"The Angola 3": In Solitary for 30 years

[See URL for video and embedded links.]

"The Angola 3":
Ex-Black Panthers Kept in Solitary Confinement for Over Three Decades [VIDEO]

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/80252/

Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet
March 19, 2008.

In the scheme of human rights and the U.S. criminal justice system,
the case of the "Angola 3" is one of the great injustices of our time.
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In the scheme of human rights and the U.S. criminal justice system,
the case of the "Angola 3" is one of the great injustices of our
time. In 1972, three black men, Albert Woodfox, Herman Wallace, and
Robert King Wilkerson, were prisoners at Angola State Prison in
Louisiana when a guard was stabbed to death. The three Black Panthers
were blamed for the murder on the flimsiest of proof and placed in
solitary confinement. They would stay there for the next three
decades, quite possibly the longest span of time any prisoner has
spent in solitary confinement in the U.S.

At Angola, a sprawling complex that was once a slave plantation,
solitary confinement means living in a 6-by-9 cell, 23 hours a day,
seven days a week. It is an extreme punishment that is physically and
psychologically dehumanizing. "The SPCA would shut this prison down
if they had dogs up here like this," Herman Wallace says.

Angola has always had a reputation for racism and brutality, and the
case of the Angola 3 has its own sordid back story. In the early
1970s, prisoners were, according to the Times-Picayune, "subject to
being 'sold' to each other to be used as 'sex slaves' or prostituted
out to other inmates in exchange for prison-brands of currency, such
as cigarettes." The warden in those years -- a man who would later be
jailed for trying to murder his wife -- acknowledged the existence of
the sex trade in his memoir. According to the New Orleans-based
defense attorney who continues to advocate for the Angola 3, the
three Black Panthers had been "trying to stop the sexual slavery and
rampant rage occurring there everyday." But organizing of any kind is
frowned upon in a racist prison environment. In a very real way, the
Angola 3 can be considered political prisoners.

The case of the Angola Three is legendary among prison activists, but
the media has ignored it for decades, making any hope for justice
elusive. In 2001, however, one of the Angola 3, Robert King Wilkerson
finally won his freedom. All told, he spent 29 years in solitary
confinement, an experience he calls "a nightmare." "I saw men so
desperate that they ripped prison doors apart, starved and mutilated
themselves. It takes every scrap of humanity to stay focused and sane
in this environment."

Woodfox and Wallace are still behind bars. Last April, they marked 35
years in solitary confinement. Their incarceration is the very
definition of cruel and unusual punishment. Enough is enough.
--

Liliana Segura is a writer and activist living in New York

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