Sunrise: March 20, 1969 • Sunset: March 6, 2026
It is with great sadness that we announce the transition of our comrade and brotha Jesse Clyde Burleson. Many of you may remember Jesse from his monthly column, “Jesse’s Corner,” which ran regularly in the AOUON Newspaper between September 2022 and August 2024. Jesse served as LSPC’s In-Custody Program Coordinator for almost two years following his year as a 2020 Robert “Elder” Freeman Policy Fellow.
His dedication to empowering formerly incarcerated folks was deeply rooted and evident. His goal was to build out TIPP, The Incarcerated People’s Party. He recognized our power, and wanted to organize and harness it. He also had dreams of running for governor. Jesse is family to many of us and he will be missed. – Tanisha Cannon, LSPC Managing Director
We Lost One of Our Own
by Hamdiya Cooks-Abdullah, Former LSPC Administrative Director & LSPC Board Member
I lay awake at 4am absent of sleep, thinking about our plight and our daily lives as formerly incarcerated people in the world in which we live. I mourn the loss of our brother, freedom fighter Jesse Clyde Burleson.
When I was the Administrative Director at LSPC, I remember this brother applying for employment, and I recommended that we hire him. LSPC traditionally hires formerly incarcerated people that many other organizations don’t take chances on. So many of our formerly incarcerated brothers and sisters have vision and promise not easily seen by others. Our people need nurturing and investment opportunities: not just monetary investment, but human to human investment. I know we all have a divine path in this life that must be lived, but I’m a living, breathing witness that the direction of our paths can be altered.
Jesse always kept in touch with me, even after his time at LSPC ended and my retirement began. I remember the last time I saw Jesse a few months ago was at the Freedom & Movement Center. He told me he wasn’t doing too well and was a little embarrassed. I knew he was struggling, but he was still trying to hold on to the rope that only God can give. We shared genuine greetings and hoped for better days to come.
Jesse was a visionary. He believed formerly incarcerated people could make up a voting bloc that would change the trajectory of all our lives. I had many conversations with Jesse when he worked at LSPC as a contributor to our AOUON newspaper. We talked about various possibilities regarding what he could offer our paper.
I can’t help but think that maybe I could have done more to support this brother. We at LSPC couldn’t provide what he wanted for our people at that time, but what if we could have given this brother the time, trust and total control to develop his passion? Could his life have been saved? I don’t know. What I do know is he’s gone from us and we’ll never know what could have been. That saddens me this morning, as I lay awake thinking about him.
Jesse loved his wife and wanted to make her proud. She supported him during his decades-long incarceration. Thank you, Lauren, for believing in our brother and being there when he needed someone. I pray you’re able to remember the good and promising times as you mourn his loss.
I appreciate so much of what we do at LSPC to stand with those who need the extra support that so many of us can’t survive without. I want to appreciate Mei Lia Sommer, who started an NA group at the Freedom & Movement Center to connect our people and give us purpose.
When you are released from the cages, please know that you don’t have to go through this alone. We have each other to lean on. Our recovery path is forever a struggle and a daily reality. Most people don’t realize how difficult recovery is and how critical it is to connect to people with like minds and histories.
I challenge all of us to do a little bit each day to remember the vision Jesse had. As we move about our lives, let us share political education with each other. Let our people know: we need to work together to shape into a force to be reckoned with. We have the numbers, and we need the organizers who believe in the vision, who work not only for a paycheck but also for a cause.
May our brother Jesse Clyde Burleson rest in peace.
Who Was Jesse Clyde?
Jesse Clyde…he was a skinny pretty boy with a jheri curl standing on the corner of Leavenworth and Turk in the heart of downtown San Francisco. That was the first time I met him. Back then the Tenderloin was rough, the kind of place where you had to stand on your square or get swallowed up by the streets. But it didn’t take long for me to see who Jesse Clyde really was.
He was a protector.
Jesse was small in stature, but big in heart. A lion in a young man’s body. The kind of brother who didn’t talk loud about loyalty — he lived it. Jesse Clyde loved his people. He loved his community. He loved my daughter like she was his own blood, and he loved me like a real brother. Forty-five years of brotherhood like that can never be replaced.
To the world he might have just been another man from the neighborhood, but to those of us who knew him… Jesse Clyde was irreplaceable.
I’ll never forget the day he went to jail protecting us — protecting the crew, our posse, the TLP… the Tenderloin Posse. That was the kind of man he was. He would stand in front of the fire so the rest of us didn’t have to burn.
The next time I saw him was on the 7th floor of 850 Bryant Street — San Francisco County Jail. I was waiting to go to court for drug possession, and Jesse was waiting to go to court for a 187. Two young brothers sitting in a cold concrete cage, still chopping it up, still laughing through the madness of the streets. I ended up getting probation that day, and life pulled us in different directions.
Thirty-two years passed before I saw my brother again.
But when I did, it was like time hadn’t moved. Same smile. Same heart. Same lion spirit. We laughed about the old days and talked about the future — not just memories, but dreams. Real dreams. Dreams about cleaning up our hood, about giving back to the same streets that raised us and almost destroyed us.
We had a plan.
And just because Jesse Clyde is gone from this earth doesn’t mean that dream dies with him. I made my brother a promise, and where I come from a man’s word is everything.
So I’m going to keep pushing. I’m going to keep working. I’m going to keep fighting for our community and for the people we love.
Because real soldiers never let their brother’s vision fade.
And on everything I love…
we gon ride for Jesse Clyde.
In Memoriam
by Alissa Moore, LSPC Re-Entry Coordinator
Jesse Clyde Burleson will be remembered as an insightful, outspoken individual who would never let a sleeping dog lie when it came to many of the issues we all, as formerly incarcerated people, face. I vividly remember Jessie Clyde for his passion for uniting the largest voting block in the state of California with The Incarcerated People’s Party (TIPP).
He had the courage not only to say such a revolutionary idea out loud, but to lay the foundation of political infrastructure in the form of TIPP. In theory, most new revolutionary ideas are thought of as crazy. We risk both ridicule and criticism when we put ourselves out there, but Jesse never shied away from that. Nothing could hamper his effort to bring us all together as a unified voting bloc, so we could actually be structurally effective on a major scale in our political endeavors.
While he contributed tirelessly to countless other campaigns and efforts while working with us here at All of Us or None, Jesse’s biggest dream of unifying us all was his most significant impact. I hope for all our sakes, one day in his memory, his dream will be realized.
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