Introduction

In this episode we interview Ed Mead. Mead is a veteran of the revolutionary underground organization the George Jackson Brigade which operated in solidarity with prisoner, anti-racist, and anti-imperialist struggles. A prolific organizer and participant of prisoner struggles both inside and outside of prisons, Ed also co-founded the prisoner organization Men Against Sexism.

He also worked with a number of other organizations and struggles over the years including work with the Prairie Fire Organizing Committee, the Attica Brothers Legal Defense Committee, the National Lawyers Guild, Prison Legal News, and California Prison Focus. 

In this conversation we talk about some lessons along the way of Ed’s political development, from social prisoner to jailhouse lawyer to organizer to revolutionary to political prisoner. 

Ed offers unvarnished reflections from a life in struggle, characteristically with no holds barred for what he refers to as “the tamed left.” 

Our conversation was informed by Ed Mead’s autobiography Lumpen and by Daniel Burton-Rose’s books on the George Jackson Brigade. We will include a full list of sources in the show notes.

Links:

Lumpen: The Autobiography of Ed Mead

Theory and Practice of Armed Struggle in the Northwest: A Historical Analysis

Creating A Movement With Teeth: A Documentary History of the George Jackson Brigade

Guerilla USA: The George Jackson Brigade and the Anticapitalist Underground of the 1970's

Sundiata Acoli's Support Fund

Washington Prison History Project Oral Histories