Luis Talamantez | |
|---|---|
| Born | April 10, 1943 Los Angeles, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupations |
|
Luis Talamantez (born April 10, 1943) is an American writer, poet, and prisoner's rights activist. He gained widespread recognition in the 1970s as a member of the San Quentin Six, a group of men charged with inciting the riot which killed three guards and three inmates, including George Jackson. Talamantez published his poetry while incarcerated and is perhaps best known for his collection of poetry, titled Life Within the Heart Imprisoned. [1]
Born in Los Angeles on April 10, 1943, Talamantez was arrested for a $130 robbery and sentenced to two life sentences when he was only 22 years old. [2] [3] While incarcerated in San Quentin, Talamantez took an active role educating and organizing Chicano prisoners. He claimed that this made him a target to the prison officials, who went so far as to try to frame him for assault, a charge which a jury dismissed. [4]
In 1971, San Quentin officials charged Talamantez, along with Hugo Pinell, Willie Tate, Johnny Larry Spain, David Johnson, and Fleeta Drumgo, with participating in an August 21, 1971 escape attempt to free George Jackson, a co-founder of the Black Guerrilla Family. The escape attempt sparked a riot which left six people dead. The 16-month trial of the San Quentin Six was the longest in the state's history at the time and was dubbed "The Longest Trial" by Time magazine. [5] [6] Talamantez was found not guilty on all charges in 1971, and was released on parole on August 20, 1976. [7] In 1985, Talamantez was reported to be "living in the south." [5]
George Lester Jackson was an American author, activist and convicted felon. While serving an indeterminate sentence for stealing $70 from a gas station in 1961, Jackson became involved in revolutionary activity and co-founded the prison gang Black Guerrilla Family.
Pelican Bay State Prison (PBSP) is a supermax prison facility in Crescent City, California. The 275-acre (111 ha) prison takes its name from a shallow bay on the Pacific coast, about 2 mi (3.2 km) to the west.
San Quentin Rehabilitation Center (SQ), formerly known as San Quentin State Prison, is a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation state prison for men, located north of San Francisco in the unincorporated place of San Quentin in Marin County.
Zoot Suit is a play written by Luis Valdez, featuring incidental music by Daniel Valdez and Lalo Guerrero. Zoot Suit is based on the Sleepy Lagoon murder trial and the Zoot Suit Riots. Debuting in 1979, Zoot Suit was the first Chicano play on Broadway. In 1981, Luis Valdez also directed a filmed version of the play, combining stage and film techniques.
Marilyn Jean Buck was an American Marxist and feminist poet who was imprisoned for her participation in the 1979 prison escape of Assata Shakur, the 1981 Brink's robbery and the 1983 U.S. Senate bombing. Buck received an 80-year sentence, which she served in federal prison, from where she published numerous articles and other texts. She was released on July 15, 2010, less than a month before her death at age 62 from cancer.
Inez García (1941–2003) was an American-Hispanic woman who gained notoriety within the feminist movement after being accused of the murder of a man who had previously raped her in 1974.
Luis Miguel Valdez is an American playwright, screenwriter, film director and actor. Regarded as the father of Chicano film and playwriting, Valdez is best known for his play Zoot Suit, his movie La Bamba, and his creation of El Teatro Campesino. A pioneer in the Chicano Movement, Valdez broadened the scope of theatre and arts of the Chicano community.
Oregon State Penitentiary (OSP), also known as Oregon State Prison, is a maximum security prison in the northwest United States in Salem, Oregon. Originally opened in Portland 173 years ago in 1851, it relocated to Salem fifteen years later. The 2,242-capacity prison is the oldest in the state; the all-male facility is operated by the Oregon Department of Corrections (ODOC). OSP contains an intensive management wing, which is being transformed into a psychiatric facility for mentally ill prisoners throughout Oregon.
Luis Javier Rodriguez is an American poet, novelist, journalist, critic, and columnist. He was the 2014 Los Angeles Poet Laureate. Rodriguez is recognized as a major figure in contemporary Chicano literature, identifying himself as a native Xicanx writer. His best-known work, Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A., received the Carl Sandburg Literary Award and has been controversial on school reading lists for its depictions of gang life.
Stanley Russell "Spoon" Jackson is an American poet serving a life without the possibility of parole sentence. Currently incarcerated at California State Prison, Solano. Jackson was convicted of the stabbing homicide of Denise Holzman, 23, in Barstow, California. Holzman, the first female switch operator for the Santa Fe Railroad, moved to Barstow five weeks prior to the murder. Jackson was incarcerated in 1977 and has served time in more than six California state prisons.
Richard Honeck was an American murderer who served one of the longest custodial sentences ever to terminate in a prisoner's release in American criminal history. Jailed in November 1899 for the murder of a former school friend, Honeck was paroled from Southern Illinois Penitentiary in Chester, Illinois on 20 December 1963, having completed 64 years and one month of his life sentence, and served a total of 23,418 days in jail.
The San Quentin Six were six inmates at San Quentin State Prison in the U.S. state of California who were charged with actions related to an August 21, 1971 escape attempt that resulted in six deaths and at least two people seriously wounded. The San Quentin 7 were Chris Burch, Fleeta Drumgo, David Johnson, Hugo Pinell, Johnny Larry Spain, Willie Tate, and Luis Talamantez. The dead included George Jackson, a co-founder of the Black Guerrilla Family; two other inmates, and three guards.
Correctional Training Facility (CTF), commonly referenced as Soledad State Prison, is a state prison located on U.S. Route 101, 5 miles (8.0 km) north of Soledad, California, adjacent to Salinas Valley State Prison.
David Moses Jassy, also known as Dawda, is a Gambian/Estonian musician, songwriter and music producer. With Andrés Avellán, he was part of a Swedish R&B hip hop duo, Navigators. After split up of the group, Jassy went on to writing music and producing a number of international acts such as Ashley Tisdale, Britney Spears, Sean Kingston, Afro B, Snoh Aalegra, Arash, Eve, No Angels, Mohombi, Djodje, David Carreira,Darin, Navigators, Charice, Heidi Montag, Bayanni, singah, AV, Jizzle, Loreen, Petter, 1.cuz, Ant Wan and many more. He is the founder of Jassy World Entertainment, a music production and publishing company.
M. Gerald Schwartzbach is an American criminal defense attorney.
Jalil Abdul Muntaqim is a political activist and former member of the Black Panther Party (BPP) and the Black Liberation Army (BLA) who served 49 years in prison for two counts of first-degree murder. In August 1971, he was arrested in California along with Albert “Nuh” Washington and Herman Bell and charged with the killing of two NYPD police officers, Waverly Jones and Joseph A. Piagentini, in New York City on May 21. In 1975, he was convicted on two counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment with possible parole after 22 years. Muntaqim had been the subject of attention for being repeatedly denied parole despite having been eligible since 1993. In June 2020, Muntaqim was reportedly sick with COVID-19. He was released from prison on October 7, 2020, after more than 49 years of incarceration and 11 parole denials.
Pinto or Pinta is a member of a Chicano subculture of people who are or have been incarcerated. It is an in-group moniker used to distinguish oneself from the general prison population or from "model inmates." It is a term which embraces the oppositional elements of being a Convicto. The term came from a bilingual play on the Spanish word for penitencia (penitence), since pintos and pintas are people who have spent time in penitentiaries. The term has also been traced to the Spanish word Pintao.
Raúl R. Salinas, better known by his pen name raúlrsalinas, was a Chicano pinto poet, memoirist, social activist, and prison journalist. Much of raúlrsalinas' writing was grounded in arguments for social justice and human rights. He was an early pioneer of Chicano pinto (prisoner) poetry and is notable for his use of vernacular, bilingual, and free verse aesthetics.
Ricardo Sánchez was a writer, poet, professor, and activist. Sometimes called the "Grandfather of Chicano poetry," Sánchez gained national acclaim for his 1971 poetry collection Canto y Grito Mi Liberacion. Incarcerated in his twenties for stealing money to feed his struggling family, Sánchez read extensively and even learned Hebrew while at Soledad Prison in California. Upon his release in 1969, his poems were included in a poetry anthology. In 1971, his first solo collection of poetry was published, establishing Sánchez as one of the nation's most important Chicano poets.
Ruchell "Cinque" Magee is an African-American man who spent most of his life in prison. He pled guilty to aggravated kidnapping in the August 7, 1970 Marin County Civic Center courthouse attacks in San Rafael, California. Judge Harold Haley was killed in that attack, as were all of those involved in taking him and other hostages from the courthouse, with the exception of Magee—the only black survivor of the event.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
