Black Power, White Blood : The Life and Times of Johnny Spain

by Andrews, Lori B.

• ISBN13: 9781566397506
• ISBN10: 1566397502
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-12-02
• Publisher: Temple Univ Pr

Summary

Originally published in hardcover to much acclaim, this vividly written biographical drama will now be available in a paperback edition and includes a new epilogue by the author. Conceived within a clandestine relationship between a black man and a married white woman, Spain was born (as Larry Michael Armstrong) in Mississippi during the mid-1950s. Spain's life story speaks to the destructive power of racial bias. Even if his mother's husband were willing to accept the boy-which he was not-a mixed-race child inevitably would come to harm in that place and time. At six years old, already the target of name-calling children and threatening adults, he could not attend school with his older brother. Only decades later would he be told why the Armstrongs sent him to live with a black family in Los Angeles. As Johnny came of age, he thought of himself as having been rejected by his white family as well as by his black peers. His erratic, destructive behavior put him on a collision course with the penal system; he was only seventeen when convicted of murder and sent to Soledad. Drawn into the black power movement and the Black Panther Party by a fellow inmate, the charismatic George Jackson, Spain became a dynamic force for uniting prisoners once divided by racial hatred. He committed himself to the cause of prisoners' rights, impressing inmates, prison officials, and politicians with his intelligence and passion. Nevertheless, among the San Quentin Six, only he was convicted of conspiracy after Jackson's failed escape attempt. Lori Andrews, a professor of law, vividly portrays the dehumanizing conditions in the prisons, the pervasive abuses in the criminal justice system, and the case for overturning Spain's conspiracy conviction. Spain's personal transformation is the heart of the book, but Andrews frames it within an indictment of intolerance and injustice that gives this individual's story broad significance. Author note: Lori Andrewsteaches at Chicago-Kent Law School and has been named one of the 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America by theNational Law Journal. One of the foremost experts on the policy of genetics and reproduction, she is author ofThe Clone Age: Adventures in the New World of Reproductive Technology.

Table of Contents

Prologue	3	(4)
Chapter One	7	(6)
Chapter Two	13	(4)
Chapter Three	17	(4)
Chapter Four	21	(6)
Chapter Five	27	(7)
Chapter Six	34	(8)
Chapter Seven	42	(4)
Chapter Eight	46	(14)
Chapter Nine	60	(8)
Chapter Ten	68	(8)
Chapter Eleven	76	(8)
Chapter Twelve	84	(9)
Chapter Thirteen	93	(10)
Chapter Fourteen	103	(12)
Chapter Fifteen	115	(5)
Chapter Sixteen	120	(4)
Chapter Seventeen	124	(10)
Chapter Eighteen	134	(12)
Chapter Nineteen	146	(10)
Chapter Twenty	156	(3)
Chapter Twenty-one	159	(5)
Chapter Twenty-two	164	(7)
Chapter Twenty-three	171	(4)
Chapter Twenty-four	175	(5)
Chapter Twenty-five	180	(6)
Chapter Twenty-six	186	(14)
Chapter Twenty-seven	200	(8)
Chapter Twenty-eight	208	(11)
Chapter Twenty-nine	219	(14)
Chapter Thirty	233	(7)
Chapter Thirty-one	240	(10)
Chapter Thirty-two	250	(7)
Chapter Thirty-three	257	(8)
Chapter Thirty-four	265	(15)
Chapter Thirty-five	280	(13)
Epilogue	293	(4)
Epilogue to the New Edition: Understanding Johnny	297	(18)
Acknowledgments	315	(2)
Index	317	(10)
About the Author	327