Biography
Bill Brakefield appears in the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors’1969 current-prisoner lists of draft and military conscientious resisters, held at Fort Dix, New Jersey.
Contemporary reporting identifies William “Bill” Brakefield as an American Servicemen’s Union organizer imprisoned in the Fort Dix stockade during the June 5, 1969 rebellion. A July 29 solidarity letter from the stockade bears his full name. His original admission and final physical release dates remain unresolved; a nominal sentence is not a completed service total.
Original contemporary source 1 ; Original contemporary source 2.
The Black Panther of July 19, 1969 reports that Bill Brakefield was just completing a sentence for being absent without leave when the Fort Dix stockade rebellion occurred, and that he and Terry Klug were subsequently accused of leading it. This describes an earlier AWOL confinement followed by the rebellion prosecution; the report does not establish separate admission or discharge dates or a completed total duration.
Reporting on the June 5, 1969 Fort Dix stockade rebellion says guards beat Brakefield unconscious and placed him in Cell 67, the segregation block, with Terry Klug and eighteen others. This is the newspaper’s attributed account of treatment during existing confinement; no separate admission, release or additional total duration is established.
The issue reproduces a July 29, 1969 solidarity letter signed William S. Brakefield, Jeffrey D. Russell and Terry G. Klug from the Fort Dix stockade. Its introduction identifies the signers as American Servicemen’s Union members held on rioting charges from the June 5 stockade rebellion. The reported exposure of up to forty years per man is a possible maximum, not a sentence imposed or time actually served.
The November 1 report says Brakefield sought sanctuary at City College in October 1968 before his stockade confinement and identifies him and Jeffrey Russell as conscientious objectors represented by Rowland Watts and a Workers Defense League legal committee. Their pending charges and possible punishment are not treated as sentences already imposed.
