a teaching credential from UC Berkeley, and as soon as she graduated, she began volunteering with a literacy program at San Quentin. “When she went to Berkeley things kind of changed,” Darby says. “She became aware that she was a privileged person, and wanted to help others.” This experience would change Voye’s life. At San Quentin she met the leader of the United Prisoner’s Union, Wilbert “Popeye” Jackson. “Popeye worked to improve prison conditions: he wanted better food, better medical care and better visitor facilities ,” Darby explains. But he was involved in a lot more than that. Wilbert “Popeye” Jackson, and the Kidnapping of Patty Hearst Although Popeye had spent much of his life in jail, by the time he met Voye, he had been out of prison for a few years and was expecting a child. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Popeye’s jail sentences were for minor infractions: “He was arrested on charges of heroin and marijuana possession... but was acquitted after a jury trial... he was again arrested on a misdemeanor charge.’” While researching her book, Darby spent time trying to uncover more about her sister’s relationship with the prison activist. “I began to see what must have drawn Sally to him when I read that in April 1974, the ‘charismatic’ Popeye went to a parole hearing at San Quentin and ‘150 supporters marched in the rain’ outside the prison walls… he could draw a crowd, he had charisma… he had achieved a certain status.” The United Prisoner’s Union that Popeye headed up had been associated with George Jackson, a former inmate at San Quentin, also a Black Panther and one of the Soledad Brothers, famous for their 1970 uprising against the conditions at Soledad State Prison. George’s brother Jonathan Jackson would later storm the Marin County Civic Center in an attempt to secure his brother’s release, an incident also connected with Angela Davis, the legendary activist and professor at UC Santa Cruz. In 1974, Popeye was instrumental in the negotiations that took place in the Patty Hearst kidnapping by the SLA. Following Patty’s capture, they demanded a $4 million ransom to be paid in the form of a food program benefitting the Bay Area’s poor,
called The People in Need program. Patty’s father, Randolph Hearst, the chairman of the board at Hearst, needed a liaison during the negotiation process. Although negotiations were being handled by the FBI and the San Francisco Police Department, the SLA wanted nothing to do with the authorities, so they relied on Popeye, who had created a rapport with the newspaper magnate. The People in Need program was a massive undertaking that involved distributing food across the Bay Area. A woman named Sarah Jane Moore was put in charge of setting up distribution centers. “She made a mess of it,” Darby explains. “It was chaos: People were
Lee Darby
running off ith the money and overinflating prices, and many were getting mugged.” A radical herself and rumored informant, Moore quicly became unhinged. Less than three weeks earlier, a follower of Charles Manson had attempted to shoot President Gerald Ford when he visited Sacramento. Now, when the president arrived in Union Square to give a speech, Moore made her own assassination attempt, which was thwarted. When she was asked later why she did it, her answer was, “Well, everyone was talking about it.” A Tragedy in the Mission It was in this climate that Voye volunteered at San Quentin. On June 8, 1975, she drove Popeye home from a fundraising party. The car was parked on a small side street in the Mission District in San Francisco. “They were sitting in her car chatting in front of his
apartment on Albion Street and someone came up and emptied their gun,” Darby says. A flurry of contradictory stories surfaced in the following weeks. Rumors flew; some claimed there were actually two shooters, groups claimed responsibility then withdrew it, that the Aryan Brotherhood was responsible and, that Voye could have herself been an informant — an article in Playboy even made this accusation. Darby empathetically denies this, and says disproving the allegation was part of what inspired her write her book. “There was no way she was an informant,” she says. “She was trying to help to help rehabilitate people.” It eventually came to light that the hit was ordered by a rival gang, Tribal Thumb, but the damage had already been done. “Every day there was something new and it was it was really upsetting,” Darby recounts. “We were horrified that that her name was being dragged through the mud.” Honoring Her Sister’s Memory Voye was passionate about her social work. Having grown up during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, she was particularly committed to helping the Black community. “I remember when she was in Berkeley and she got burgled and called me up in tears,” Darby says. “She was just furious, but not at the burglars — there were two Black youths that were seen running down her driveway — but that the government couldn’t do enough to help Black people. Today, she would certainly be carrying a Black Lives Matter placard. She would be pleased at the progress that’s been made, but there’s still a long way to go.” Darby wrote Star in Our Eyes to honor the memory of her sister, who believed so strongly in equality. Years after the incident, Darby gave back in her own small way by working at San Quentin prison. “I felt like I played a small role in in furthering her goals,” she says. “I was a construction manager on a five-story $30 million healthcare facility built there. It just kind of closed that circle. I still wonder if she would have thought that was enough.” Darby answers her own question in her book. “[She would have wanted] better food, more childcare, improved visitor areas, a solution to overcrowding... I know the answer because I know the truth. She wanted to make a difference.”
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