Biography
Prisoner in the Marion federal penitentiary control unit (one of the 'Marion Brothers'), among Nation of Islam inmates beaten by guards; The Black Panther Vol. 15 no.8 (1976) reports the May 1976 hunger strike and class-action suit against the control unit's behavior-modification regime.
Contemporary Marion custody account
The 1976 Committee to Defend the Marion Brothers pamphlet, Marion: Mind Control Prison of Today, printed page 3, individually identifies Earl Gaither as a prisoner in Marion’s Control Unit and reproduces his account of its isolation. His comparison to remaining in a bathtub for three years is an analogy about the experience, not proof of an exactly three-year sentence or of custody admission and release dates. This adds a direct prisoner account; no date or term is inferred.
The source is a contemporary prisoner-support advocacy pamphlet; allegations about treatment are attributed to it.
The Black Panther reported in June 1976 that Earl X Gaither had been in Marion’s control unit for two and a half years. It named him among five Nation of Islam prisoners beaten on April 27 and quoted his account that the attack was intended to provoke prisoners and discredit their class-action challenge to the unit. Afterward, he was placed in a boxcar isolation cell. The report documents his prison-rights activity and actual confinement, but not his initial conviction or custody endpoints.
