The black prison experience is suggested by George Jackson to be " a microcosm of the larger society," as the prison denotes a clearly defined place in which hierarchy based upon racial classification typically characteristic of the outside world exist inside a closed spatial arena (Bowker, 1977).
In the decades following the Civil War, Frederick Douglass spoke out repeatedly against say rocketing rates of incarceration for ex-slaves. Although he believed that time would reverse the blackness is ideologically linked to criminality in ways more insidious and complex than Douglass could have imagined. In a country less than 13 percent blacks, one half of the prison population is African American. Black prisons were at the forefront of social criticism in issues of race and class. Emerging in the 1950's were the Black Muslims and the visionary Malcolm X. Malcolm's transformation at Norfolk prison resulted in a constricting white American society. These foundations paved the way for the black power and militance of the black prison subculture of the 1960s and 70s. Prisoners such as Eldridge, Cleaver and George Jackson fostered the liberation ideology and the development of a black consciousness and revealed radical critiques of the American social order. Anthologies from various West and East cost prisons, including Soledad, Falsom, Attica, and Norfolk also reflected the burgeoning consciousness and militance of the black inmate through works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry and plays (Berkman, 1979). .
"Who were the militants?" Van Deburg places militants prisoners within the black power movement. Black political and social activists within prisons were important because they provided an in depth criticism of the American criminal Justice system. The court system, wardens and conditions of the prisoners such as George Jackson, Bobby Seale and the Folsom Cadre produced acclaimed documents critical of the penal system.
