Black Panther Party.

Jackson had been in San Quentin and in January 1969 he was transferred to Soledad prison. I will not go into the events surrounding his death. Jackson died in an escape attempt. He was shot dead in the prison yard. This event happened after George’s brother Jonathan took a judge, the D.A.., several prisoners and several jurors hostage in an effort to release Soledad brothers. Jonathan, the judge, and two other hostages ended up dead. They were all killed as they attempted to drive away from the courthouse.

No one really knows what happened the day George Jackson died and whether he was set up and assassinated by prison officials. At the time, James Baldwin wrote, “No Black person will ever believe that George Jackson died the way they tell us he did.”

In writing this piece, I thought it would be more interesting to highlight impressions of Soledad Brother now rather than covering the contested terrain of what happened in 1971.

My strongest reactions to the book were two fold. First, Jackson was an incredibly stand up guy. He wrote cleanly and well, called it like he saw it, and he did not back down. In a manner reminiscent of Malcolm X, he purged himself of what he called slave mentality.

” Although I would very much like to get out of here in order to develop a few ideas that have occurred to me – although I would not like to leave my bones here on the hill – if it is a choice between that and surrendering the things that make me a man, the things that allow me to hold my head erect and unbowed, then the hill can have my bones. Many times in the history of our past – I speak of the African here in the U.S. – many times we were presented with this choice, too many times, too many of us choose to live the crippled existence of the near-man, the  half-man. Well, I don’t care how long I live. Over this I have no control, but I do care about what kind of life I live, and I can control this. I may not live another five minutes but it will be five minutes definitely on my terms.” (Soledad Brother p. 84)

Another example:

“For us it is always tomorrow: tomorrow we’ll have enough money to eat better; tomorrow we’ll be able to buy this necessary article of clothing, to pay that debt. Tomorrow, it never really gets here. “To every one who has will more be given…but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away.” I don’t like this life, I can never reconcile myself to it, or rationalize the fact that I have been basely used, hated and repressed as if it were the natural order of things. Life is at best a nebulous shadow, a vague contingency, the merest of possibilities to begin with.” (Soledad Brother p.65)

Also:

“Forget the Westernized backward stuff about god. I curse god, the whole idea of a benevolent supreme being is the product of a tortured, demented mind. It is  a labored, mindless attempt to explain away ignorance, a tool to keep people of low mentality and no means of production in line. How could there be a benevolent superman controlling a world like this. He would have to be malevolent, not benevolent. Look around you, evil rules supreme. God would be my enemy. The theory of a good, just god is a false idea, a thing for imbeciles and old women, and, of course, Negroes. It is a relic of the past when men made words and mindless defenses for such things as sea serpents, magic and flat earths.” (Soledad Brother p. 151)

My other strong reaction is sadness at the tragedy of his life (as well as his brother Jonathan). George did not make it to 30. While he was an inspiration to many, his death was a waste of an intellectually gifted, courageous man who could have made other great contributions. It is hard not to think his political views were profoundly mistaken even if understandable. I expect this will not be a popular thing to say for hero-worshippers on the left but the military adventurism, the fanaticism, and the failure to understand the United States are also part of the Jackson picture. I can say that, looking back, the revolution of the era had something of an hallucinatory quality. Without in any way belittling the activism, the energy, and the originality of the Movement, revolution, actual socialist revolution, was a fantasy. The masses of American people were not and have not been persuaded that socialism is preferable to capitalism. That is a necessary precondition to a successful transition to socialism.

Social change must be about persuasion, persuasion of the majority, not the few. While very imperfect and while disproportionately representing the financial upper 1% of the population, our democracy must be preserved. The experiences of the 20th century, Hitler and Stalin, clearly demonstrate the dangers of both right wing and left wing authoritarianism. Only true believers can think that their particular brand of armed revolution would result in a qualitative improvement in the lives of the majority of Americans.

Jackson’s personal circumstances were desperate and it led him to embrace a desperate world view which got him killed. It did not have to be that way. While Jackson denigrates MLK, I think MLK had a better grasp of American politics. The American people quite legitimately were not ready for the brand of politics espoused by the Black Panther Party of that era. Of particular importance, American working people lacked then and still lack political class consciousness. Unlike our class conscious ruling class, working people do not see their destinies as tied together. Individualism reigns. There is not even a broad-based social democratic party in America, let alone a socialist party.

Serious liberals, leftists, progressives, radicals, whatever you call them, have to be about building political alternatives based on democracy, voting, rationality, and persuasion. There are no shortcuts. While Jackson mocked non-violence, I would argue his brand of violence did not serve him or the Movement well. Among other things it got him killed. It created a justification for the unconstitutional Cointelpro program which resulted in vicious attacks on the Panthers, AIM, and other Movement activists. America’s history is drenched in violence. Non-violence is the moral, high ground perspective for a social change movement to advance the interests of poor and working people.

There are a number of other things that deserve criticism in Soledad Brother. The hyperbole about fascism in America, the dehumanized pig language, the cartoonish black and white view of the world, the homophobia – all are wrong. That said, I think a balanced view of George Jackson must honor his bravery in the face of extreme racism and injustice. I will leave the last word to Jackson:

“…I dig people, righteous people. I always have found it hard to really hate anyone. I loved people. I understood from the beginning that the end purpose of life was simply to live, experience, contribute, connect, to gratify body and mind.”

While I never intended my blog to be a travel guide, I did want to say a few things about southeast Alaska. For my money, it is the most beautiful part of the state. Rain forest, major waterways, snow covered peaks, glaciers and ice fields – all are there. Before I came to Alaska, I had only the dimmest notion of the state’s geography.

Fortunately, I had the opportunity to travel to Juneau and Ketchikan three times in the last year for work. Juneau, in particular, is beautiful with mountains going down to water. The Gastineau canal runs through the area and it is a tourist mecca with many massive cruise ships docking from May to September. Tourism is the lifeblood of the community.

I wanted to mention a couple things I did on my most recent Juneau trip earlier this month. These are my four star recommendations. I hiked up Mt. Roberts after taking the tram which goes up about 1800 feet from downtown. While the tram was a mob scene, hardly anybody seemed to venture farther up the mountain. Once you got 15 minutes up from the top of the tram, there were only a handful of hikers. Hard to believe more people did not go up higher. I did see four black bears and two bald eagles flying overhead. I hit it on what must have been one of the primo days of summer. The views going up were sensational. The air was crisp and exceptionally clean and it did not get cold until I reached the snow. It felt good to breathe. On top before the snow there was a flat remarkably green pasture like area. On the far side, there was an area that reminded me of the Great Gulf Wilderness near Mt. Washington in NH. You can hike to some wide lookouts overlooking this vast gulf wilderness. In the distance there were mountains beyond mountains for as far as the eye could see.

I also went on a whale watch on Auke Bay near Juneau. It is the home of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a great government agency. Auke Bay must be one of the best spots in the world to see humpback whales. There were several pods in the vicinity of our boat. I saw many whales. There were two breaches and I saw bubble net feeding where a group of whales trap schools of herring. I have to say it was way more exciting than I expected it would be. I found the grace and beauty of the whales captivating. It was cool to hear their sounds which the captain played by putting some kind of sonar device in the water to hear the whales.

After the whale watch, I went over to Mendenhall Glacier for a short hike. I was surprised at the amount of ice around Juneau since it is warmer than up north. Mendenhall has receded dramatically though. Our tour guide showed how much it has receded over the last 20 years alone and that was huge.

In the museum about southeast Alaska in Ketchikan, they say southeast alone is as big as 500 Rhode Islands. I liked the vibe in southeast – friendly, slower-paced, and more relaxed than Anchorage. I was told Juneau is the most liberal and green city in the state and I believe it.

It has been a while since I have done a shout out for any poet so I figure now is a good time to mention Marge Piercy. Probably like many leftists, I read her poetry and novels with pleasure. Because she was so of the period (60’s-70’s), she was always a fun read.

Given the way fame works in America, poets, older or younger, are not exactly news. General rule of thumb: if you are a poet, a critical thinker/writer or a left public intellectual, you will likely be relegated to obscurity. There are a few notable exceptions but not too many.

As a former Boston area resident (a lifetime ago), I enjoyed Piercy’s Cambridge-based novels. I did see her read once in Cambridge. Her poetry book To Be of Use was a classic. I haven’t looked at To Be of Use for many moons but it contained some wonderful political poems.

I have read a number of her novels. I thought Vida was good and also her World War 2 novel, Gone To Soldiers. I never read it but my wife liked He, She and It.

I think Piercy wrote some pretty forgettable stuff too. My old political friend Barbara used to call Woman on the Edge of Time,  Woman on the Ledge of Slime. Still, nobody bats .1000 and I wanted to recommend her work especially to those who may never have heard of her. Given the amnesia machine that is America, that could be many.

I will share a few Piercy poems. I liked her book, The Art of Blessing the Day which includes poems with a Jewish theme. I guess I related to some of the same liturgy that inspired her. All the poems quoted are from The Art of Blessing the Day.

A candle in a glass

When you died, it was time to light the first
candle of the eight. The dark tidal shifts
of the Jewish calendar of waters and the moon
that grows like a belly and starves like a rabbit
in winter have carried that holiday forward
and back since then. I light only your candle
at sunset, as the red wax of the sun melts
into the rumpled waters of the bay.

The ancient words pass like cold water
out of stone over my tongue as I say kaddish.
When I am silent and the twilight drifts
in on skeins of unraveling woolly snow
blowing over the hill dark with pitch pines,
I have a moment of missing that pierces
my brain like sugar stabbing a cavity
till the nerve lights its burning wire.

Grandmother Hannah comes to me at Pesach
and when I am lighting the sabbath candles.
The sweet wine in the cup has her breath.
The challah is braided like her long, long hair.
She smiles vaguely, nods, is gone like a savor
passing. You come oftener when I am putting
up pears or tomatoes, baking apple cake.
You are in my throat laughing or in my eyes.

When someone dies, it is the unspoken words
that spoil in the mind and ferment to wine
and to vinegar. I obey you still, going
out in the saw toothed wind to feed the birds
you protected. When I lie in the arms of my love,
I know how you climbed like a peavine twining,
lush, grasping for the sun, toward love
and always you were pinched back, denied.

It’s a little low light the yahrtzeit candle
makes, you couldn’t read by it or even warm
your hands. So the dead are with us only
as the scent of fresh coffee, of cinnamon,
of pansies excites the nose and then fades,
with us as the small candle burns in its glass.
We lose and we go on losing as long as we live,
a little winter no spring can melt.

_______________________________________

For she is a tree of life

In the cramped living room of my childhood
between sagging rough-skinned sofa that made me itch
and swaybacked chair surrounded by ashtrays
where my father read every word of the paper
shrouded in blue smoke, coughing rusty phlegm
and muttering doom, the rug was a factory
oriental and the pattern called tree of life

My mother explained as we plucked a chicken,
tree of life: I was enthralled and Hannah
my grandmother hummed for me the phrase
from liturgy: Eytz khayim hee l’makhazikim
bo v’kol nitee-voteh-ho shalom:
for she is a tree of life to all who hold her fast,
and the fruit of her branches is peace.

I see her big bosomed and tall as a maple
and in her veins the beige sugar of desire
running sometimes hard, surging skyward
and sometimes sunk down into the roots
that burrow and wriggle deep  and far among the rocks
and clay and the bones of rabbits and foxes
lying in the same bed at last becoming one.

I see her opening into flushed white
blossoms the bees crawl into. I see her
branches dipping under the weight of the yield,
the crimson, the yellow and russet globes,
apples fallen beneath the deer crunch.
Yellow jackets in the cobalt afternoon buzz
drunken from cracked fruit oozing juice.

We all flit through her branches or creep
through her bark, skitter over her leaves.
Yet we are the mice that gnaw at her root
who labor ceaselessly to bring her down.
When the tree falls, we will not rise as plastic
butterfly spaceships, but will starve as the skies
weep hot acid and the earth chafes into dust.

_______________________________________

S’hema

Hear, Israel, you are of G-d and G-d is one.

Praise the name that speaks us through all time.

V’ahavta

So you shall love what is holy
with all your courage, with all your passion
with all your strength.
Let the words that have come down
shine in our words and our actions.
We must teach our children to know and understand them.
We must speak about what is good
and holy within our homes
when we are working, when we are at play,
when we lie down and when we get up.
Let the work of our hands speak of goodness
       Let it run in our blood
and glow from our doors and windows.

We should love ourselves, for we are of G-d.
We should love our neighbors as ourselves
We should love the stranger, for we
were once strangers in the land of Egypt
and have been strangers in all the lands of the world since.
Let love fill our hearts with its clear precious water.
Heaven and earth observe how we cherish  or spoil our
       world.

Heaven and earth watch whether we choose life or choose
       death.
We must choose life so our children’s children may live.
Be quiet and listen to the still small
voice within that speaks in love.
Open to that voice, hear it, heed it and work for life.
Let us remember and strive to be good.
Let us remember to find what is holy
within and without.

Since I moved to Anchorage, I had heard about the hike up Flattop Mountain. It was on my Alaska list. Last summer i intended to hike it but continuing rain stopped me. I think it rained over 30 days in a row last summer, including numerous weekends.

While prolonged rain is not an unfamiliar summer season for New England either, I did find that weather very disappointing and I know I was not alone in feeling that way. Alaskans did tell me it wasn’t like this last summer. Anchorage has a generally temperate climate. Unlike Fairbanks which features weather extremes, Anchorage is neither excessively cold nor hot. It is mostly in the 50’s in the summer without the stifling humidity now so much a staple in the northeast.

Anyway, getting back to Flattop, my friend Cliff and I hiked it a couple weeks ago on what started out as a sunny day. For those unfamiliar with the mountain, it is in Chugach State Park very near Anchorage. It is probably the most popular hike in Alaska and there were no shortage of hikers along with us.

You do not have to go far to start with wide views of Cook Inlet. As you head up, there are ever increasing spectacular panoramas. It is not a difficult hike for the first two-thirds of the hike, There are a couple ledges that are  a little hairy. The hike gets harder for the last part which is over rocks and more vertical.

Getting up higher, there was no one marked trail. People headed up on a variety of paths. There were the teenagers easily running up and down (no sweat!), the family hikers with a baby in a backpack and the rest of us. The last stretch was somewhat steep. The climb to the top reminded me a little of Mt. Lafayette. Flattop is not as tall as Lafayette but the rocks on top were similar.

Not having climbed it before, i was unclear about when we would be getting to the summit. It is always a pleasant surprise to get to the top. Flattop lived up to its name. The summit is a wide expanse with great views in all directions.
It was very windy on top and it had gotten overcast and started to rain a little. I imagine on a clear day you could have seen Denali. You could see the whole Anchorage area, Cook Inlet and far beyond.

Coming down proved more difficult for me. I took it slow (it was wet) and used my hands for balance. I had to do some scrambling and I will say my legs were sore for a couple days after.

Being a history buff, I do find the history of the area quite fascinating. Supposedly, between 15,000 and 40,000 years ago, humans migrated from Siberia to Alaska. At the time, ice sheets spread across North America, although apparently not in interior Alaska. As the ice sheets receded, early Eskimos migrated to areas in Alaska including what is now Chugach State Park. Most of the early Eskimos stayed in seasonal settlements. They were mostly here for the summer but left for more hospitable climate south as winter approached.

It is estimated that around 1,000 years ago the Dena’ina Athabascans migrated from Alaska’s interior to Cook Inlet. They hunted beluga whales, bear, caribou, mountain goats, sheep and moose and they fished for salmon. The Dena’inas lived off the land and had respect for all living creatures.

According to the Dena’ina tradition, animals and humans lived together and shared a common language. The raven was seen as the creator of the ancient world and raven was known as a mischief-loving deity with a penchant for pranks. The Dena’ina believed plants and animals went through transformations taking their present shape but retaining human-like spirits. The Dena’ina think that everything in nature possesses its own spirituality. According to tradition, either you respect nature or you run the risk of punishment such as bad luck in hunting, illness or death.

In 1959, when Alaska became the 49th state, the federal government granted the new state huge tracts of land. There were fears among Anchorage residents that private interests would try and get their hands on timber. A movement developed to protect the wilderness. In 1970, the Alaska Legislature created Chugach State Park, protecting the environment.

As a pretty new observer of the state, I would say what sets Alaska apart is wilderness. In so much of the rest of America we have set ourselves utterly apart from the natural world. Now it is not just living in concrete urban landscapes or boring isolated suburbias. It is living on screens, always plugged in, doubly removed from a living world.

Alaska is the fantasy of primeval America. If there is a a defining best quality of Alaskans , it is the spunk and indomitable spirit which has allowed them to survive a relentless and unforgiving Mother Nature. I read an Alaskan story in the last week that is illustrative. I don’t think this story got play outside of Alaska so I want to share it.

A father and four young girls, including two of his daughters, age 15 and 12,  set off at about 9:30 pm to cross Tustumena Lake. The lake is on the Kenai peninsula. It is a glacier-fed lake, about 25 miles long and 6 miles wide. The group planned to stay in a public use cabin on the far side of the lake.

When they set off, the lake was calm. They embarked in an 18 foot aluminum skiff. Given the long daylight in Alaska, there was still plenty of light when they left.

After they got part way across, the weather suddenly and drastically changed. Big winds whipped up off Tustumena Glacier and the skiff had to contend with 9 foot waves. The skiff swamped and sank. Lake Tustumena water temperature was in the low 40’s.

All had portable flotation devices (PFD) but they were two miles from shore. One of the girls had a problem with an ill-fitting PFD and the dad tried to assist her. They all started to swim to shore. The 15 year old daughter led the way and rallied the others.

Unfortunately, the father and one of the girls became hypothermic and eventually unresponsive. Having to leave their father and friend behind, the 15 year old continued on and led the other two on the swim to shore. Amazingly, they swam the 2 miles to shore through the waves and freezing water temperature. They reached land at 3 am. The 15 year old knew knew where the public use cabins were and she then led a hike on the beach which went on for 6-7 hours. Two of the girls had lost shoes on the swim and they had to walk the rocky beach shoeless. They found the cabin, changed clothes, started a fire and warmed up.

No help arrived til the next night almost a day after they set out. The girls put on brightly colored clothing and waved flags to attract attention from air searchers. As one on line comment remarked in the Anchorage Daily News, this story was a miracle inside a tragedy.

The will to survive, the ability to think and act in a desperate situation, and the sheer survival skills displayed are so admirable. I would never have thought anyone could have survived in that water at those temperatures, let alone swim 2 miles. And then to do what it took to stay alive after. With so much to despair about in the world, it is heartening and hopeful that there are young people out there like those girls.