From the old San Quentin dungeons, we walked back up to the main exercise grounds. It was crowded with men. There were no guards around us. Nothing separated our tour group from the general population. I could hardly believe it. We took in the scene: a paved walking/running track around the perimeter, a tennis court, fairly new-looking basketball courts, a baseball diamond, and small area with a weight bench and barbell. On the far side of the track was an area with what looked like an Indigenous wigwam.
The tennis and basketball courts were in active use, as was the weight bench. Men lingered in small groups in the various areas, while many inmates walked around the track. Some glanced at us, some looked longer, most guys took no interest in us at all.
Several of the incarcerated men who had spoken to us earlier came and stood near us, becoming both our tour guides and what felt like body guards. That included Wall Street and Clay. (By the way, since I started the San Quentin stories I found this great interview and story about Wall Street on MarketWatch.com. There’s a Wikipedia entry about him. And evidently, he has done a TED talk since I met him! And it’s really inspirational; and I want to take his class!)
We learned that the Warriors funded new basketball courts, provided practice jersey for the San Quentin Warriors, and that folks from the Warriors front office came every year to play against the prison team. Likewise, the tennis court had been a donation.
It was odd, the separation between some of the loitering groups in the yard. Clay, the tall martial arts expert, explained that the prisoners segregated themselves. The track and the tennis courts were neutral and integrated. The basketball courts were sometimes neutral, sometimes not. He pointed out different areas where the White guys tended to hang out, Hispanic, Black, Samoan, Korean, and Chinese-American groups. They each had their territory. Some areas, like the weight bench, had allotted times or days for the different racial groups. The wigwam in the dirt area in the distance was indeed for Indigenous People. Clay said he like the integrated parts of the yard best and had a regular tennis game each week in which the guys were White, Hispanic and Black. He sounded proud but cautious of this fact.
Manufactured in San Quentin_photo by D. Ferguson, 2019
It was a harsh reality that in this confined world, the men racially segregated themselves.
From there we visited a factory, a warehouse-type building, where inmates created office furniture. This has been an occupation in San Quentin since around 1900. I found a Getty Image online showing prisoners in the factory making chairs and desks for schools and offices in 1949. I learned that inmates earned about thirty cents per hour, not much more than a dollar or two dollars a day at most. For someone like Clifford who had to pay reparations to qualify for parole, it was impossible.
During the Covid pandemic, the Chair Factory became an alternative care site, 2020
Next, we walked along the perimeter of the yard and beyond and saw where the condemned and most dangerous inmates got their exercise. In outdoor cages about ten feet square. There were several rows of them. It was from here, Sam told us, that we had heard the chants of solidarity when we first approached the entrance to San Quentin. What an existence that was.
After that, it was time to see the inmates’ cells. We were going inside.
Exercise pens in San Quentin Prison