Black August (2007) Reviews

Filmmakers Samm Styles and TCinque Sampson collaborate to explore the life and death of prison rights activist George L. Jackson in this biographical drama starring CSI's Gary Dourdan as the Soledad Brother author who took up the cause of prisoners' rights in the 1960s, and whose incendiary philosophy sparked the most militant civil rights movement in United States history. Enraged at the inhuman conditions he and his fellow prisoners were forced to endure as the outside world bore witness to the growing civil rights movement, Jackson filtered his fury into the philosophy that would eventually fuel the Black Guerilla Family, elevating him from common thug to political martyr after he was given a "one year to life" sentence for a seventy dollar gas station robbery. In his eleven years behind bars, Jackson studied the writings of such revolutionary thinkers as Marx and Mao and began channeling his anger into a series of letters that damned the racist status quo. Collected and published in the volume Soledad Brother along with the help of idealistic editor David Dryer, these letters instantly transformed the author into a controversial celebrity figure while successfully drawing attention to the topic of prison reform. Shortly thereafter, Jackson would serve as the catalyst for an event that would go down as one of the most violent in the history of San Quentin. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi