In the United States, there are
countless of incidents were a black people, specifically black men are being
shot to death by a police man or guard and in return blamed as the cause for
their death. While police men and guards get off and aren’t held accountable
for their actions. Justice for people of color especially black people isn’t an
often occurrence when it comes to the abuse of power of police men and the
courts. The story of the Soledad Brothers and the events leading up to them
being charged with murder encompass how justice is made for the white man or
woman, and the anger that is seen throughout history when people of color
participate in riots. On January 13th, 1970 at Soledad prison there
were three black prisoners who were shot and killed during a disturbance on the
prison yard by a white guard. The three men who were killed were, W.L. Nolen,
Cleveland Edwards and O.G. Miller, and after a jury convened they felt that the
white guard who had killed the three men had committed justifiable homicides
and was to be let off with no charges. About a half an hour after the decision
was made a white guard named John V. Mills was found dying in the Maximum-Security
Section of Soledad after being thrown from a third-floor tier. This led to
George Jackson, Fleeta Drumgo and John W. Clutchette, who are known as the
Soledad Brothers to be indicted for the murder of John V. Mills on February 14th,
1970. This not only shows the little value our society puts on the lives of
black people but also the inequality of how a murder of a black person is seen
as justifiable but the death of a white person is handled with urgency to hold
someone accountable.
Looking at how the events that happened in
Soledad prison with both the three prisoners who were shot and the Soledad
Brothers, there are very similar parallels to how there is not justice for all
the black men and children who are being killed by police officers today. Along
with how the riots after the Rodney King’s attack are a representation of long
coming discontent and anger of the mistreatment of people of color, especially
black people at the hands of the police and government. The cases of Trayvon
Martin, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Alton Sterling and so many more are examples
of how black men are unjustly killed as a result of the unfair justice system
that our government has put in place by not holding the police officers accountable.
These incidents have routinely showed people of color that their lives are seen
as less than in our society. So, when the events of the riots that happened
after the brutal attack on Rodney King there is no surprise of the amount of
anger that was seen then and now with the protests that follow each of the
unjust murders of black men. People of color, specifically black people are
labeled as irrationally angry with systems of power upheld by white people because
to a lot of white people it’s easier to call them out as being irrationally
angry rather than admitting that the root of this anger has to do with a long-standing
history of oppression and unfair treatment of black people.
-Marisol
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