Biography
Fleeta Drumgo was a Black prisoner at Soledad Prison in California and one of the three men known as the Soledad Brothers — alongside George Jackson and John Cluchette — who in February 1970 were charged with the murder of Soledad guard John Mills. Mills had been beaten to death and thrown from a tier days after a white guard in the Soledad yard shot and killed three Black prisoners during a fight. There was no physical evidence connecting any of the three men to the killing. The case became an international cause and the focus of the Soledad Brothers Defense Committee, with Angela Davis as one of its central organizers. After George Jackson was killed by guards at San Quentin on August 21, 1971, three days before the trial was set to begin, Drumgo and Cluchette were tried together. On March 27, 1972, the jury acquitted both men of all charges. Drumgo was released and continued political organizing in Oakland. He was killed in an unrelated 1979 shooting at age 33.
