Daily Archives: August 9, 2013

Today marks 33 days that over 200 prisoners have gone without eating. Doctors have warned the prisoners several times of the dangers of continuing their hunger strike, and yet they persist. Why? In order to end the inhumane conditions of their confinement. They have spent decades in solitary confinement not for punishment, not for their crimes, but for “administrative” reasons.

When the concept of Black August manifested in 1979, many thought it was simply a focus group protest growing out of the avoidable death of Khatari Gaulden on Aug. 1, 1978, in the San Quentin prison infirmary. Survival for Africans in California’s prison population of 20,000 inmates had to that point been recognized by some as a bit more than problematic.

In the ‘70s, master jazz organist Doug Carn, alongside his then wife Jean Carn, a vocalist, made some legendary “out of the box” genre-bending jazz for the Black Jazz label. He will be playing this Friday, Aug. 9, 8 p.m., at Freight and Salvage, 2020 Addison St. in Berkeley.