Aug. 29, 1968: Prisoner-led Uprising at Long Binh Jail in Vietnam

The Long Binh Jail, commonly called LBJ by those working or incarcerated there, was a U.S. military stockade located near Saigon in South Vietnam. Opened in 1966, as direct U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War expanded, Long Binh Jail held U.S. soldiers awaiting trial, those serving a sentence of a year or less, those caught for going AWOL (Absent Without Leave), and soldiers who were in transit back to the United States for more serious crimes.

Guard searches prisoners at the gate to the pre-trial compound. Paul Grossheim / Courtesy of Forsyth Library, Fort Hays State University. Source: NPR

Describing conditions at Long Binh Jail, Sarah Kramer wrote,

Originally built to house 400 inmates, in August of 1968, LBJ was crammed with 719 men. And — in a mirror of the U.S. justice system — Black soldiers were greatly overrepresented in the jail. Despite representing 11% of the troops in Vietnam, more than 50% of the men incarcerated at the stockade were Black. Many Black soldiers felt they were more severely punished than white soldiers for similar offenses.

Conditions at LBJ were notoriously harsh. “Long Binh [Jail] was the kind of place that from the moment you walked in, you were trying to figure out a way to get out. Here you are in a war zone, in a jail, just at their mercy,” remembers Scott Riley, another Black soldier who [was] sent to the stockade after getting caught with “a whole lot of marijuana.”

Former inmates cite mistreatment by guards, particularly in solitary confinement. The military rehabbed shipping containers as jail cells. “The temperature in the box was 100+ degrees, the light was constantly on, 24 hours a day, and you were in there, naked,” remembers Riley.

On the night of August 29, 1968, a group of prisoners at Long Binh Jail “overpowered the guards, and with homemade weapons and bare hands, started tearing down the stockade,” wrote Kramer. Those rebelling broke into the administrative building and began lighting paperwork on fire, they freed prisoners held in solitary confinement, and they took control of a large part of the stockade.

Aerial shot showing destruction at Long Binh Jail after the August 1968 uprising. National Archives/Courtesy of Displaced Films. Source: NPR

Describing the aftermath of the uprising, Kramer wrote,

By the early morning hours of August 30, 65 soldiers were injured, and one white inmate had been killed, Edward Oday Haskett. He was struck in the head with shovel by a Black inmate. Much of the stockade had been torn down, including seven buildings and 19 tents. The stockade commander, Vernon D. Johnson, had also been severely beaten.

The military told reporters that the riot had been suppressed and order was restored. But that wasn’t the whole story. Three weeks later, the military revealed to reporters that 12 Black soldiers still controlled a section of the stockade.

A brief write-up of the uprising appeared in the September 6, 1968, issue of TIME Magazine, stating,

For all the riot’s viciousness, the inmates offered no grievances to explain their outbreak beyond the normal gripes of prison life. In that, they were less articulate than the prisoners of the Marine brig at Danang, who rioted briefly three weeks ago.

Long Binh Jail continued operating until 1973, when U.S. soldiers left Vietnam.