Free Zulu

Writing to Zulu

2012-02-13T04:10:00.000-08:00

Friends, you can email Zulu from now on via the Jpay.com system: for those overseas it is the fastest way to get him a message (and cheap too!).

Zulu as always would love to hear from you.

As supporters of Zulu we have made a new page on FB for him, he has no internet access nor can he see the page, but support is very important and the old page was for unknown reasons discontinued by FB. Please check out th elinks in the sidebar for more information, thank you.

Zulu is doing okay and he is as always staying positive. Your mental support and love is very important for him as you have helped him over the years! Thank you!

Zulu is back in Angola

2011-06-22T10:20:00.000-07:00

The Last Slave Plantation did not go under water, never to appear again (as was hoped). Therefore Zulu and others were moved back around June 15th 2011. Here is his latest address:

Kenny Zulu Whitmore
86468 D/HAWK - 3L
LA State Prison
Angola, LA 70712
USA

Mail welcome!

After having spent weeks in a cramped 5x3 cell shared with 2 convicts for 24 hours minus a 15 minute shower at night, it's high time to lift Zulu's spirits up with some positive words and news from the world!

Zulu was temporarily moved due to flooding

2011-05-21T12:22:00.000-07:00

We heard that due to flooding, Zulu was moved but that may only be for a few weeks. He is now in a 2 man cell, after 33 years alone. This is not very good, because he is not in general population, he can not leave the cell during the daytime much. We hope he will return soon but we really only want his righteous freedom returned to him!

Here is his temporary address:

Kenny Zulu Whitmore, #86468
F.W.C.C. D 2 #3. East,
7990 Caddo Dr,
HWY -789
Keithville, LA 71047
USA

Please Help Support Kenny Zulu Whitmore

2010-12-18T03:17:00.000-08:00

From Angola 3 Newsletter:
Angola inmate Kenny Zulu Whitmore, a close comrade of the Angola 3 is still fighting for his freedom.

In the past year he has seen his best friends Herman and Albert both transferred out of Angola to other prisons, and he has been moved to a tier on Death Row.

His network of supporters in the UK are now selling t-shirts (like the one featured in the photo to the right) as part of their fundraising campaign.

For ordering t-shirts, click here.

Kenny ‘Zulu’ Whitmore is a political prisoner at Angola Prison, Louisiana, USA and has been kept in solitary confinement for over 36 years.

Help support the growing campaign to see him a free man with buy buying one of THTC's organic hemp or organic cotton t-shirts, with part of the proceeds going directly to the Free Zulu campaign.

Zulu was first arrested on laughable charges in December 1973 and served time at Baton Rouge Prison, where he met Herman Wallace, who would go on to be a member of the Angola 3. Becoming fast friends with Herman Wallace, Zulu became a member of the Angola chapter of the Black Panthers in 1974.

Zulu was arrested again on February 19, 1975 and charged with two counts of armed robbery. However, in June of 1975, the charges of armed robbery against Zulu were dropped, with the victims clearly stating that Zulu was not the man that had robbed them. When asked to testify in an unrelated case and serve a short jail term after being imprecated in another from 1973, by then District Attorney Ossie Brown, Zulu refused.

He was promptly battered and beaten and in January 1977, was tried and found guilty of second degree murder and armed robbery of a former mayor. He was sentenced to life and 99 years in prison.

Thank y'all and tears

2010-12-02T06:39:00.000-08:00

My people,

Time has finally allowed me the opportunity to reply to all of you who left a birthday greeting for me. The delay was unavoidable.

Mid October everyone on my unit was told to be transferred and pack our properties. The RC building that housed CCR offenders became victim of governor Bobby ("boy wonder") Jindals budget ax. Jindal already gutteted higher education and medicare all over the state of Louisiana before then.

My self and 25 other people were transferred within Angola to the new DR building; my comrade Albert 'Shaka' Woodfox and others however were transferred to another plantation, way up (6 hour drive) in N. Louisiana.

I will miss dogging him out on the yard. Our brotherly love, friendship, comradery spans 33 years of struggle. I will miss just knowing that he is on another tier around the corner. I now have a real idea of how my ancestors on a plantation must have felt when a family member, a friend, a lover was sold off to another far off plantation. It hurts. 33 years is a long time, but likewise my ancestors I must dry my tears, hold my anger inside, keep my head up high. No matter the distance that seperates us we'll remain committed to fighting the injustice that binds us for life. And in the spirit of the Panthers we'll keep pushing!

Thank you all for your support, for being there, Zulu

To my Brothers on the Plantation of Ely, Nevada

2010-11-13T06:17:00.000-08:00

To: my Brothers on the Plantation of Ely, NV
From: Kenny Zulu Whitmore
86468 RC-/ Death Row Tier D
LA State Prison
Angola, LA 70712

My Brothers on the Plantation of Ely, NV:

I have read your Mission Statement of your “August Initiative” program. Redemption through Education and Service.

Years ago the Angola 3 set up a chapter of the Black Panther Party here on this plantation better known as LA State Penitentiary at Angola. With them, myself and other conscious minded brothers had to take the initiative to come together to end the predatory mentality and rape clique here. So I know first hand of what you brothers are up against. Pigs who want to see brothers Black, Brown & White continue to oppress, rape, and murder one another. And willful ignorance. But I know too, that with enough like-minded brothers your goals can be reached.

Here, on this plantation, better known as LA State Penitentiary, at Angola, is the largest open plantation in America. And home to right at 2,000 Lifers, and nearly 2,500 practical Lifers. With a large number of those whom have chosen to stick their heads in the sand of Christianity. Not that I have anything against religions. I am Muslim myself. But this is not about me, nor this plantation.

I just wanted to take the opportunity to commend you brothers on the plantation of Ely, NV, for taking the initiative to improve your Lives and better your condition. Sending Big Love and Respect.
All Power to the People
Zulu
Tuesday, 26th Oct. 10

Zulu moved: new address

2010-11-03T01:24:00.000-07:00

We just received notice that Zulu was moved inside the prison. His new address is:

Kenny Zulu Whitman
86468 CCR / Death Row Tier D
LA State Prison
Angola, LA 70712

Zulu does not have a death sentence, but the building he was housed in was closed and they moved him to the DR section.

Free Zulu: Oct 14th: Zulu's Birthday

2010-10-09T11:36:00.000-07:00

Free Zulu: Oct 14th: Zulu's Birthday

Oct 14th: Zulu's Birthday

2010-10-06T07:19:00.000-07:00

On October 14th, we celebrate Zulu's birthday. For this reason we are raising money for his case. If you would like to help and give Zulu a present, we invite you to donate by sending him a US money order, or by clicking on our Chip-in here (payment via Paypal). Everything will be much appreciated. Thank you!

5 days from Zulu's life in Angola prison - journal 2009

2010-08-17T02:47:00.000-07:00

This is from Zulu's diary of 2009:

August 14 -09 96 degrees
Got mail from BJ last night. He and the little field mouse will be here on Sept.18th. I just gave my request for a contact visit to Lil Butty aka Lt. Smothers. She earned that name because she has a flat ass. We have been thinking of taking up a collection to buy her some ass. So when she passes by a brother can see something. Some got it, some don't.

August 15th 2009 – 96 degrees
Today is the 36th anniversary of the man’s death I am convicted of (ex mayor of town). I still remember Ma-dear, Rie, Raymond and my self sitting in our kitchen eating red beans and fried chicken when the police ambulance passed by our house. Flying word had it that Bond had been shot to death. R and I went to the park. There were cops everywhere. The next day word on the street was: white men had shot Bond to death.

I will never forget that day. It was the second BIG excitement day in Zachary. The first to me was the day after the cop Ted Donnaway killed my cousin George. We set Zachary on flames for 3 days. Bond and other KKKlanmen had their guns dancing in the street saying more niggers should be killed. Police came to my family saying we should forgive Ted Donnaway. BUT: they know I never killed Bond and they never forgave me. Maybe I was hated because I was the only witness when that pig killed George. I was only a kid then. They still hate me for saying in court,’ That cop right there, Ted Donnaway – killed my cousin for nothing’. People started to call home, telling Ma–Dear they would kill me. Ma-Dear told them to get ready to kill all of us, because if they’d mess with me she was ready to kill somebody, yep. November 1969 was the day our world stood still. My arrest for murder was the day it fell apart. Bond, you did a lot to a lot of black people, but I wish you could come back to tell which white people killed you.
I still ask my self: why me?

16 August 2009- 95 degrees
S and the boys came up: her son Dee, her grandson James with his little bad ass (2 years old) and Terries son Richard. The last time I saw him he was 2; now he is in 4th grade and smart. I had a real good time with all of them. It did make me realize what I missed out with my son; one of my deepest regrets is to not have been there with him. But: I will spend time with my grand baby. Somebody gave life, took my life, all my dreams and hopes went up in smoke.

17 August 2009
The new non-smoking bann is in full effect. The camp warden came on the tier to announce that State law banns all tobacco products on State properties. So this week the ones who cannot do without will have to. But this is prison, there will be cigarettes for a HIGH price. A pack of burglar cigs will cost from $15-$20 a pack. Some will quit, some don’t.

18 August 2009 – 90 degrees
I heard on the radio that the USA Supreme Court ordered a trial court to hear Troy Davis’ claim of innocence. What a M/F joy!! The people have spoken; Troy will get his day in court. Let freedom ring in the dungeons of plantations prisons all across Amerikkka. Somebody will have to take that blindfold from lady Justice’s face so she can see the mayhem that her blindfold caused. Down with the system, FREE A3, Mumia, Move 9, Peltier, and ZULU.

Zulu broke his ankle! Send him a card please!

2010-08-12T10:26:00.000-07:00

From a Zulu Supporter: I just got off the phone with Zulu, he wanted everyone to know that he broke his ankle and has been in the prison hospital for several days.

His shackle got caught on the door jam on a place where this has happened several times before... he was on his way out to the yard and because of the occlusion he tripped and his ankle broke in 2 places. He is in a lot of pain, but holding tight.

He now has a cast (which will suck in this heat) and will have 2-3 weeks of bed/cot rest.

He sends his love.

Please send him a card with well wishes:

Kenny Zulu Whitmore
86468 RC CCR- U/C tier
Louisiana State Prison
Angola, LA 70712

Louisiana Prisoners and their Families Denied Contact Visits

2010-05-29T03:46:00.000-07:00

Recently inmates housed at Louisiana Penitentiary’s RC CCR (closed cell restrictions or solitary confinement) units have been denied normal contact visits and privileges. Even after contact visits have been approved and some visitors have travelled across the country at considerable expenses. This is primarily due to the actions of security officer Lt. Gail Smothers. In multiple instances, stretching back to 2009, Lt Smothers has denied visitors contact by creating rules which are not a part of the CCR contact visiting policy.

Inmates at LA State Prison are allowed ten (10) people at any time on their Approved visiting list. This list constitutes those individuals who have completed the prison’s necessary paperwork and who have submitted to a comprehensive police background check. Upon acceptance the applicant is listed on the inmate’s approved visiting list and may then visit up to 2 times a month.

Contact visiting is the normal policy for inmates at Angola. Only those inmates assigned to punitive housing units are restricted to non-contact visits. While CCR is a non-punitive housing unit, CCR inmates are allowed only 2 contact visits a month. All other visits received in a month by CCR inmates are held in CCR’s non-contact visiting booths (small, closet like spaces with inmates and visitor separated by a thick mesh screen). The reason given for this policy is the lack of visiting space for large numbers of contact visits on the RC CCR unit. As opposed to the main prison compound with its large visiting room capable of accomodating over 100 inmates and their visitors at a time with inmates run food concessions, CCR’s far smaller contact visiting room may only accommodate 30-40 people. Consequently, only 5 contacts may be scheduled each visiting day for the roughly 90 inmates housed in CCR.

Given such limited space for contact visits at CCR the units policy requires inmates to submit requests for approval often months in advance to reserve an available date. When a CCR inmate submits a request for contact visitation he is merely reserving a date. On that date any visitor from his visiting list who arrives – up to a total of 5 – may enjoy a visit under normal contact visiting procedures. This requirement is merely to insure that no more then 5 contact visits are scheduled for any visiting day. CCR inmates are NOT required to also seek approval for those visitors, since they are already on the Approved visiting list.

This is the point of contention between inmates, visitors and Lt. Smothers. Visitors, upon arriving at Louisiana State Prison are being allowed into the prison – but upon arrival at the CCR unit – being denied a contact visit and forced into non contact visiting booths. Lt. Smothers has repeatedly denied contact visits by claiming only visitors whose names are submitted in advance for a contact visit may then visit contact. CCR inmates are not required to submit the names of their visitors when requesting a visitation date.

To re- approve a visitor as a visitor is a rule only Lt. Smothers has decided to create and enforce. A rule she has no authority to impose as she is not involved in any manner with approving visitors or scheduling visits. Those procedures are the responsibility of the institutes Investigative Service Dept. and CCR’s Assistant Warden.

The difficulties this has created for visitors in wasted money, time and travel has already been addressed by verbal complaints to Lt. Smothers’ superiors up to the unit’s Assistant Warden and by submitting grievances through the institutions Administrative Remedy Procedure (A.R.P.). A grievance procedure available for inmates to seek relieve for wrongs within the institution.

In April 2010, RC CCR col. Menzia resolved a grievance filed by verbally informing Lt. Smothers of the proper contact visiting policy and ordering how to stop denying inmates and their visitors approved contact visits.

Approximately 1 week later, Col. Menzia was transferred to another unit as a new Assistant Warden. Immediately afterwards Lt. Smothers returned to her previous practices. Over the weekend of April 24th and 25th Lt. Smothers denied at least 2 inmates their pre-approved contact visits without proper authority, with one visitor having travelled from California. When incidents like this occur inmates and their visitors are left without recourse as over the weekend Lt. Smothers may be the highest ranking officer on duty at CCR. No appeal can be made to any superior at that time.

This presents an identifiable hardship as many family members and friends must plan months in advance to schedule their contact visits – as they come from long distances and may only visit a few times a year they specifically plan for contact visits, which entails the costs of flight tickets, rental cars, hotels reservations and often time taken off from work.

Inmates with elderly or infirm family members schedule contact visits for the extra room and ease provided versus the cramped and difficult conditions of the non-contact visiting booths.
When Lt. Smothers then denies approved contact visits without authority, inmates are not recredited with a contact visit for that month, nor are visitors reimbursed their expenses.

Those concerned can help stop Lt. Smothers by calling warden Burl Cain’s office at (001) 225-655-4411 or Secretary of Corrections James LeBlanc. Letters of concern may be faxed to (001) 225 655-2319.

YOUR ACTIONS AS CONCERNED CITIZENS HAVE AN IMPACT!!

On behalf of all my fellow inmates, Kenny Zulu Whitmore.

The Angola Three - 38 Years in Prison Hell

2010-05-12T01:22:00.000-07:00

From:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/

The Angola Three: 38 Years in Prison Hell - by Stephen Lendman

On March 30, 2010, an Amnesty International (AI) Public Statement read:

"USA: Amnesty International calls for immediate end to nearly 73 years of solitary confinement endured by Louisiana prisoners Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox."

Both men are at the Louisiana State Penitentiary (called Angola and The Farm) - in terms of acreage, America's largest prison, a maximum security one with over 5,000 inmates and 1,800 staff members on 18,000 acres. Once a slave plantation, it's the same now as then, and it's legal under the 13th Amendment stating:

"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

Except for brief intervals, Wallace has been there for 38 years, Woodfox for nearly 35 - confined for 23 hours a day in 2 x 3 meter cells with little natural light, and "allowed outdoor exercise in a small cage, for one hour, three days a week, contrary to (what's) specified in the United Nations Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners. Restrictions are imposed on their personal property, reading materials, access to legal resources, work and visits." Their cages are unprotected from rain or oppressive heat. Overall, they're treated like animals, not human beings.

Until March 2009, both were at Angola. Wallace was then transferred to Elayn Hunt Correctional Center in St. Gabriel and remains in solitary confinement. They and Robert King are the "Angola 3," convicts since 1972, for the murder of white prison guard Brent Miller that year. No physical evidence linked them to the crime, their convictions based solely (as later documentation revealed) on bribed inmate testimony in return for leniency. Another witness later recanted.

Although not at Angola at the time, King was blamed but never charged. In 1973, he was bogusly accused of murdering another prisoner, freed only in 2001 after pleading guilty to "conspiracy to commit murder" as a condition for release on time served.

The three men have a civil suit pending against the state of Louisiana, one the US Supreme Court ruled has merit based on claims that their Eight Amendment "cruel and unusual punishment" rights were violated. It will be heard in the US Middle District Court in Baton Rouge, but don't look for any more justice this time than earlier, especially for poor and disadvantaged blacks.

King's autobiography was published in 2008 titled, "From the Bottom of the Heap: The Autobiography of a Black Panther." He's a member of the Common Ground Collective, a decentralized NGO network formed post-Katrina to help New Orleans residents. He's also an international speaker at colleges and community centers in America and before parliaments in the Netherlands, South Africa and Portugal.

Still in isolation, Wallace and Woodfox are reported to be in poor health, the result of decades of mistreatment. AI says Wallace's "osteoarthritis is aggravated by inadequate exercise, functional impairment, memory loss and insomnia."

Woodfox suffers from "claustrophobia, hypertension, heart disease, chronic renal insufficiency, diabetes, anxiety and insomnia."

Both men are victims of racism, retribution for their activism, prosecutorial injustice, and a state prison system the Louisiana ACLU calls "the most abhorrent in terms of violence and horrible living conditions."

Louisiana has the highest per capita incarceration in the world, the ACLU getting over 80 complaints a month about guard beatings, overcrowding, poor medical care or its denial, mistreatment of mentally ill prisoners, squalid living conditions, and denial of access to lawyers.

The Bill of Rights grants constitutional protections to everyone, including persons in custody, regardless of their crime. Especially abhorrent are rigged trials, judicial complicity, wrongful convictions, and appellate unfairness to keep innocent victims incarcerated.

Angola's Horrific History

Angola has always been hellish, especially in the 1970s when it wreaked of corruption and abuse. It was segregated with horrific rampant rage, frequent murders, and sexual bondage - inmates sold to each other as sex slaves or in exchange for favors. No wonder it was called America's worst prison, a distinction as true today, including chain of command encouragement of widespread, systematic violence, including guard beatings, sexual assaults, other abuses amounting to torture, and use of solitary confinement as punishment for activism or any other reason arbitrarily.

Today, Angola prisoners are 75% black under a compulsory 40 hour or longer workweeks (eight hours or longer a day, five days a week) plus weekends for bad disciplinary reports, often fabricated for more labor.

They till fields for 4 cents an hour, under constant watch as virtual slaves. In the 1970s, it was 96 hours (16 hours a day, six days a week) for 2 cents an hour at what was called the "Bloodiest Prison in the South" because of endemic guard-inflicted and prisoner-on-prisoner violence.

The Angola 3 fought conditions with nonviolent hunger and work strikes. Prison authorities retaliated by framing them for murders they didn't commit, Woodfox and Wallace for Miller's death, King for another prisoner.

Today Angola's mission statement says:

"The philosophy of Louisiana State Penitentiary (LSP) is to provide services in a professional manner so as to protect the safety of the public, staff, and inmate population. Consistent with this, it is LSP's responsibility to provide meaningful opportunities to enhance, through a variety of education, work, social service and medical programs, the individual's desire to become a productive member of society, while providing a safe, stable work environment for employees."

Inmates see it otherwise, calling reforms "cosmetic." Former prisoner and now Executive Secretary of the Capital Post-Conviction Project of Louisiana calls Angola a "sophisticated plantation (where) cotton is king" and inmates near slaves - "given enough food, clothing and shelter to be a financial asset to the owner," but little else.

Louisiana's entire prison system is no different, Angola the preeminent example, a de facto slave plantation, preventing its inmates from ever "becom(ing) a productive member of society" because long sentences without parole deny it - the idea being once incarcerated, free them only for burial on Angola's expansive acreage after extracting a lifetime of forced labor.

"The Case of the Angola 3"

For more information, visit Angola3.org.

In the late 1960s, Wallace and Woodfox were incarcerated for unrelated robberies, founded a Black Panther party chapter to improve prison conditions, and were targeted for their activism.

In 2008, a federal judge overturned Woodfox's conviction after a state judicial magistrate found damning evidence, including:

-- "inadequate representation;

-- prosecutorial misconduct;

-- suppression of exculpatory evidence; and

-- racial discrimination in the grand jury selection process."

Nonetheless, he's still in solitary because Louisiana officials want him held for life.

In 2006, a state judicial commissioner recommended reversing Wallace's conviction, again because of compelling prosecutorial misconduct. No matter. He's also in isolated confinement after a district court denied him, upheld by appellate level refusal to review without explanation.

A habeas petition is now pending in federal court that may prove as constitutionally futile, given their extremist right wing judges, showing little sympathy for oppressed minorities or the poor, and a reluctance to reverse local authorities.

On March 10, The London Guardian's Erwin James' article headlined, "37 years of solitary confinement: the Angola three," saying:

"....at (Angola's) heart....is an inhumanity that would make Jesus weep," two of the Angola 3 enduring "the longest period of solitary confinement in American prison history."

Having spent 20 years imprisoned himself, James:

"attest(s) to the mental impact that (isolation) inflict(s). My first year was spent on a high-security landing where the cell doors were opened only briefly for meals and emptying of toilet buckets. If decent-minded prison officers were on duty we were allowed to walk the yard for 30 minutes a day. The rest of the time we were alone....

As the days, weeks and months blur into one, without realising it you start to live completely inside your head. You dream about the past, in vivid detail - and fantasise about the future, for fantasies are all you have. You panic but it's no good 'getting on the bell' - unless you're dying - and, even then, don't hope for a speedy response. I had a lot to think about. When the man in the cell above mine hanged himself I thought about that a lot. I still do. You look at the bars on the high window and think how easy it would be to be free of all the thinking."

The film, "Land of the Free" tells their story, three men growing up poor in New Orleans. They feared police, "who would regularly 'clear the books' of crimes in the area," King explaining that they'd pin them on disaffected black youths.

"If I saw the police, I used to run," said King, admitting he committed petty crimes, but "nothing vicious." Eventually he was bogusly arrested for armed robbery and sentenced to 35 years.

Woodfox also bogusly got 50 years for armed robbery, escaped from the courthouse, returned to Harlem, and got involved with the Black Panthers. After being caught, he was taken to New York's Tombs, was called "militant," and returned to New Orleans "where he joined King on the parish block, known - due to the high concentration of Panther activists - as 'the Panther tier.' There (he) became a member of the Black Panther party."

Woodfox and Wallace extended it, "establishing classes in political ideology and exposing injustices." They worked to improve prison conditions, but their activism made them targets. At the time, guard Miller was killed. Two days later, four "black militants" were accused, including Wallace and Woodfox. One of the four was a plant. Charges against him were dropped. "Another, Chester Jackson, admitted to holding Miller while the guard was stabbed to death," Jackson turning state's evidence to cop a plea for a lighter sentence. Wallace and Woodfox were convicted by an all-white jury, sentenced to life without parole, and taken to Angola's CCR (Closed Cell Restricted) block - solitary confinement.

"King was brought to Angola from the parish prison two weeks after Miller's killing, as part of a roundup of black radicals. He never met Miller and was in a prison 150 miles away" when it happened. Yet he was identified as a "conspirator" before being held in CCR with Woodfox and Wallace.

The next year, a prisoner named August Kelly was murdered on the tier. Prisoner Grady Brewer admitted sole guilt, saying it was in self-defense. He and King were tried together, the only evidence against King "came from flawed prisoner testimony." He and Brewer had little counsel consultations before trial. After protesting, the judge ordered their hands shacked behind their backs and mouths gagged with duct tape during trial. They were convicted and got life without parole, King later released on appeal as explained above.

New lawyers later discovered "obfuscation after obfuscation" during trial, the state using a number of jailhouse informants who gave contradictory accounts of what happened. "One was registered blind. The key witness" was Hezikiah Brown who testified he saw the murder. He initially said he saw nothing.

"Three days later, when he was taken from his bunk at midnight by prison officials and promised his freedom if he testified, he agreed to say that he saw Wallace and Woodfox kill Miller." At the time, he was serving life without parole for multiple rapes.

Wallace and Woodfox persisted. In 1993, Woodfox won an appeal for a new trial that was just as bogus as the first one - an all white jury, a local author (Anne Butler) convinced of his guilt its chairperson, no witnesses called, evidence concealed or not properly investigated, so as expected he was again convicted.

It took King 26 years for his successful appeal after earlier witnesses recanted, and a federal court ordered the district one to reconsider. A deal followed, King pleading guilty to conspiracy for a crime he didn't commit, his price for freedom as explained above.

Then in 2008, Woodfox's conviction was overturned after a federal court ruled his constitutional rights were violated at trial. Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell contested. As a result, he, like Wallace, remains isolated in confinement, victimized by prosecutorial injustice under a system giving disadvantaged blacks none. Decisions are seldom reversed by higher courts, the fate Woodfox and Wallace still contest after decades of prison hell.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.

37 years of solitary confinement: the Angola Three

2010-03-11T05:10:00.000-08:00

(Photo: Zulu and Albert Woodfox)

From the Guardian , in the UK:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/mar/10/erwin-james-angola-three

Erwin James

In 1972, three men in a Louisiana prison were placed in solitary confinement after a prison guard was murdered. Two of them are still there – even though many believe they are innocent.

Angola prison, the state penitentiary of Louisiana, is the biggest prison in America. Built on the site of a former slave plantation, the 1,800-acre penal complex is home to more than 5,000 prisoners, the majority of whom will never walk the streets again as free men. Also known as the Farm, Angola took its name from the homeland of the slaves who used to work its fields, and in many ways still resembles a slave plantation today. Eighty per cent of the prisoners are African-Americans and, under the watchful eye of armed guards on horseback, they still work fields of sugar cane, cotton and corn, for up to 16 hours a day. "You've got to keep the inmates working all day so they're tired at night," says Warden Burl Cain, a committed evangelist who believes that the rehabilitation of convicts is only possible through Christian redemption.

Undoubtedly there is less violence and abuse among the prisoners under his wardenship than there was under his predecessors. But Angola is still a long way from being a "positive environment that promotes responsibility, goodness, and humanity", as he proclaims in the prison's mission statement. In fact at the heart of Cain's prison regime is an inhumanity that would make Jesus weep.

For more than 37 years, two prisoners, Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox, have been locked down in Angola's maximum security Closed Cell Restricted (CCR) block – the longest period of solitary confinement in American prison history.

Having experienced the isolation of "23-hour bang-up" during my own 20 years of imprisonment, for offences of which I was guilty, I can attest to the mental impact that such conditions inflict. My first year was spent on a high-security landing where the cell doors were opened only briefly for meals and emptying of toilet buckets. If decent-minded prison officers were on duty we were allowed to walk the yard for 30 minutes a day. The rest of the time we were alone. The cells were 10ft x 5ft, with a chair, a table and a bed. You could walk up and down, run on the spot, stand still, or do push-ups and sit-ups – but sooner or later you had to just stop, and think.

As the days, weeks and months blur into one, without realising it you start to live completely inside your head. You dream about the past, in vivid detail – and fantasise about the future, for fantasies are all you have. You panic but it's no good "getting on the bell" – unless you're dying – and, even then, don't hope for a speedy response. I had a lot to think about. When the man in the cell above mine hanged himself I thought about that, a lot. I still do. You look at the bars on the high window and think how easy it would be to be free of all the thinking.

Such thoughts must have crossed the minds of Wallace and Woodfox more than once during their isolation. They are fed through the barred gates of their 9ft x 6ft cells and allowed only one hour of exercise every other day alone in a small caged yard. Their capacity for psychological endurance alone is noteworthy.

Wallace and Woodfox were confined to solitary after being convicted of murdering Angola prison guard Brent Miller in 1972. But the circumstances of their trial was so suspect that there are no doubts among their supporters that these men are innocent. Even Brent Miller's widow, Teenie Verret, has her reservations. "If they did not do this," she says, "and I believe that they didn't, they have been living a nightmare."

One man who understands the nightmare that Wallace and Woodfox are living more than anyone else is Robert King. King was also convicted of a murder in Angola in 1973, and was held in solitary alongside Wallace and Woodfox for 29 years, until his conviction was overturned in 2001 and he was freed. Together, King, Wallace and Woodfox have become known as the "Angola three".

The case of the Angola three first came to international attention following the campaigning efforts of the Body Shop founder and humanitarian Anita Roddick. Roddick heard about their plight from a young lawyer named Scott Fleming. Fleming was working as a prisoner advocate in the 1990s when he received a letter from Wallace asking for help. The human tragedy Fleming uncovered had the most profound effect on him. When he qualified as a lawyer, their case became his first. "I was born in 1973," he says. "I often think that for my entire life they have been in solitary."

Through Fleming, Roddick met King and then Woodfox in Angola. Their story, she said later, "made my blood run cold in my veins". Until her death in 2007 Roddick was a committed and passionate supporter of their cause. At her memorial service King played two taped messages from Wallace and Woodfox. In the congregation was film-maker Vadim Jean who had become good friends with Roddick and her husband Gordon during an earlier film project. "Anita's big thing was, 'Just do something,'" says Jean. "No matter how small an act of kindness. Listening to Herman and Albert's voices at her memorial was like having Anita's finger pointing at me and saying, 'Just do something'." And so he decided to make In the Land of the Free, a searing documentary, released later this month.

The story Jean's film tells is one that has resonance on many levels. All three men were from poor black neighbourhoods In New Orleans. They grew up fearing the police, who would regularly "clear the books" of crimes in the area, according to King, by pinning then on disaffected young black men. "If I saw the police, I used to run," King says. He admits to being involved in petty crime in his early years, but "nothing vicious". Eventually King was arrested for an armed robbery he says he did not commit and was sentenced to 35 years, which he began in New Orleans parish prison – and there he met Albert Woodfox.

Woodfox had also been sentenced for armed robbery – and given 50 years. On the day he was sentenced he escaped from the courthouse. He made his way to Harlem in New York, where he encountered the Black Panthers, the revolutionary African-American political movement. He witnessed the Panthers engaging with the community in a positive, constructive way, educating and informing people of their rights. He says it was the first time in his life that he had seen African-Americans exhibiting real pride, pride that emanated from the young activists, he says, "like a shimmering heatwave".

Two days later Woodfox was caught and taken to New York's Tombs prison where he saw first-hand the militant tactics of imprisoned Panthers who resisted their guards with organised protests. In Tombs, Woodfox was labelled "militant" and sent back to New Orleans where he joined King on the parish prison block, known – due to the high concentration of Panther activists – as "the Panther tier". There Woodfox became a member of the Black Panther party.
Outside, confrontations between the Panthers – described by FBI director J Edgar Hoover as "the greatest threat to the internal security of the country" – and the police were escalating. In an attempt to undermine the influence of the Panthers in New Orleans parish prison, officials tried to shoehorn men they termed "Black Gangsters" on to the tier – men like Wallace, also serving decades for armed robbery. One day Wallace was suffering from the pain of ill-fitting shoes. One of the Panthers, on his way to a court appearance, took his shoes off and handed them to Wallace. "Right then I knew that that was what I needed to be a part of," he says. In the summer of 1971 Wallace and Woodfox were shipped to Angola.

The civil rights bill had been signed in 1964, but seven years later Angola was still operating a segregated regime. Prisoner guards carried guns and were also responsible, according to well-documented sources, for organising systematic sexual abuse of vulnerable prisoners, which flourished in the prison's mostly dormitory accommodation. And violence between prisoners had reached such levels that Angola was known as "the bloodiest prison in America".
Woodfox and Wallace quickly extended the New Orleans chapter of the Black Panthers into Angola, establishing classes in political ideology and exposing injustices. They organised work stoppages, demonstrating to fellow prisoners the liberating power of acting with a "unity of purpose" and worked to eradicate the prevalent sexual abuses. But their political activities made them targets for the administrators. By the spring of 1972, tensions in the prison were dangerously high.

These were the conditions in which Brent Miller met his untimely death. That April, a prisoner work strike drew the attention of the guards who were called from normal duties to deal with the disturbance. Miller, a strong, athletic young man of 23, stayed behind alone. He entered a dormitory holding 90 prisoners and sat on an elderly prisoner's bed, drinking coffee and chatting. Moments later he was attacked and stabbed 32 times.

Two days later, four men identified as "black militants", including Wallace and Woodfox, were accused of the murder. It was quickly ascertained that one of the four had been inserted into the case by the prison administration. Charges against him were dropped. Another, Chester Jackson, admitted to holding Miller while the guard was stabbed to death. Jackson turned state's evidence in return for a plea to manslaughter. The case was tried in a town called St Francisville, the closest courthouse to Angola. The jury had been picked from the local populace, many of whom earned their living from the prison or had families and friends that worked there; all were white. Wallace and Woodfox were found guilty of Miller's murder, sentenced to life imprisonment without parole and taken from the court straight to Angola's CCR block to begin their life in isolation.

Robert King was brought to Angola from the parish prison two weeks after Miller's killing, as part of a roundup of black radicals. King had never met Miller and was in a prison 150 miles away when the murder took place. Yet he was investigated for the crime and identified as a "conspirator" before being transferred to lockdown on CCR alongside Wallace and Woodcock.
The following year a prisoner named August Kelly was murdered on King's CCR tier. A man named Grady Brewer admitted that he alone was responsible for the killing, which he said he carried out in self-defence. But King was also charged. The two men faced trial together in the same St Francisville courthouse where Wallace and Woodfox had been convicted the year before. The sole evidence against King came from flawed prisoner testimony. He and Brewer had not been allowed to speak to their attorneys for any length of time before their trial. When they protested, the judge ordered their hands to be shackled behind their backs and their mouths gagged with duct tape for the duration of their trial. The men were convicted and sentenced to life without parole. King later won an appeal; the federal court ruled that he had not been sufficiently unruly in the dock to warrant the shackling and gagging. He went back to trial in 1975, was re-convicted and immediately sent back to CCR.

When, after Scott Fleming's intervention in the case of Wallace and Woodfox in the 1990s, new lawyers reviewed the original trial of both men, discovering "obfuscation after obfuscation". The state had used a number of jailhouse informants against them, many of whom gave contradictory accounts of what they saw. One was registered blind. The key witness in the case was a man called Hezikiah Brown who testified he witnessed the murder. In his initial statement to investigators however, Brown said he had not seen anything. Three days later, when he was taken from his bunk at midnight by prison officials and promised his freedom if he testified, he agreed to say that he saw Wallace and Woodfox kill Miller. At the time Brown was serving life without parole for multiple rapes. Immediately after he agreed to testify he was given his own minimum security private house in the prison grounds and a weekly cigarette ration.
Wallace and Woodfox did not give up. They fought their convictions from their cells and in 1993 Woodfox was granted an appeal, forcing a new trial. The case was sent back to the same courthouse to be tried in front of a new grand jury. A local author, Anne Butler, who had published a book in which she detailed the case and was convinced that the right people had been convicted, acted as jury chairperson. No witnesses were called. Instead Butler was called upon to explain the case. Once again, the jury was composed of people who worked in Angola or were related to people who worked there. Butler's husband and co-author was Murray Henderson, who had been the warden of Angola when Brent Miller was murdered. It is worth noting that Henderson was a key member of the original investigation team and that, during that investigation, a bloody fingerprint was found close to Brent Miller's body. It was determined that it did not belong to Woodfox nor to Wallace, but despite the prison holding all the fingerprints of all the prisoners, no attempt was made to find out whose it was. The bloody print was also ignored at Woodfox's retrial. He was reconvicted and sent back to isolation in Angola's CCR.

It was 26 years before King won the right to another appeal. In 2001 the Federal court found that the jury in King's original trial had systematically excluded African-Americans and women and agreed that the case should be reheard. This time around the prisoner witnesses recanted and the federal court sent the case back to the district court for review. The state negotiated a deal with King. Reluctantly, and with his left hand raised instead of his right, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy; an hour and a half later he was freed.

In September 2008, Woodfox's conviction was overturned; the federal court ruled that his core constitutional rights had been violated at his original trial. Louisiana attorney general Buddy Caldwell could have set Woodfox free immediately. Instead he decided to contest the federal decision and Woodfox, now 64, was returned to Angola's CCR, where he remains. Herman Wallace, now 68, was moved to another Louisiana prison last year, where he too continues to be held in solitary confinement.

Today King, now 67, is still campaigning for justice for his friends. Albert Woodfox: "Our primary objective is that front gate. That is what we are struggling for and we are actually fighting for our freedom. We are fighting for people to understand that we were framed for a murder that we are totally, completely and actually innocent of." Robert King says he is free of Angola, but until his friends are free, "Angola will never be free of me."

Jean hopes his film will make a difference. "These men need help," he says. "Louisiana needs to be shamed into doing the right thing."

Further information: angola3.org. If you wish to help highlight the plight of the Angola 3, you can write to the Governor of Louisiana at the Office of the Governor, PO Box 94004, Baton Rouge, LA 70804, US.

Christmas meals in Angola

2010-03-11T05:06:00.000-08:00

By Kenny ‘Zulu’ Whitmore

You might have read that inmates across the country are normally afforded all the trimmings on Christmas Day. Though in Angola prison we are usually given a traditional meal for each of the holidays, this past Christmas was a bleak affair – as if life on this southern plantation wasn’t grim enough.

We were denied the typical Christmas dinner since the warden, Burl Cain, was angry with the 200 inmates in the main prison compound who had filed an administrative complaint (ARP) due to food poisoning from spoiled dressing at the Thanksgiving meal (not the first time a complaint of food poisoning has been made).

The warden seems to have taken their move personally, though the complaint was against the food service; not him. Shortly afterwards, he gave a broadcast on the prison radio and TV station to tell the captive population that no more traditional meals would be served at the prison.
In a pique of pettiness, the prison authorities have overturned a 35-year tradition at Angola; missed an opportunity to take a potentially deadly illness seriously; and typically issued a blanket punishment for the action of one group of inmates.

So what should we expect on the menu in the coming year at Angola? Probably more beatings, gassings and chains served up with a side order of misguided and small-minded retaliation for legitimate complaints.

Thank you my Friends/Supporters

2010-01-16T02:51:00.000-08:00

From: Kenny Zulu Whitmore

To: my friends/supporters

My people: first I'd like to thank everyone who sent me an X-mas card, it was
a real joy to hear from so many of you! I hope everyone had a wonderful
holiday season spent with family and friends.

My holiday here on 'the plantation' were spent with 2 visits. My family and
I enjoyed time together with good food, laughter and good conversations,
remembering the last X-mas we spent with our dad before he passed on earlier
this year. We cried and laughed and talked than everyone else in the
visiting room. My sister Brunetta made a pledge to swing with one mighty
fist and knock down the doors of injustice that are holding me and my
brother Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox (A3) here. My struggle for
physical struggle will intensify in this coming year.

Albert And I also visited with friends: Tory Pergram, Helen Kinsella. and
Parnell Herbert - who wrote and produced the Angola3 play. The main goal
this year is to get a lawyer on board to argue my pending cases before the
court, so that I can soon meet some of the determined people who joined me
in my struggle for physical freedom.

My wish for all my friends/supporters in the coming year is that whatever
you wish for your selves will become reality. I hope everyone will remain
conscious that injustice somewhere is a threat to justice everywhere. As for
me, I am resilient in my faith that I will walk off this plantation into the
arms of family and friends. FAITH IS BEING SURE OF WHAT YOU HOPE FOR AND
CERTAIN OF WHAT WE DON'T SEE IS FAITH.

Peace, love and solidarity, Zulu.

Photos of the visit from Herbert Parnell to Zulu and Albert

2009-12-19T03:58:00.000-08:00

Zulu, Albert, Herbert

Albert, Herbert, Zulu

Zulu & Albert

Herbert Parnell, who produced the stage play about the Angola 3 - in which Zulu also plays a role - meets Albert and Zulu for the first time in Angola, LA on the 13th of December 2009 (click on photos to enlarge).

Robert King & Terry Kupers: The Psychological Impact of Imprisonment

2009-12-13T03:00:00.000-08:00

From: Angola3News

Robert Hillary King, a member of the Angola 3, was released from prison in 2001 after serving 29 years in solitary confinement, when his conviction was overturned after many years of legal battles....

Robert Hillary King, a member of the Angola 3, was released from prison in 2001 after serving 29 years in solitary confinement, when his conviction was overturned after many years of legal battles. The other two members of the Angola 3, Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace, both remain imprisoned today. In 2008, King released his autobiography, entitled From the Bottom of the Heap: The Autobiography of Robert Hillary King. His autobiography won the 2008 PASS Award, and has been reviewed by SF Bay View, Black Commentator, Hour, Alternet, Political Media Review, La Presse, Albany Times Union, and The Times-Picayune

Dr. Terry Kupers, M.D., M.S.P. wrote the introduction to From the Bottom of the Heap and is Institute Professor at The Wright Institute in Berkeley, California. Dr. Kupers is a psychiatrist with a background in psychoanalytic psychotherapy, forensics and social and community psychiatry. His forensic psychiatry experience includes testimony in several large class action litigations concerning jail and prison conditions, sexual abuse, and the quality of mental health services inside correctional facilities. He is a consultant to Human Rights Watch, and author of the 1999 book entitled Prison Madness: The Mental Health Crisis Behind Bars and What We Must Do About It.

King and Kupers were interviewed in Oakland, California in October, 2009, when King was in town for Black Panther History Month. This video is only part one, so please stay tuned for more!

Part 1:

Part 2:

Life Without Parole - Hopelessness and Despair

2009-10-24T02:35:00.000-07:00

By: Kenny Zulu Whitmore

Quote from The Advocate, June 2009:

“State senator Butch Gautraux recently proposed a bill that would have made it easier for certain inmates to obtain parole, but although sheriffs complain all the time that their prisons are too full, the political will needed to appears even slightly soft on crime doesn’t exist in the legislature. Due to lack of support from top state officials and a less-than supportive public reaction, Gautreaux shelved his Senate bill 62”.

On September 10th 2009, at 44 years old, Henry Smith – a captive of the infamous plantation known as Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola – felt the weight of hopelessness and despair in his 28th years of serving a life sentence without parole. He ‘escaped’. To quote the warden: “he snapped”. I say: he snapped back to reality. Unfortunately he was found back several days later after his escape and is now residing in Angola’s little torture camp, the notorious, infamous Camp J.

Henry Smith is just one of a growing number of lifers without parole who have given up hope to ever legally gain their freedom back due to the many procedural bars that have taken away an inmate’s right to further appeal convictions in the federal Courts. The door has been slammed shut on every captive unless he/she can come up with newly discovered evidence: DNA. We – lifers- are up against Gov. Bobby Jindal’s pardon and parole board, whose members are judges and cops.

It hasn’t been made public that Henry Smith was a kid of only 16 when he was arrested and charged with murder in 1980. His LIFE SENTENCE will never change – while Henry Smith him self HAS changed. It’s obvious that the administration of Burl Cain saw enough change to make him a ‘class A trustee’ and housed him at Camp F, trustee camp. Later they saw enough change in him to allow him outside of the camp – unsupervised- to pick up roadside litter. Surely many would agree that it makes little sense and even less justice to keep such an individual incarcerated for the remainder of his life.

Like Henry Smith many, many men within Angola with a life sentence have changed and rehabilitated them selves. They deserve that second chance.

The whole legislature sees a problem with the growing number of incarcerations, but no one wants to address it. Henry Smith is 44 years old, he has done 28 years and being in good health he could easily do another 20 years. That is 48 years at an estimated annual amount of $ 35,000 at taxpayers’ expenses. The oldest man on the tier with me is 72 years old, now in his 51st year of his Life Without Parole sentence. Should he also “snap”?

ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE ‘WHO SNAP’

In solidarity, K. Zulu Whitmore

Happy Birthday Zulu!

2009-10-13T08:00:00.000-07:00

Today is Zulu's birthday! Happy Birthday Zulu!!!
If you would like to make his birthday a memorable and happy one, you can help! Please visit his Facebook Birthday Gift page and help us celebrate his birthday! Thank you also to our friends at Thirteen Springs for helping celebrate.

The Legacy

2009-10-03T07:40:00.000-07:00

Recently Billy X paid a visit to Zulu. Here he is showing off a cool Free Zulu Tshirt.

Here is "The Legacy", a song written by Michael Terrance, former Panther and member of the Lumpen Singing Group of the Black Panther Party. He also was background singer for the great Marvin Gaye.

You can listen to "The Legacy" on Billy X Jennings´ site "It's about time-BPP" and it is downloadable here:

http://www.itsabouttimebpp.com/Media/Aud io/The_Legacy_Track_2.wma

Zulu in SF Bay View: Racial profiling briefly acknowledged … now what?

2009-09-08T00:55:00.000-07:00

September 7, 2009

Racial profiling briefly acknowledged … now what?
by Kenny Zulu Whitmore

Original article in SF Bay View (or search their archive).

Blacks and Latinos in the United States have long complained of police harassment and racial profiling, but no one paid much attention until July 16 this year, when the Cambridge, Massachusetts, police arrested Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates at his home on a “disorderly conduct” charge – read for being an uppity Negro or forgetting his place.

Thanks to his friendship with President Obama, Mr. Gates’ experience received recognition. Harold Phillips didn’t have such powerful friends. The 54-year-old Black man from Colfax, Louisiana, was horse-playing with his sister eight days after the Gates incident. A young, white cop thought it was a fight and stopped to question Mr. Phillips. According to other witnesses, the officer slipped and fell and was laughed at. He subsequently shot the unarmed Mr. Phillips five times in the back in front of family and friends. While the shooting is under investigation, the officer is on leave with taxpayers’ money.

In the 1960s, white police officers were engaged in racial profiling as part of the now disgraced FBI’s covert counter-intelligence program known as Cointelpro, pulling over African-Americans and searching their cars for no other reason than a broken taillight – after the cops had broken it before planting evidence on their target.

Though that program was disbanded, the abuse has continued. In the last 16 months, four unarmed Black men have been murdered in North Louisiana. All the cops have to say is, “I thought he had a gun,” and the shooting is justified.

Meanwhile, torture tactics that have come to light in Guantanamo Bay have been used against us to garnish information and false confessions, including near asphyxiation with plastic bags, slamming into walls and sleep deprivation.

I know first hand what that is like, because most of those tactics were used on me in 1975 to force a confession regarding a political robbery/murder I had nothing to do with, and for which I remain in prison.

Sgt. James Crowley – the police officer who arrested Professor Gates – may have redeemed himself, but I wonder has he ever been honored for reporting another cop shooting an unarmed suspect, or ever stopped his partners from zapping a suspect with their 50,000-volt taser for nothing?

At least, for a short while, we had the face of a renowned Harvard University professor to illustrate the ills inflicted on us by police officers here in the United States – those who see Black and Latino people as a little less human than themselves. So beers have been drunk at the Big House; now what?

Send our brother some love and light. Write to: Kenny Zulu Whitmore, 86468, CCR/R.C. Upper C Tier, Cell 9, Louisiana State Prison, Angola LA 70712.

Stop Torture in US Prisons!

2009-09-07T07:16:00.000-07:00

Zulu has been in solitary confinement for most of the 32 years he has been in Angola State Prison. Here is a short film by the American Friends Service Committee, whose Stopmax.org focuses on this type of torture:

Dog Days Turn Deadly in America’s Prisons

2009-09-02T13:25:00.000-07:00

James Ridgeway wrote this article, in which Zulu is cited at the end.
It was published on the Unsilent Generation blog.

Dog Days Turn Deadly in America’s Prisons

September 1, 2009 · 1 Comment

ADC photo of Marcia Powell

The summer of 2009 had barely begun when Marcia Powell, a 48-year old inmate at Arizona’s Perryville Prison, was baked to death. Powell, whom court records show had a history of schizophrenia, substance abuse, and mild mental retardation, was serving a 27-month sentence for prostitution. At about 11 a.m. on May 19, a day when the Arizona sun had driven the temperature to 108 degrees, she was parked outdoors in an unroofed, wire-fenced holding cell while awaiting transfer to another part of the prison. A deputy warden and two guards had been stationed in a control center 20 yards away, but nearly four hours had passed when she was found collapsed on the floor of the human cage. Doctors at a local hospital pronounced Powell comatose from heat stroke, and she died later that night after being taken off life support. Two local churches stepped in to provide a proper funeral and burial.

Arizona Department of Corrections director Charles Ryan said the guards had been suspended pending a criminal investigation. But just yesterday, the Maricopa County Medical Examiner ruled the death an accident, caused by “complications of hyperthermia due to environmental heat exposure.” This despite the fact that Powell had blistering and first and second degree “thermal injuries” on face, arms, and upper body.

Ryan also expressed ”condolences to Ms. Powell’s family and loved ones”–a strange statement, considering Ryan had made the decision to quickly pull the plug on his comatose prisoner because, he said, no next of kin could be found. In fact, as Stephen Lemons of the Phoenix New Times has reported, Powell was judged an “incapacitated adult” and placed under public guardianship–but her guardians were not consulted before the ADC elected to let her die. Lemons also noted some unsavory chapters in Ryan’s recent career:

Ryan’s own bio on the ADC Web site touts that he was “assistant program manager for the Department of Justice overseeing the Iraqi Prison System for almost four years.” Ryan was contracted by the DOJ to help rebuild Iraqi prisons, one of those being the notorious Abu Ghraib.

Following Powell’s death, Ryan banned most uses of unshaded outdoor holding cells in Arizona, except in “extraordinary circumstances.” Most Southern states already restrict their use. But baking in the sun is only one of many ways to die in America’s prisons in the summertime. Recent years have seen scattered reports of heat-related prison deaths in California and Texas, among others. The prevalence of mental illness among the victims may be linked to anti-psychotic drugs, which raise the body temperature and cause dehydration, and at the same time have a tranquilizing effect that may mask thirst.

In 2006, 21-year-old Timothy Souders, another mentally ill prisoner, died of heat exhaustion and dehydration at a Jackson, Michigan prison during an August heat wave. For the four days prior to his death, Souders had been shackled to a cement slab in solitary confinement because he had been acting up. That entire period was captured on surveillance videotapes, which according to news reports clearly showed his mental and physical deterioration.

The vast majority of U.S. civilian prisons and jails are not air conditioned. (In contrast, the U.S. made a point of building new air-conditioned facilities for prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, and phasing out the older structures.) In Texas, only 19 of 112 prisons have air-conditioning. Earlier this summer, the chair of Texas State Senate’s Judiciary Committee, John Whitmire (D-Houston), told the Houston Chronicle that enduring the heat is “part of the reality of going to prison. There are a lot of inconveniences to serving time. There’s no question it’s hot.” He said he thought few Texans would be sympathetic to the prisoners’ suffering.

Apparently anticipating a similar lack of sympathy, the Florida Department of Corrections proudly advertises the absence of air-conditioning in most of its prisons. On a web page that debunks a host of “misconceptions” that might indicate soft treatment of Florida’s prisoners, it assures readers that the majority of inmates live without air-conditioning or cable television.

In a 2002 report on the risks of heat-related illness at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman, compiled for the ACLU, a physician who reviewed conditions on Death Row wrote the following:

An individual free to respond to the stress created by a hot environment would normally take steps to cool his body. If no air conditioning were available, he would at least respond by seeking a cooler location, blocking out radiant heat from the sun by positioning himself in the shade or screening himself from the sun, maximizing evaporation by wetting his body and clothes with water and using fans to create cross-ventilation, and moving away from physical structures which absorb and radiate heat.

None of these natural survival responses to excessive heat are available to the Death Row prisoners. The prisoners’ cells, especially Willie Russell’s Plexiglas covered cell, are stifling hot yet prisoners have to close their windows and cover their bodies at night despite intense heat in order to protect themselves from mosquitoes and other insects. Many of the prisoners have no access to fans, either because they are too poor to buy fans or because their fans have been confiscated as punishment. They have infrequent access to cooling showers, and sometimes, even access to water is extremely limited. The prisoners are not allowed to shade their windows from direct sunlight. They have extremely limited access to the outdoor exercise-pens and in any event those pens provide no relief from the heat because they are not shaded….

It is my opinion, based on my observations during my visit to Unit 32-C, Death Row and on my training, experience, and familiarity with the extensive body of medical literature on the subject of thermoregulation, that all of the inmates on Death Row are at high risk of heat stroke and heat-related illness.

A first-hand account of enduring the summer heat at the nation’s largest maximum-security prison, the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, was provided by Kenny “Zulu” Whitmore. Whitmore, who has served more than 30 years of a life sentence, much of it in solitary confinement, kept a journal during a 2007 August heat wave:

August: It was so hot in here last night…I looked for the open flame in the cell. During the day you expect it to be 100 degrees, but not at night. More is yet to come.

9 August: The fire inspector came on the tier today doing the same fake B/S, but he was soaking wet b/c it is so hot in here. He was RED RED in the face like he was going to pass out. He was looking at us like Lord, give me their endurance.

12 August: I could not sleep last night. It had to be at least 98 degrees in here. I passed out around 2.20 am and got up at 5.14…I have not stopped sweating since yesterday….

31 August: The last day of hell month. This had to be the hottest for August in 200 years.

More recently, in letters to a friend, Whitmore described this past summer at “the Gola”:

June 11, 2009: Heat is on in the Gola, 93 degrees. I would have replied yesterday, but man it was so hot in here and I sweated all day. So I am writing before it gets too hot. And it’s just June. It was 76 degrees that morning at 5.30 am and 94 degrees after twelve noon. It should get that hot today too….

June 27, 2009: Hot n Humid Gola 99 degrees. If you heard that it’s getting hot in Angola, you heard wrong, because it have been steaming hot in Angola for the whole month of June but I know H will be alright, even at his age he can stand the heat. Plus: he knows what to do to cool down some: put some water on the floor and lay in it or put a wet sweat shirt on to stay cool….

July 12, 2009: The sweatbox Louisiana. With temperature 98 degrees everybody is on the floor. All you need is to wet it or your clothes. It’s all about survival in this man made hell….

August 10, 2009: I ran like a wild horse in that 96 degree heat today. I sweated all my body liquids so I had to replace it by drinking water the whole of the day. Only the strong survive.

Interview with Kenny Zulu Whitmore

2009-08-03T12:13:00.000-07:00

Published in "The Idler", July 2009

Idler: For a man who’s been held in solitary for more than three decades, you must have come up with some interesting ways to be idle; what are your preferred ways of passing the time?

Zulu: I am in this cage for 23 hours a day, but I make good use of my time. In 1980, Robert King [released from Angola prison in 2001 after his conviction was overturned], Albert Woodfox [still in Angola though his conviction was overturned in September 2008] and I started an exercise routine where we used to get up at 3.30 am and work out for two hours six days a week. Even when we were separated we kept it up. To this day I still work out for an hour and a half six days a week.

After that I’ll catch the World News on NPR [National Public Radio] and/or meditate until breakfast, which comes between 6.30 and 7.30 am. Then I might catch the local news on TV Baton Rouge.

At 8 am or thereafter I set up my stand-up desk in the cell – my locker on top of the table. I write and/or read until 4pm. If I am responding to my many supporters, I write sometimes until 7pm. Legal work will also pass the time.

I take short breaks throughout the day. I read a lot when time allows. My absolute favourite book is ‘Native Son’ by Richard Wright. Right now I am reading ‘Silent Gesture’ by Tommie Smith. He and John Carlos were two of the most courageous brothers in America to raise the black power salute on the world stage at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City.

I get one hour on the yard three times a week where I and other guys run behind the football for an hour.

In solitary confinement one must find something to keep the mind active or risk going insane as I have witnessed more than I would have liked to. For me, everything I do is about self-discipline and continuing to educate myself.

Idler: You recently spent more than a year in the Dungeon of Camp J Disciplinary Unit; how did that compare with Closed Cell Restriction [CCR or solitary confinement, where Zulu has spent most of his time in prison]?

Z: Well, Camp J is the worst disciplinary unit in the system here in Louisiana. While I was there, I smelled gas, Freeze Plus P [pepper spray] and Mace as regularly as if it was air freshener. Early in the morning, the guards would gas someone at will. If someone passed out because of the heat, they would get gassed. If the lady bringing medication said you did or said something to her, they would spray you down like a cockroach and beat you.

You must wear an orange jumpsuit, and when any female comes on the tier, everyone must have it buttoned all the way up, summer or winter.

The food is some shit you wouldn’t give your dog. It is very poorly prepared, and you get a small amount. I lost 30 pounds in there.

Idler: Does the disciplinary unit have a canteen?

Z: Yes, once a week you can buy tuna, bread, chips, cookies, etc., but you are not allowed to have a plastic spoon or drinking cup in your cell without being written up for contraband, so you’ve nothing to use if you want to mix mayonnaise or mustard into your food. You can buy Kool Aid, but if you get caught with a spoon, sugar or a cup, you are sent to Level 1 to start all over [the disciplinary unit has different levels, which you slowly move up].

Idler: Did they have Yard Call?

Z: Yes, three times a week. You can only wear a T-shirt and shorts under the orange jumpsuit. You are fully restrained – waist chain and leg irons. Only the leg irons are removed. During the winter months you are given a coat; the coat someone else has just run around the yard in, so I never wore one.

Idler: What about people’s mental health?

Z: Camp J disciplinary unit has a large number of mentally ill dudes. On the tier I was on, I was one cell from a guy who screamed and hollered and talked out loud all the time. The guards used to gas him and have the entire tier sneezing and coughing with our eyes burning. It was a crazy situation.

Idler: Does the disciplinary unit allow visiting?

Z: Yes, but very few people let their family and friends come because the visiting booth is like 4x10 ft with a screen separating you; no water nor bathroom. You burn up in there during summer and freeze in winter. Though they have an air conditioner on the wall, it hardly ever works; like the heater.

Idler: How is CCR, where you are now, different?

Z: Here in CCR you have more political prisoners in this building, which houses 111 dudes. CCR is long-term. Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox of the Angola 3 stayed in here from April 1972 to March 2008. Robert King did 29 years. I have been held captive here in CCR since 1978, except for a 14-month stay in general population. Then I took my physical freedom [escaped] in 1986. I was free for 24 hours. I guess it’s more than what others could expect.

In CCR you get three days of yard in a jumpsuit. All restraints are removed. You have your own clothing: three pairs of jeans, three blue shirts, three pairs of socks, three sweatsuits, two winter caps and tennies [trainers]. You get two contact visits per month. Five visitors can come in at a time. We do not have a GED [General Educational Development] program in CCR nor do they in any cell block.

The food is better prepared, but like all over the plantation, we do not get enough fresh vegetables. We get powdered potatoes, old corn and a green salad twice a year – at Thanksgiving and Christmas; fresh fruit once a year at Christmas. In the dormitory where my brothers of the A3, Herman and Albert, are being housed, they have an inmate club with a deli that sells fresh salads, fish and other stuff. This is how I get fresh vegetables. But like anywhere in Angola, you are in prison.

Idler: What are your top tips for ‘smashing the system’?

Z: It’s going to take a collective effort by you the people. You need to petition your legislators and politicians and DEMAND change. You have more power than you may realise. Smash the system by saying no to new prisons and yes to new schools. Here in the USA, more than two million people are incarcerated. The State of Louisiana Department of Corrections has a budget of nearly $700 million dollars to warehouse people for 40-50 years, with no sign of rehabilitation programs. The American public is paying members of the pardon and parole boards up to $80,000 a year to deny people pardon and parole; voters need to make them put pardon and parole into practice. You hired the politicians – you are the employers; they the employees.

Idler: How do you continue to fight the system from a 6x9 ft cell?

Z: I use my pen; I have made friends worldwide; I educate, educate and educate.

Idler: What changes do you think there will be to the system with Barack Obama, a black man, in the White House?

Z: By the American voters electing their first African-American to be commander-in-chief I truly hope it means that the country is finally ready to move out of the racist time-warp it has been stuck in for too many centuries, and we as a nation are ready to move forward.

On the criminal justice system, I think it would be unrealistic to think that Obama, after his first day in his new job on January 20, would go into the Oval Office, take his pen, and change a system that has been in place for the last 100 years. It ain’t going to happen.

Obama has a full plate with the financial crisis – a crisis that was created by multi-billion-dollar banks, investment houses and the largest companies in the world: Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, AIG. The sub-prime mortgage crisis has meant thousands of people have lost their homes. African-Americans were hit hard in this scam, and those homeless people are left holding a $700 billion bill to pay for the very m-f$%*!ers who kicked them out of their homes. So Obama will first have to tackle the crisis that George W. Bush and his cronies created.

But I do think that during his second term we will begin to see some changes in the criminal justice system with his choice of attorney general and the possibility of his appointing two new justices to the US Supreme Court. But let’s wait and see.

Idler: What do you think is the difference between Angola the Slave Plantation and Angola the Prison?

Z: The 13th Amendment outlawed slavery within the borders of the United States, but that didn’t include prison. The day it came into effect, prison became the new plantation – they legalized it. Angola the Prison has basically the same rules to govern its slaves as did Angola the Plantation. The only difference is the name changed from plantation to prison.

Idler: Do you think that Obama really represents change?

Z: I am like most African-Americans in this country – I want to believe Barack Obama represents change, because he knows first-hand of African suffering in this country. I think he’s bringing fresh ideas to the table, like sitting down with Iran’s head of state without pre-conditions, and de-privatising the student-loan system.

But I do not want to pre-judge him in the way I and my comrades Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox of the A3 have been. Albert recently won a new trial, and on November 12 [2008], a federal judge ruled that he be released on bail pending re-trial. But Louisiana’s Attorney General Buddy Caldwell has pre-judged Albert to be a flight risk due to some unsubstantiated charges from 1967, and is blocking his release. So I won’t pre-judge Obama.

Z: Ona Move. Free Zulu, A3 and Move 9

It’s time to expose the sexual abuse of inmates by prison employees

2009-08-03T12:11:00.000-07:00

Published in SF Bay View, March 11, 2009

On Feb. 19, an Angola social worker was arrested for the aggravated rape of an inmate housed in the mental health unit of the prison.

While the general public has been exposed to stories of rape among prisoners, there is little awareness about the high incidence of brutal rape of both men and women by prison employees. These cases remain under the radar because victims are threatened with violence to prevent them from speaking out, while the employees involved, who generally feel shielded from society, might simply be charged with “malfeasance in office.” I have heard many of the guards in Angola say, “Society thinks you are animals,” with the implication that whatever a prison employee does to one of us, society couldn’t care less.

The social worker in this case, Gary D. Widkiff, is said to have used threats of violence on Oct. 7, 2008, to force the inmate to allow Widkiff to perform oral sex on him.

At Angola, threats and violent behavior by prison employees against inmates are not uncommon. An employee may accuse a prisoner of spitting on him, with the result that the inmate in question can be gassed, badly beaten or sent to Camp J, a house of horror that I have been unlucky enough to experience for an extended period.

In this case, the victim did not immediately report the incident to Angola authorities, reportedly for fear of not being believed. A claim like that can also lead to a disciplinary report, with the victim accused of spreading rumors.

Four other inmates had complained about Widkiff’s inappropriate sexual conduct, to put it mildly, yet Angola authorities did nothing. Had they thoroughly investigated the complaints made, they could have acted to prevent another individual from being sexually assaulted.

Many men in prison who are raped choose to suffer in silence – ashamed and conscious of the social stigma associated with being sexually violated. No one inside or outside prison should have to suffer alone as a result of a degrading act of violence. I urge everybody with a similar experience to rise above their fear and speak out; if you stay silent, you remain a victim for life.

Send our brother some love and light: Kenny Zulu Whitmore, #86468, RC/CCR, U/C 11, Louisiana State Prison, Angola, LA 70712.

A prisoner´s grief

2009-08-03T12:05:00.000-07:00

Published in SF Bay View, June 24th, 2009

I had had a wonderful visit with my father the last time I saw him, at the end of February. At 84, he was still full of charisma, and came to visit me in his typical style, dressed in a three-piece suit and a cowboy hat.

But a few days later, he suffered a tragic accident. While getting ready for church, his bathrobe caught fire as he was warming himself in front of the heater, leaving 60 percent of his body burned; he died March 13.

Though it was a very painful time for my family and me, for the first time in my several years in prison, I could share my grief with other family members. I cannot describe how painful it is to be forced to grieve alone, and what it can do to a person’s mind.

(Photo: From his cell in the notorious Angola prison in Louisiana, Kenny Zulu Whitmore, treated more harshly than other prisoners for decades because he was a member of the Angola Chapter of the Black Panther Party, thanks his supporters. He writes: “My supporters, my people, thank you all for your love and sympathy during this trying time that my family and I are going through. But we have our father’s strength and we will get through this. This pain that we are experiencing, this too will pass. Anja Carrie, I’m OK. I have the strength of an elephant. I will be all right. – Zulu”)

When I was arrested in 1975, I had just celebrated my 19th birthday. I come from a large family: sisters, brothers, nieces, nephews, cousins, aunties and uncles, grandparents. My mother was a woman of 45 back then, my father 49 – younger than I am now.

Since being held in prison, I have lost nearly two generations of family members, starting with the devastating loss of my mother in January 1976. Grieving alone was hard enough; I also had to endure beatings by prison guards, racial slurs, death threats and psychological torture.

They took me out of the cellblock to the clothing room to dress up for her funeral, which I then wasn’t allowed attend. My family was told that the paperwork was “misplaced” – a deliberate and cruel action to further imbalance me. Worse still, I was awaiting trial at the time, so the presumption of innocence didn’t mean a thing.

The grief over the loss of my mother and not being allowed to go and see her for the last time nearly drove me insane. It took me several years to get over the pain of not being able to get to that church. I also felt guilty, because I couldn’t do anything to attend her funeral.

After losing my mother, I thought it had prepared me for all that was to come, but over the years I have still suffered through countless family deaths. My favourite uncle, Uncle Pasco, passed in 1989. My grandmother, who had come to see me once a month until she developed life-threatening health problems at the age of 85, died in 1991. Then, one after another, all of my aunties, uncles, cousins and a nephew died.

Through it all, I have not once been allowed to attend a funeral. Not because it’s Angola’s policy to not allow prisoners to go on funeral trips – guys in my housing area go to funerals all the time – but simply for my political beliefs: because I was a member of the Angola Chapter of the Black Panther Party.

My dad, a wonderful character, was the last member of the Whitmore family of nearly two generations back. My family wanted me to come to the funeral. They called the warden’s office and requested that I be brought to the funeral; my sister said that my father had served his country and worked for the state for 26 years.

But I knew the administration could not resist dealing me one more blow. The warden denied their request and told them his decision didn’t have anything to do with politics – it was due to my housing status: Confined Cell Restriction.

However, the day after his funeral, my son and sisters came to visit me, and I was able to grieve in a way that had been denied to me for decades – sharing my sorrow with those closest to me. We cried, hugged and talked about fun memories of our parents and grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.

For the first time in 35 years, I had the opportunity to grieve and heal with my family, albeit during a prison visit. All the pain of losing a generation of loved ones fell with the tears cried in the visiting room. It felt great.

I hurt, I cry, I grieve just like other human beings. However, my captors have labelled me a criminal, scum and a murderous animal. They denied the child I used to be to attend his mother’s funeral, and they denied the grown-up man I am to go to his father’s funeral.

Where is their humanity? Prison, your dehumanising labels do not define me. Although I am forcibly held here, prison will never be held in me.

Send our brother some love and light: Kenny Zulu Whitmore, 86468, RC CCR u/c tier, Louisiana State Prison, Angola, LA 70712.

Interview with Zulu´s son Rodney

2009-08-03T12:02:00.001-07:00

Q Rodney, you were still a baby when your father was framed for armed robbery and murder; can you tell me how old you were and if you have any recollection of spending time with your dad?

A I was probably six or seven months old when my father was framed for robbery and murder. As much as I would like to, I can't recall any of the time preceding my father's incarceration that we spent as a family; consequently robbing me of an experience that many of my peers, friends, and other American youths enjoyed.

(Photo: Zulu, his son Rodney (in dark blue) and nephews)
Q How did growing up without a father affect you?

A Growing up without a father affected me in various ways. I believe not having a father present in my life affected me emotionally, and in some ways spiritually. The one thing that came out of this tragedy was the closeness that my mother and me shared, and the hope that one day my father would be released and totally exonerated.

Q At what age did you realize your dad was framed and sent to prison on false charges?

A I can't be 100% sure, but I believe around the age of 10 or 11 years of age. I could remember people always telling me how good of a guy my father was and that the Ku Klux Klan had set him up and tried to kill him, but it wasn't until later in life that I fully knew the gravity of the situation.

Q How did it make you feel being robbed of your father's presence?

A Being robbed of my father's presence from an early age until now has been a big blow. I missed out on all the things that a father does with his son; ex: playing catch, going fishing, helping me with homework, and the days at school when we would have father – son day.

Q Do you currently have a relationship with your father?

A YES! From the time that I was able to visit until now. The relationship isn't as I would like it to be, but considering his current situation (incarceration) I feel as though we are closer than most fathers who are free.

Q Have you ever been harassed because of being Zulu Whitmore's son? And if yes, how and when.

A Yes, when I was in high school working an after school job as a fast food restaurant, after about two months on the job work got around to the manager that Zulu was my father, 2 days later he let me go, and said my service was no longer deeded, I know it was because I am Zulu's son.

Q What are your thoughts of a system in which innocent people can be randomly charged for crimes they never committed?

A The system in which we have today has too many flaws, leeways, and obstacles for District Attorneys to maliciously convict innocent people of crimes that they didn't commit and were victims of themselves, more burden has to be put on District Attorneys, Judges and administrators whose job is to uphold the law, to make sure that each individual whether black, white, rich or poor has the opportunity at a fair and equal trial. I f they were held to a standard that would eliminate unfair judicial practices, then, and only then will the justice system work for all. I believe that punishment for District Attorneys, and Judges that allow this should result in disbarment.

Q At this time what do you think the motive of your father's imprisonment has been?

A I think the motive behind my father's imprisonment is racism; this was their way of silencing a powerful voice in the African American community.

Q Are you aware of your dad's community activism? How does that make you feel about your father?

A A lot of the guy's in the community use to tell me about my father and how he use to tell the people in the neighborhood to stand up to the racist practice of the police, and how he spoke out against the drug dealers selling to their own people doing the dirty work for the KKK. The police hated my father Zulu for being man enough to speak out against the destruction of the neighborhood, the community and the people the they cared nothing about.

Q Have you met the members of the Angola 3, Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox?

A Yes, I have met Hooks and Woodfox of the Angola 3. It was Herman Hooks Wallace who made my father Zulu a member of the Black Panther Party. Hooks and Woodfox are two knowledgeable brothers, there's an urgent need for men like Zulu, Hooks, and Woodfox in the community today.

Q How would you describe your relationship with them?

A As I grew to know them, talk, and listen to them my knowledge of social issues has been enlightened, I consider myself lucky to have known these guys, and when the Angola 3 has been released, I would like to continue my friendship with them so the movement of knowledge and perseverance can continue to go forth

Q Do you still see the level of racism that took place in the seventies?

A Yes, to a certain degree racism has increased into many more segments of daily life. Racism has become more prevalent in the workforce, application process for rental units, and obtaining loans from our financial institutions. Hidden racism is the worst of all. Until the judicial, educational, and financial institutions become more open to all and not just a few, racism will always be alive and well.

Q Do you have any children of your own?

A Yes, I have one biological daughter, and two stepdaughters.

Q Are they having a relationship with their granddad? How do they call him?

A Yes, my daughter has a relationship with Zulu, she calls him Big Poppa. She visits whenever possible, and talks with him when he calls.
Q How do you think you can protect your children from the system they are brought up in?

A I'm a big proponent in education, and character building. I believe in learning as much as possible to increase ones chance to become successful. Character will build self-esteem, and with self-esteem one will have a greater sense of themselves and the people around them.

Q Are you at this time politically involved as well?

A Yes, I am, I'm involved in my church, I try to point younger guys in the right direction, a path that won't lead them to drugs and or any criminal activity. I'm also connected with supporters of Zulu's; Anja, Judith, Kari, Erin and many other political minded people

Q Can you tell us if the same things that happened to your dad 30 years ago are still happening to young people this time around? How does that make you feel?

A Yes, the same things that happened 30 years ago, still happens today. The youth of today seem to have no or very little direction, and respect for life. The only enemy at times are themselves.

Q Are you involved in the struggle to free your dad? In which way?

A Yes, I have been for a while, but I'm also connected with some other strong supporters Anja, Judith, Kari, and Erin.

Q Are you ready for your father to come home?

A Yes, Yes, Yes, we have a lot of catching up to do, and he would be a good babysitter.

Q Do you have any final comments to make or a personal/general statement for the readers of the interview?

A To all the political activist, and other social conscious people, I would like to thank you for your continual support, dedication that you show through your financial, emotional and spiritual support. TO MAKE CHANGE, EVERYONE HAS TO BE WILLING TO CHANGE.

Interview with Zulu´s Father, Mr. John Whitmore

2009-08-03T11:55:00.000-07:00

Mr. Whitmore, I’d like to bring you back to the year 1975 and the day your son was arrested on trumped up arm charges. While being held he was also charged with the 1973 murder on the ex mayor marshal Bond. What were your thoughts at that time?

(1A) My thoughts at that time and to this day, is that this is a grave mistake, because I did not raise any of my children that way and Zulu always worked for what he wanted, so either this is a tragic mistake or he was deliberately targeted.

(2) Were you at the 1975 hearing where the original robbery charges were dismissed? Can you tell us on what grounds the charges were dismissed?

(2a) Yes! I was at the 1975 hearing when the judge dismissed the charges on Zulu. The judge said the victim refused to come to court because Zulu was not the person who robbed them. I still don’t understand how he was charged with that crime.

(Photo: Zulu's dad, who passed on from this life on March 13th 2009)

(3) How did it make you feel that one year later Zulu was recharged with the same robbery crime, even after the victim said Zulu wasn’t the perpetrator?

(3a) This happened a year or more later, and I knew at that time something sinister was taking place. If the victim says you are not the one; how could anyone else say different?

(4) Mr. Whitmore, when Zulu was taken out of jail to a forest in Zachary where he was beaten up and chocked until he confessed, what influence did that have on your family?

(4a) When I first heard of this, that the police had taken Zulu out of the East Baton Rouge Parish Jail and beat a confession out of him, I was outraged; I immediately had flashes of Black Men during my days of being hung in the woods by the KKK. I will never forget this, which is an image that will probably be with met till the day I die. That incident devastated my wife and it still hurts to think of what my son went through.

Do you think a racist system framed your son on robbery and murder charges?

(5a) No, I don’t think a racist system framed my son for robbery and murder, I know it for a fact that they did. They allowed a miscarriage of justice to take place, and by doing so his life, his son’s life has been changed forever.

(6) Mr. Whitmore, do you recall your reaction when your family was told Zulu would be allowed to attend his mother’s funeral, but instead the whole thing turned out to be but a game to beat him up and unsettle him?

(6a) I was told by the warden of the prison that Zulu would be allowed to attend his mother’s funeral. The pastor of my church the Rev. Albert Anderson Sr. had a son, who was a sheriff deputy at the time, and he was to bring Zulu to the church, but instead; some deputies at the jail beat up the day of the funeral Zulu. The reason for this my family was told that Zulu jumped them while dressing out for his mother’s funeral. He was still bruised up when I went to the jail to seem him that Wednesday. Zulu’s case was a political and racial issue.

(7) It has been proven that the only evidence brought up was a poorly taped confession with unrecognizable voices and a rusty bucket. What do you think about the lack of evidence?

(7a) Yes, that was the only evidence that they had against my son. A confession that they nearly killed him to get, yet no one could make out what was being said in parts of it, and a rusty bucket they claimed sat in a recreational park in the same place for tow years never being touched or moved, by kids or adults playing, or by the people responsible for cutting grass; UNBELIEVABLE.

(8) Mr. Whitmore, you are now 81 years of age. You were a young man of 49 years of age when this ordeal happened. When you think about your son being older than you at the time of his kidnapping, how does it make you feel?

(8a) It really breaks my heart, I was only 49 at that time and I am now 82 years old. Zulu is 53 now; older than I was. He never got the chance to live to the fullest and attain that elusive "American Dream".

9) Few people are aware of the family friend who turned into a snitch for the DA. Do you have any idea how this may have happened? Can you tell us something about this man? Did you ever see him afterwards?

(9a) Samuel Harris is his name, he have spent nights at my house, ate my food; he and my son Raymond was the best of friends. I saw him just a few times after that. The first time he came to my house I told him under no uncertain terms was he ever to be caught on my property again, he says that they threaten him into framing Zulu, but he haven’t did anything to correct this. He now lives in Denver I think.

(10) What happens to a father who sees his innocent son disappearing behind bars in a harsh U.S. system? Has it changed your view on life and your behavior in general? Do you feel Louisiana needs to change its judicial and parole system and if so how?

(10a) This is a devastating reality for a parent to live with, always thinking what you could have done to make things better. Living with the fact that he is innocent grips my heart like a vice. Angola was one of the bloodiest prisons in the United States, and just knowing he was around that type of violence left me with many sleepless nights. Louisiana system of parole need to be changed so that lifers at some point can make parole, and there must be solid evidence to send someone off to prison for life. Recently my son was denied parole because he has a life sentence but his sentence carries parole after 20 years. Even though he’s innocent I would rather have him back on parole than not at all. Zulu have now been incarcerated for 33 years for nothing, now how do you think a father should feel??

(11) Do you think Louisiana needs to change it’s judicial and parole system and if so, how?

(11a) I think the parole and pardon boards should be made up of the people from the communities where that person going before the board from each of the 64 parishes should have a equal number of people. R/W to make that decision. Because as it is now, you have ex judges, policeman and one or two members o the victim rights group on the parole and pardon board, and no one should be denied on the nature of the crime because that will never change, but people do.

(12) Did people from the parole department ever visit your home regarding Zulu’s possible release? Did the victim of the armed robbery ever have a problem with Zulu’s possible parole?

(12a) Yes, they did. I think it was back in 1999, the people from the parole board wanted to know and inspect where Zulu would live if he were paroled. I let them know that he had a place to live and a job waiting on him, and they talked to the victim’s wife who didn’t have any problem with Zulu being paroled.

(13) Despite your age you are visiting your son on a regular basis. You also visited Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox of the Angola 3; how did you feel about your son being granted membership of the BPP by Herman Wallace in 1975? Has your view changed over the years?

(13a) I visit Zulu as often as possible, but right now I haven’t visited in a few month because Zulu is still in the disciplinary unit at camp J, and visiting him in that unit is horrible. The room is very small with no water, bathrooms and to go you must have the guard come out and open the door, and they do not come right away. I have experienced this Zulu understands, but during the years I have met Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace of the Angola Three (3) who I accept as family. It was no surprise when Zulu told me that Herman Wallace, Albert King, and others made him a member of the Angola Chapter of the Black Panther Party. I remember Zulu’s mother saying that Kenny is a black panther because of his activism in the community; I love my son.

(14) Now that Zulu is fighting like Herman and Albert do, do you see your son coming home?

(14a) I have always been a religious person and I know this kind of injustice can’t continue without God intervening on the behalf of Zulu, Albert, and Herman; and they will never give up the fight for their freedom. I pray for justice.

(15) How did the framing of your son Zulu affect the whole family life?

(15a) My whole family have been devastated by this hateful sick racist act that have put their brother in the worse prison in America for no other reason than he was dared to speak out against the injustice, police brutality taking place around him. This whole mess affected my youngest child Sheila more than the other because Zulu was her big brother who took time out with her, bought her bicycles and stuff that brothers do, and more than anyone else, she is there for him.

(16) Would you like to leave any final comments or make a general or personal statement?

(16a) I would like to personally thank each and everyone who have taken it upon them to join my son in this very difficult fight in proving his innocence. You all have stepped forward where many have chosen to remain silent. To Anja, Erin, Pam, Judith and the people Zulu calls his UK Family; Thank you, Thank you, and to those that I may be forgetting, please forgive me and may God have a blessing upon your life.

Struggle is Like a Second Skin: Robert King Wilkerson on Kenneth “Zulu” Whitmore: interview

2009-08-03T11:49:00.000-07:00

By Kari Lydersen

The Angola Three – Robert King Wilkerson, Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace – have gotten much attention for their activism and the way they were scapegoated by a racist, archaic southern justice system. But they point out that their cases are hardly unique – there are many others in Angola – the infamous Louisiana prison known as “The Farm” -- also targeted for speaking and acting out against the system.

Kenneth “Zulu” Whitmore was arrested in 1975 for robbing a shoe store. The charges were dropped, but while he was in custody prosecutors decided to name him a suspect in the 1973 armed robbery and murder of the ex-mayor of Zachary, La., a small town not far from Angola. Whitmore says the District Attorney wanted him to make a deal and testify against another suspect in exchange for a short prison term.

“The DA told me outright, you are going to take the stand against this guy and say what I have prepared in that confession for y’all,” says Whitmore, who has now been in Angola for 29 years. “And I am going to give you five years. You will not go to Angola, and you will be out in two and a half. I told him I don’t have any idea what you are talking about. He said, ‘I am the district attorney and my word is three against yours. I can do what I want to you. Now help me get this guy or I will send you to Angola for the rest of your life.’ I refused and they immediately started beating me with sticks.”

The DA made good on his promise. Whitmore was convicted of second degree murder, based largely on a supposed confession which he and his supporters say was fake, as described below. In 1977 he was sentenced to life and 99 years in prison.

A pre-sentence investigation report described Whitmore as having an extensive juvenile record, a total fabrication as evidenced when Whitmore obtained an affadavit from the juvenile court showing he had no record.

“This was to show I have been a fuck up all my life since age 12 and that I am unrehabilitable,” said Whitmore.

The falsified juvenile record is one of the things Whitmore hopes will ultimately free him. He also notes that at the time he was sentenced, state law said someone sentenced to life for second degree murder could be eligible for parole after 20 years. That policy was later changed, which Whitmore argues violates the ex post facto law protecting people from retroactive changes to legal consequences. He currently has no lawyer to help him make these arguments, though he hopes to raise money to hire one.

“This is just how this racist, corrupt, irreparable system is,” he said. “My writ of habeas corpus won’t be denied because my claim lacks merit. It will be denied because I am a political and economic prisoner. Simply put, I cannot retain counsel to get out of prison.”

When Whitmore was sent to Angola in 1978, he met King and Woodfox of the Angola Three. He had met Wallace previously, during a 1973 stint in the Baton Rouge jail for a robbery charge which was later dropped. Wallace planted the seed of political activism then, which continued to grow in Whitmore’s mind. At Angola he became close friends with Woodfox and King, and later reunited with Wallace, and he joined the Black Panther Party.

“Once in the cage a Big Brother stopped and spoke to me,” he said. “He told me his name was King, and went on to explain to me that the tier was organized in a way to benefit everyone and explained to me what was expected of me if I decided to remain on the tier” – which was known as the “militant tier.”

Today King is a free man, released in 2001. He continues working for the freedom of Wallace, Woodfox and Whitmore, among others. Here he talks about Whitmore’s struggle.

Q: How did Zulu get connected with the Angola Three?

A: Herman (Wallace) was going to trial in Baton Rouge parish at the time Zulu was arrested (in 1973) – he met Herman in a holding cell. A relationship developed. Zulu went back out in the community in the mid-1970s, trying to organize the community. That was in
Zachary – a little town where it’s like you’re going back into the past.
Zulu became a target when he became outspoken about some things going on in the community.
As a result of that he was arrested on a charge, and then later charged with another crime while being held. That was around 1977. He got caught up in the same thing so many other people got caught up in – Zulu wasn’t really any exception, it was a nationwide conspiracy to squelch dissent wherever it was. When you’re in custody, you’re already in the belly of the beast – all they needed to do was plant evidence. If they really wanted to mess you up good, it was easy -- Albert’s and Herman’s cases, mine, there are so many more. Lots of people are still in prison as a result of being targeted and really not realizing they were targeted. There was a green light from J. Edgar Hoover that if you were militant, non-comformist, “incorrigible,” they would come after you. They came after you with a vengeance because they felt you would be a threat in the future. They did this with the Black Panther Party and individuals who were just sympathizers, who were in the struggle.

Q: And Zulu was framed…?

A: If you read the alleged confession they attributed to him and if you read the court transcripts of the trial where you hear his answers to their questions, you would know there’s no way possible that the confession was his. I got intrigued by reading the legal documents for the drama. When Zulu entered the drama, (testifying in court), it’s almost like he has a speech impediment – his dialect and vernacular was indistinguishable – he was the epitome of this thing they call “ebonics.” He didn’t have a vocabulary above the fourth grade, at the time. Then the statement that implicated Zulu was so articulate and the vernacular was perfect, you don’t have to be an expert to know it was a fake. If he had had a linguistics expert as a witness, Zulu wouldn’t be in prison right now.

Q: How have things changed politically or in the justice system since Zulu was convicted? Does this figure into his case or his chances for getting out?

A: It’s no better, if anything it’s worse. At one time if you had a life sentence, you could get out of Angola . Now 90 to 95 percent of people will die in Angola . Now if you have a life sentence, life means life. And life in Angola means death -- is there any difference? There is psychological torture and physical torture. Angola has both. The psychological trauma is worse.
At one time the maximum for armed robbery was three years. When Zulu got there, the (maximum sentence allowed under the) law had changed from 30 to 66 to 99 years. They put laws in place that would keep people permanently in prison.

Q: Would you say Zulu has been a leader in prison?

A: Yes, the entire time. He’s always there helping others with legal work. He’s learning more and more, you couldn’t begin to appreciate the progress he’s made – before he had a speech impediment and he couldn’t really articulate ideas -- now he’s always learning and he’s passing his knowledge on. He said people call him Red Cross and come to him with their problems. He is very well regarded among prisoners, he’s respected as a prisoner with principles. I’m sorry to say some prisoners don’t have principles. He’s among one of the few who maintain principles. He’s always been quiet, but when I was at Camp J I came back and he had been on his tier with Woodfox, and he was Woodfox’s number one support. Zulu and Albert were real close. Zulu and I got real close too. I worked on Zulu’s legal case before I worked on my own or anyone else’s.

Q: Is he still targeted by guards or other powers that be in prison?

A: His affiliation has placed a stamp on him – like I was he’s been relegated to be in CCR or Camp J or some type of closed, restricted area, the whole time he’s there. I think this is because of his affiliation with the Angola Three. The administration is aware of Zulu’s potential. Same with Roy Hollingsworth – they have been targeting Roy and Zulu for his affiliation with Roy .

Q: What do you think his chances are, since he’s representing himself?

A: They appoint you a lawyer, but it’s like a roll of the dice. He could be incompetent. He could be a competent lawyer, but still he could not be competent for you, not aggressively dealing with your case. He could have good intentions, but not be knowledgeable. Or he may not be aggressive enough to command people’s respect. Then there’s the jury and the prosecutor. They tell you the jury decides your fate, but the jury is influenced by the DA.

Zulu was targeted – he’s a victim. Morally he should be out; legally he’s a slave- the legal system has made him a slave, lock stock and barrel. I think (his release) could happen with this campaign that is growing. And other campaigns. I think more people are speaking out. The focus is definitely there by the supporters. People around the country are consumed by the latest case, the San Francisco 8. The “Legacy of Torture” campaign, a film being shown around the US and Canada in conjunction with the Black Panther film, films about Mumia. Work around political prisoners is really picking up. He’s optimistic and I am too that he could be released.

Q: If he does get out, do you see Zulu being a strong activist and positive force in the community?

A: I believe strongly that Zulu understands the nature of the beast. He understands that there’s really no alternative. Struggle becomes like wearing a second skin. You aren’t going to come out of your skin. It goes on. Zulu has the volition to do so. He’s been there. He’s developed a sensitivity that people develop in prison – a quiet respect for life – you don’t have to go to prison to do this, but being in prison you become more reflective. Seeing your life flash by you on a daily basis, seconds seem like hours. You learn to appreciate and internalize life a little more. Zulu is one of those who will continue to do what’s necessary, to speak out. I do believe he will.

For more information, visit:
WWW.ANGOLA3.ORG or contact:
Ann Karkness at harkness.ann at gmail.com
Robert King Wilkerson at kingsfreelines at gmail.com

Greetings to my friends and supporters!

2009-08-03T11:46:00.000-07:00

This message does not concern my comrades Robert King, Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace of the Angola 3, but the plight of all political prisoners, as well as the poor and oppressed. As Leonard Peltier recently expressed: there should be a degree one could receive for have expertise on doing prison time. My name would be Doctor Zulu Wit-More instead of Whitmore, with almost 33 years experience in changing my depression and despair into giving my fellow inmates strength and hope and trying to make them smile.

During my journey I have prevented guys from hurting themselves, kept some from going insane and taught them the principles of the Black Panther Party. I encouraged fellow inmates to continue their education, helped them to research their cases, gave them insight into prison rules and set up’s by prison guards. But above all I encouraged them to fight for their rights, as I am doing for my self, all of this while being held innocently in solitary confinement for over 29 years.

My struggle has been a quite but ongoing one. On sound advice of my comrades King, Wallace and Woodfox I fought my struggle in the shadows, throwing pebble after pebble into the ocean of the US injustice system. I have been shedding light on the silent, but continuous genocide of the poor and minorities of the US population. Just to name a few: the recent and painful reminder of the brutal torture and murder of James Byrd in Texas, the hideous and brutal hate crime perpetrated against Megan Williams in Charleston, West Virginia, the injustice of the Jena 6 in Jena, LA, the ordeal Wilson in Atlanta went through, the current injustice The San Francisco 8 are facing and many, many more.

After I decided the time had come to throw stones I stepped out of the shadows into a visible struggle, Prison Administration immediately set me up and placed me I the dungeon for four months, followed by a stay in the most punitative camp in the whole of Louisiana: Camp J. I am now ready to throw bricks, as soon as donations will allow me to do so.

Like the struggle of the Angola 3, mine is not just about Zulu. It is about a racist and oppressive system, about our struggle to survive within the legalized injustice that inflicts the minorities and poor part of US population, about the government’s attempts to keep us poor, powerless and incarcerated. The legacy of E. J. Hoover’s COINTELPRO is still very much alive: “Frame them and keep them locked down forever”. The 19th Judicial District proved it again by denying Herman Wallace’s release with one single line after the Magistrate judge concluded Herman should not have been tried AT ALL! (For more information visit: www.angola3.org)

The common man in this country is still being exploited, abused and victimised in America’s quest to destroy us in exchange of global power, wealth and influence. The Bush Administration’s response on Katrina proves that once more.

Because of my willingness as a teenager to stand up and speak for those who were maltreated and abused, I was innocently framed for the murder of an influential wealthy KKK member, the ex major of Zachary. The only evidence was a messed up tape and a rusty bucket; both did not have anything to do with the case.

After centuries of exploitation during slavery the rights of basic needs, such as proper housing, food, education and access to what every citizen of this country has access to, is still being denied to the less fortunate. The right to pursue freedom and happiness as written in our constitution has become a damn right struggle for those who belong to a minority in the USA. I have been fighting this kind of injustice since I was a teenager and I will continue doing so till I join my ancestors in the spirit world.

Lots of people are struggling with the A3 and me for all who have been victims of a failing system. Every attempt to point out and criticise the failures of our legal system meets utmost denial and harsh measurements to suppress the truth.

I therefore ask you, THE PEOPLE, to stand with me and support my fight to expose decades, if not centuries of ongoing injustice within the USA. I ask you to support me in any way you can, whether morally by writing me and/or, if possible, financially to obtain an attorney, to hire investigators to locate and purchase documents that will solidify my innocence. It also would allow our coordinator Anja de Graaff to maintain the needs of our info centre. Help me to set me free, so I will be able to join my comrade Robert King in his quest to shine light upon the USA failing legal system and the Louisiana judicial system in particular.
Those who can’t contribute on a monetary basis I ask to help get the word out by passing flyers, pamphlets etc and help committee members to organize events around my situation.

My friends and supporters, remember: ONLY through action and involvement can we bring
CHANGE.

For more information or to obtain flyers you can contact the coordinator of the Dutch Zulu movement Anja de Graaff at: agdegraaff at casema.nl.
For more background information about my case, please visit www.myspace.com/awhw

Peace and one love, Zulu.

Obama addresses the attendees of NAACP's convention

2009-08-03T11:40:00.000-07:00

I truly feel that the President's speech was the most forthright speech on the racial disparities facing our nation he's ever given.

He talked about how African Americans are disproportionately unemployed and imprisoned, facing foreclosure and limited access to healthcare: "African Americans are out of work more than just about anybody else.....We know that even as spiraling health care costs crush families of all races, African Americans are more likely to suffer from a host of diseases but less likely to own health insurance than just about anybody else. We know that even as we imprison more people of all races than any nation in the world, an African American child is roughly five times as likely as a white child to see the inside of a prison."

He called upon the country to understand that "the pain of discrimination is still felt in America."

President Obama's speech touched on the history of the NAACP, the courageous men and women who led the way for him to break the color barrier that has existed for hundreds of years in the White House.

He reiterated to those in attendance the same challenge he issued to every citizen on Inauguration Day — for every person to do their part for a better America.

However, his speech was clear on the fact that personal responsibility will not remove the barriers that a legacy of racism and exclusion has left for millions of African Americans. And that for every person to realize the American Dream, we must work to eliminate discrimination and continue to fight for civil rights for all.

Thank you for standing with us.

Sincerely, Zulu

President Obama promises to close Guantanamo, but a court proceeding in Louisiana exposes brutality closer to home

2009-08-03T11:32:00.000-07:00

by Jordan Flaherty / January 27th, 2009 (Leftturm)

The torture of prisoners in US custody is not only found in military prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo. If President Obama is serious about ending US support for torture, he can start here in Louisiana.

The Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola is already notorious for a range of offenses, including keeping former Black Panthers Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox, in solitary for over 36 years- as well as Kenny Zulu Whitmore - in solitary for over 30 years. Now a death penalty trial in St. Francisville, Louisiana has exposed widespread and systemic abuse at the prison. Even in the context of eight years of the Bush administration, the behavior documented at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola stands out both for its brutality and for the significant evidence that it was condoned and encouraged from the very top of the chain of command.

In a remarkable hearing that explored torture practices at Angola, twenty-five inmates testified last summer to facing overwhelming violence in the aftermath of an escape attempt at the prison nearly a decade ago. These twenty-five inmates — who were not involved in the escape attempt — testified to being kicked, punched, beaten with batons and with fists, stepped on, left naked in a freezing cell, and threatened that they would be killed. They were threatened by guards that they would be sexually assaulted with batons. They were forced to urinate and defecate on themselves. They were bloodied, had teeth knocked out, were beaten until they lost control of bodily functions, and beaten until they signed statements or confessions presented to them by prison officials. One inmate had a broken jaw, and another was placed in solitary confinement for eight years.

While prison officials deny the policy of abuse, the range of prisoners who gave statements, in addition to medical records and other evidence introduced at the trial, present a powerful argument that abuse is a standard policy at the prison. Several of the prisoners received $7,000 when the state agreed to settle, without admitting liability, two civil rights lawsuits filed by 13 inmates. The inmates will have to spend that money behind bars — more than 90% of Angola’s prisoners are expected to die behind its walls.

Systemic Violence

During the attempted escape at Angola, in which one guard was killed and two were taken hostage, a team of officers — including Angola warden Burl Cain — rushed in and began shooting, killing one inmate, Joel Durham, and wounding another, David Mathis.
The prison has no official guidelines for what should happen during escape attempts or other crises, a policy that seems designed to encourage the violent treatment documented in this case. Richard Stalder, at that time the secretary of the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections, was also at the prison at the time. Yet despite — or because of — the presence of the prison warden and head of corrections for the state, guards were given free hand to engage in violent retribution. Cain later told a reporter after the shooting that Angola’s policy was not to negotiate, saying, ”That’s a message all the inmates know. They just forgot it. And now they know it again.” .

Five prisoners — including Mathis — were charged with murder, and currently are on trial, facing the death penalty — partially based on testimony from other inmates that was obtained through beatings and torture. Mathis is represented by civil rights attorneys Jim Boren (who also represented one of the Jena Six youths) and Rachel Connor, with assistance from Nola Investigates, an investigative firm in New Orleans that specializes in defense for capital cases.
The St. Francisville hearing was requested by Mathis’ defense counsel to demonstrate that, in the climate of violence and abuse, inmates were forced to sign statements through torture, and therefore those statements should be inadmissible. 20th Judicial District Judge George H. Ware Jr. ruled that the documented torture and abuse was not relevant. However, the behavior documented in the hearing not only raises strong doubts about the cases against the Angola Five, but it also shows that violence against inmates has become standard procedure at the prison.
The hearing shows a pattern of systemic abuse so open and regular, it defies the traditional excuse of bad apples. Inmate Doyle Billiot testified to being threatened with death by the guards, “What’s not to be afraid of? Got all these security guards coming around you everyday looking at you sideways, crazy and stuff. Don’t know what’s on their mind, especially when they threaten to kill you.” Another inmate, Robert Carley testified that a false confession was beaten out of him. “I was afraid,” he said. “I felt that if I didn’t go in there and tell them something, I would die.”
Inmate Kenneth “Geronimo” Edwards testified that the guards “beat us half to death.” He also testified that guards threatened to sexually assault him with a baton, saying, “that’s a big black . . . say you want it.” Later, Edwards says, the guards, “put me in my cell. They took all my clothes. Took my jumpsuit. Took all the sheets, everything out the cell, and put me in the cell buck-naked . . . It was cold in the cell. They opened the windows and turned the blowers on.” At least a dozen other inmates also testified to receiving the same beatings, assault, threats of sexual violence, and “freezing treatment.” .

Some guards at the prison treated the abuse as a game. Inmate Brian Johns testified at the hearing that, “one of the guards was hitting us all in the head. Said he liked the sound of the drums — the drumming sound that — from hitting us in the head with the stick.” .

Solitary Confinement

Two of Angola’s most famous residents, political prisoners Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox, (and alongside of them Kenny Zulu Whitmore) have become the primary example of another form of abuse common at Angola — the use of solitary confinement as punishment for political views. The two have now each spent more than 36 years in solitary, despite the fact that a judge recently overturned Woodfox’s conviction (prison authorities continue to hold Woodfox and have announced plans to retry him). Woodfox and Wallace — who together with former prisoner King Wilkerson are known as the Angola Three — have filed a civil suit against Angola, arguing that their confinement has violated both their 8th amendment rights against cruel and unusual punishment and 4th amendment right to due process. .

Recent statements by Angola warden Burl Cain makes clear that Woodfox and Wallace are being punished for their political views. At a recent deposition, attorneys for Woodfox asked Cain, “Lets just for the sake of argument assume, if you can, that he is not guilty of the murder of Brent Miller.” Cain responded, “Okay. I would still keep him in (solitary) . . . I still know that he is still trying to practice Black Pantherism, and I still would not want him walking around my prison because he would organize the young new inmates. I would have me all kind of problems, more than I could stand, and I would have the blacks chasing after them . . . He has to stay in a cell while he’s at Angola.”

In addition to Cain’s comments, Louisiana Attorney General James “Buddy” Caldwell has said the case against the Angola Three is personal to him. Statements like this indicate that this vigilante attitude not only pervades New Orleans’ criminal justice system, but that the problem comes from the very top.

The problem is not limited to Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola — similar stories can be found in prisons across the US. But from the abandonment of prisoners in Orleans Parish Prison during Katrina to the case of the Jena Six, Louisiana’s criminal justice system, which has the highest incarceration rate in the world, often seems to be functioning under plantation-style justice. Most recently, journalist A.C. Thompson, in an investigation of post-Katrina killings, found evidence that the New Orleans police department supported vigilante attacks against Black residents of New Orleans after Katrina. .

Torture and abuse is illegal under both US law — including the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment — and international treaties that the US is signatory to, from the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ratified in 1992). Despite the laws and treaties, US prison guards have rarely been held accountable to these standards. .

Once we say that abuse or torture is ok against prisoners, the next step is for it to be used in the wider population. A recent petition for administrative remedies filed by Herman Wallace states, “If Guantanamo Bay has been a national embarrassment and symbol of the U.S. government’s relation to charges, trials and torture, then what is being done to the Angola 3 . . . is what we are to expect if we fail to act quickly . . . The government tries out it’s torture techniques on prisoners in the U.S. — just far enough to see how society will react. It doesn’t take long before they unleash their techniques on society as a whole.” If we don’t stand up against this abuse now, it will only spread.

Despite the hearings, civil suits, and other documentation, the guards who performed the acts documented in the hearing on torture at Angola remain unpunished, and the system that designed it remains in place. In fact, many of the guards have been promoted, and remain in supervisory capacity over the same inmates they were documented to have beaten mercilessly. Warden Burl Cain still oversees Angola. Meanwhile, the trial of the Angola Five is moving forward, and those with the power to change the pattern of abuse at Angola remain silent. .

* Research assistance for this article by Emily Ratner.

Jordan Flaherty is a journalist based in New Orleans, and an editor of Left Turn Magazine. He was the first writer to bring the story of the Jena Six to a national audience and his reporting on post-Katrina New Orleans has been published and broadcast in outlets including Die Zeit (in Germany), Clarin (in Argentina), Al-Jazeera, TeleSur, and Democracy Now!. He can be reached at neworleans@leftturn.org. Read other articles by Jordan, or visit Jordan's website. .

Interview with Roy Hollingsworth by Zulu Whitmore

2009-08-01T11:43:00.000-07:00

This interview is being conducted at Camp J’s disciplinary unit, Angola by Zulu Whitmore on a cool Monday morning, November 25th 2007, regarding the adverse ruling of J.D.C judge Mike Erwin in the criminal case of Herman “Hooks” Wallace.

Question
Brother, how are you holding up under our present circumstances and conditions? State your name fro the record, my brother.

Answer
My name is Roy Hollingsworth # 82716 and I am taking this madness one day at the time.

Question
Roy, how long have you known Herman Wallace?

Answer
I first heard of hooks (Herman) when I arrived here at Angola in 1973, after the death of the guard 35 years ago now. And I have lived in CCR Solitary Confinement together with Hooks, Albert, you and King since 1998. King went home in 2001.

Question
What kind of person is Herman and what do you think of him?

Answer
Being around Hooks and you guys was the best thing that happened to me since I have been in Angola – apart from my wish to be going home of course-. Herman is a great human being.

Question
What do you think of the long overdue ruling in Herman Wallace’s criminal case by the 19th Judicial district court judge Mike Erwin?

Answer
Man, Zulu, where is the justice in the land of democracy and equality for all???!!! It is for “all who can buy it”. Zulu, we all know Hooks’ innocence was proven at his evidentiary hearing over a year ago after it had become clear a snitch named Hezekiah Brown was paid a carton of cigarettes a week and a promise of freedom by helping to frame Hooks for the murder of this guard. The magistrate judge in her recommendation for a new trial cited the inconsistency in the snitches testimony. She said Hooks should never have tried on that charge. Now, what I think about judge Mike Erwin adverse ruling is: that bastard needs to be disbarred from ever being a judge again in this country. Hooks could not have said it any better “This is a classic case of prosecutional misconduct”.

Question
Roy, how does this miscarriage of justice affect you and other guys here in Angola?

Answer
Man, Zulu, that kind of injustice should have had a negative effect on the tax payers who pay judge Erwin’s salary, because if he can ignore the laws of this state in Hooks’ case, it will be me today and you tomorrow.

Question
So, the ruling in Herman’s case, who has a highly recommended attorney named Nick Trenticosta, is viewed negatively by dudes on your unit?

Answer
Zulu, about 95 % of the guys in this prison is indigent. We must fight our court cases pro se. So the ruling in Hooks’ case says to the rest of us that we don’t stand a chance representing ourselves in the Louisiana Judicial system. This ruling is like a deathblow to prisoners and an insult to tax paying public. I have lost the little faith I did have in this system.

Question
Roy, how is the ruling in the Angola 3 civil case on long term cell confinement viewed by guys here at amp J? A 19th JDC commissioner has ruled in their favour, saying it IS a cruel and unusual punishment for the DOC. They have held them in solitary confinement for over 35 years now, though King Wilkerson is on the streets now.

Answer
Guys on my unit and others whom I have talked with here at Camp J disciplinary unit (which is single cell confinement) view the commissioner favourable decision in the light of the recent ruling in Hooks criminal case. So everyone is on an “I will wait until after the trial to get excited”.
Question
Why is that Roy?

Answer
Well, a jury could come right along in this trial and say the stated did nothing wrong – as those racist, all-white juries have done in a lot of other cases. I know you remember what a white jury just did in the Florida boot camp case, where 6 or 7 racist pigs were caught on their security camera, beating up a young brother to death. They acquitted them caught on camera for the world the world to see, and they GOT acquitted!! So we will see once the A3 case goes on trial.

Question
Any final thoughts or anything you would like to say?

Answer
Yes! I like to say that Hooks is a great human being; he is well liked and respected throughout this whole prison. Hooks, Woodfox, King and you have done more to educate guys and to stop the rape and the violence in this prison than the administration it self. Look at me! The influences you guys have had in the changes I have made in my life are huge. I have nothing but love for that old warrior and I wish him the best outcome in both his criminal and civil case.

Final
Thanks Roy, for spending your precious yard time sharing your thoughts with me on this serious matter. You still have some time to get you some running in, my brother. Take care, keep your head up and your eyes open by all means.

Roy Hollingsworth is a close friend of the A3.

Interview with Kenny Zulu Whitmore by Erin Howley

2009-08-01T11:14:00.000-07:00

I’m wondering if you could tell me a little more about why you have decided to come into view in terms of the BPP/A3 at this point in time? Is it because Herman and Albert’s cases are growing in force and support? Have you been waiting for a time when you feel you have enough support on the outside?

My decision is based upon the fact that we knew back in the 1970’s and 80’s mostly that the administration – Angola and the F.B.I. was, well had an all out war against members of the Angola chapter of the BPP. Panthers were being set up for vicious attacks by the guards, set up on contraband charges, murdered, and framed for murder, as in the case with Herman and Albert. Robert King Wilkerson “King” wasn’t even at Angola when the guard was killed, but yet he was connected to the guard’s death by the administration and their only reason for doing so was because he was a Panther. And for this reason everyone became shadows. But now that the truth is out about the guard’s death back in the 70’s I along with other Panthers decided that it was time to step out and claim my rightful position in the struggle. And no, I have never and will never underestimate the viciousness of these people to still try to carry out their attacks, as in my present situation here in the dungeon. No doubt I know that my statement was read by the administration here in what use to be CCR/TU. Just weeks later I, along with Roy Hollingsworth, was set up on a contraband charge. Other shit storms might come my way, but as in any struggle there will always be some kind of repression from authority. Do I regret my decision? No, not one bit. I knew that Angola authority knew of my connection to A3 and BPP. For this is the real reason why I am continued to be held in CCR, Solitary Confinement, because of my ties to A3 and BPP. What I am doing is trying to get other brothers to follow my lead.

Yes, Albert [Woodfox] and Hooks´ [Herman Wallace] case played a big part in my decision to step out of the shadows. As I said the truth is now out. A3 are now in a strong position support wise and I do feel like they are in the position to help me get the support that I need, not that the A3 owe me anything. Hooks will be free soon. Albert and my case are still pending in court and I feel that with what I have in court now is my time to build the support that I need around my case because the equally political nature of it.

You said that your case is in the Middle District Court, and that they are trying to dismiss your petition. What is the petition about/for exactly?

My petition in the U.S. Middle District Court was this: I filed a suit in 1983, challenging the LA Parole board and Department of Corrections for not allowing me to go before a parole board until my life sentence is fixed to a number of years. They are violating the ex post facto clauses of the U.S. and LA constitution. I was seeking a declaratory injunctive relief specifically to have my master prison record to reflect that I am entitled to a parole hearing and to enjoin the parole board from denying me that right. See I was sentenced to life in prison without the benefit of parole, probation, or suspension of sentence for a period of twenty years. I am arguing that my sentence is fixed at 20 year for parole. So my master prison record should reflect that I have a 20 year sentence. The LA legislature in 1979 retroactively took away parole for lifers but they cannot make or pass laws that will increase my sentence after the fact. Now they have guys that is getting out of prison on this very same issue, but all of them had attorneys to fight their case in court. What it is with LA is they will not let a petition filed by a prisoner win. A good example, Robert King had filed his case in court himself but was getting denied. As soon as he got an attorney he went home on the very same issue he had gotten denied on. My case is on www.myspace.com/awhw. I will have the U.S. M.D.C. decision on there soon for anyone who is interested in justice to peep out. What the Middle District Court is saying is that I should file my case in the trial court.

What is the the status of your legal case?

Well right now the administration have not made any more moves on me since the set of contraband, well except the one confrontation that Roy and I had with these people shaking down our cells. And they felt the need to separate us by sending Roy Hollingsworth to Camp J disciplinary Unit in March. I think the incident had more to do with racism than anything because on March 24 and 25 ’07 me, Roy, Herman and Albert had a visit together with Judith and Kari who happen to be white and these 1707 minded racist don’t think white women should be visiting with us (N) criminal, their way of thinking. I think Herman and Albert cell were hit around that same time. So, shit is just suspect around here right now, but I know at Camp J it will be worse.

What has it meant to be in the “shadows” and what does it mean to “come out of the shadows”.

Well in the shadows you work under ground and you are not visible to the public, nor the administration. You do not speak out, you pass on information to the ones above ground. As I did with Hooks, King, and Albert. Coming out of the shadow means you yourself can speak out report facts to other members, media, etc. You are out front. People that knew you were active, now know you are connected.

Have there been repercussions from Angola administration that you didn’t expect?

As I have already said I would be crazy not to think there wouldn’t be some kind of repression from the authority in any struggle regardless of its magnitude. There will be some kind of sacrifice. Look at what is happening in Iraq. Those Iraqi are making the ultimate sacrifice everyday for their people. In my transition I am saying Long Live A3 BPP 4Life.

How was it that King and Albert and Herman were more openly visible than you?

It was Albert and Herman who opened the chapter of the Black Panther Party here in Angola, so of course there were no way for them to be nothing but visible. King came to Angola a little later, but he was already targeted as a BP and place in solitary “CCR” as soon as he got to Angola where Albert and Herman were already. It was because member of the BPP was being targeted by the administration and the F.B.I. So my comrades couldn’t be anything else but visible.

What has your action/statement meant for the culture of Angola now? Does this have an impact on others inside?

I think my statement has security saying yes, we was right all along to keep him in solitary confinement with the others, King, Herman, and Albert. As for the other in the shadows, yes it does have an impact on them. Their decision to come out or stay in the shadows. They’re watching to see what security will do because they know it was because of my “out of the shadows” statement that Roy and I was set up for contraband and everyone is watching. So I guess I will say yes my statement is having an impact.

Was and is your affiliation or membership with the BPP known by other incarcerated men inside? How have others reacted to you making a statement, or do people know? Do they care?

As I just said, others are watching, so of course other members knew I was a member, maybe not all. But whenever one of us out of the CCR goes on call out, we would have to pass on information and I don’t think that kind of information was going to non members. And if they’re Panthers they care.

Is the BPP still a topic of discussion inside Angola?

The BPP will always be a topic of discussion inside or outside of Angola. A lot of younger guys here now hear about how fucked up it was in here with the rape, killing, etc. and BPP come up often especially the names of Herman, Albert because they was in general population and then King and my name because CCR was the BPP headquarter, and in many ways guys still see it that way.

Do you think there is an element of performance in coming out of the shadows? What I mean is, in what way is this act symbolic for you, and what is it symbolic of?

Well, I do not see what I did as a performance nor an act. This wasn’t part of a play or an opera of some kind. But I will say it is symbolic in the fact that we are still standing, still struggling, still educating, teaching moral principle. It says the world now know the murder was a frame up. Its says I am out of the shadows and more will follow. It says that I am a Muslim and a Black Panther and I am not now, nor have I ever been afraid to openly say that I am a Panther and that we are large in number. And we will recruit these young brothers in Angola to help restore their moral principles and dignity which is lacking in Angola right now.

Does being part of the BPP still hold an element of mystique or power? If so, how has that caused the prison admin to treat you differently?

The BPP will always hold an element of mystique and power because when one think of the BPP you get the mental imagine brothers protecting the community from the murderous rage of the cops and brothers and sisters setting up social programs in the community. As far as the administration is concerned, fuck them. They are doing to do what they do. A coward dies a thousand deaths, a warrior dies only once.

Does being with the A3/BPP allow you to create an image of yourself that wouldn’t be possible if you weren’t part of otherwise? Do guys inside recognize the A3? What kind of power does the A3/BPP have in Angola today?

I would say yes because A3/BPP is well known throughout the world right now. But I have always been a part of BPP. My coming out of the shadow just solidify my connection with my comrades. Yes guys inside recognize the A3. A3/BPP have BIG RESPECT here in Angola. Guys in here refer to Herman as Mr. Hooks and Mr. Woodfox. They refer to me as Zulu because of my youthful appearance, but for those reasons this is why we are still being held in solitary confinement.

Does coming out of the shadows put you in a position to change things inside Angola? Or is this something that is more so going to help you get out of Angola? What changes are you aiming to create?

As I have stated, there are a real need for recruitment with the large number of young brothers in Angola and the lack of moral conduct and dignity among these young brothers. There is a need for older Panthers to come out of the shadow and teach, since the truth is now out now is the time to be visible. Sure the Admin. will be pissed off but if brothers start to get transferred to out camps, lockdowns, cellblock and Camp-J there will be other panthers in the open struggling for dignity and in time we’ll be able to turn places like Camp-J into Panthers strong holds. Those would be changes I would like to see but of course there is others to consider…My aim is to show other brothers in the shadows that now is the time to come out and pull some of these younger guys into the BPP. A lot of them is ready for it. I am in contact with some of them here in Camp J. And yes I do hope I can generate enough support to get out of Angola. I have labored long and hard alone for my physical freedom. The system will not let me win alone. I need support to get out of Angola so that I can lend my support to the struggle in the community because today police brutality and drug activity in the community is worse now than it was when I was out there and I know I can contribute.

If people want to support you, how should they do that? If donations are a kind of support you are requesting, how and where should people send money to?

Well, soon an account will being set up where people can donate tax deductable funds into my account. The account information will appear on myspace soon. For now I can receive money sent to:
Cashiers Office
Louisiana State Prison
Angola, LA 70712
USA
For Kenny Zulu Whitmore
(see sidebar for more directions to send money to Zulu)

Statement in Strong Support, by Judith Katz 2007

2009-08-01T11:11:00.000-07:00

STATEMENT IN STRONG SUPPORT OF FREEDOM FOR MY BROTHER KENNY ZULU WHITMORE
BY JUDITH KATZ
2007

I met Kenny for the first time five years ago through my friendship with the Angola 3, who have suffered the longest documented solitary confinement in American history. I went to visit them in the Closed Cell Restricted unit of Angola State Penitentiary in Louisiana. On that day, Zulu was one of the prisoners allowed “contact visits” in the meeting area. Despite the heavy chains on his ankles, I sensed his lightness and gentility. He showed his visitors tremendous affection and care.

Since then Kenny and I have been in correspondence by regular mail. Over the years, he has sent me so many beautiful letters and cards which always reflect a true understanding of my communications. His responses are sensitive, thoughtful and often with a humorous edge.

Over the last year or so, Kenny and I have been corresponding about spiritual practice, as I am now living in a spiritual community, and I have felt touched to learn more about his strong faith, his practice of meditation and his openness to the philosophy of Nonviolence. Not all Black Panthers are open to this ideal. The Black Panther Party is an organization of vulnerable peoples seeking to resist oppression and domination. For someone from that place, who has been incarcerated by this domination system for half their life, for that person to demonstrate an openness to nonviolent resistance is a powerful statement of that person's integrity and morality. This is part of the reason why I am proud to support Kenny's freedom with all my heart.

When I saw Kenny again this last March, he was not given a contact visit. He had to stay in a small room behind glass, chained, and wearing an orange jumpsuit. When I pointed out that he had the jumpsuit on inside out, he told me that wearing it this way was a gesture of protest. I was saddened and shocked to see how the depth and passion of a cry for freedom had been reduced to the turning of one's clothes inside out.

Zulu has been locked up for more than thirty years now, most of that time in solitary confinement. People of Louisiana: I urge you to take action towards the resolution of this prolonged tragedy. I ask you to give Zulu his freedom.

Sincerely,
Judith Katz

Letter of Support for Zulu, by King Wilkerson

2009-08-01T11:09:00.000-07:00

Zulu, aka Kenny Zulu Whitmore is a quiet warrior/soldier. His resolve has been/is apparent throughout the many years I've been knowing him. Zulu, having met Herman Wallace in 1975 or thereabouts (while Herman's trial was being conducted in Baton Rouge, La) and becoming acquainted with the Black Panther Party's philosophy and theory, decided at the advice of Herman and others to remain "in the shadows". However, in spite of his allegedly remaining in the shadows, Zulu has always been visible; his street activities and prison record since 1977, attest to this.

To say that Zulu became a target of harrassment by the Baton Rouge police department, and the prosecutor's office, is putting it mildly. The proper perspective would be this: Consider the following. After coming into contact with BPP principles and after leaving the parish prison and going back out into his community, in Zachary, La, organizing and being active, is when Zulu real trouble started. Zulu was falsly arrested and accused of armed robbery. And still later, while awaiting in the parish prison for the initial robbery charge to be resolved, Zulu was slammed with another false charge of allegedly robbing and murdering a well known KKK wizard. Zulu was falsly convicted, along with another person, of this crime, notwithstanding the fact that evidence at his trial (an alleged taped confessions) was obviously tampered with.

Zulu is just one more of a growing list of comrades and brothers who, over the years, has quietly given of themselves, sacrificing much! It is now OUR TIME to proclaim loudly our support!

Robert King Wilkerson/aka Robert H. King

Revolutionary greetings by Kenny Zulu Whitmore

2009-08-01T11:06:00.000-07:00

I am Kenny Zulu Whitmore and everyone who has read my story knows I was framed for armed robbery and the political murder in 1973 of Marshall Bond, who was the mayor of Zachary, a small rural community of East Baton Rouge Parish. It is known I was a vocal advocate against police harassment and brutality and that I became a member of the Angola Chapter of the Black Panther Party, once in the belly of the beast.

But none of you might know I was a working, young African tax payer, engaged to the mother of my son Rodney, who was born 12 January 1974. I was able to spent 13 of the best months of my life, being a father to my son. However, in June 1973 my wife to be was arrested by the police on a false theft charge. They rode her around town in the police car and threatened her with jail for being my fiancée. Then they put her out in front of our house with a warning to stay away from me. This was one of the police’s attempts to intimidate me, but their attempt failed.

I used to be a member of the Union Baptist Church and attended church on a regular basis under the pastor ship of the late reverent Albert Anderson. I did yard work and ran errands for the elderly in my community. My father, my older brother and I once came to the rescue of our neighbour, who was victim of a burglary and while the man was forcing him self upon her with a gun, we stopped him.
However, the power that is will have you, the people, believe that I am a criminal, running around stealing, robbing and murdering. But no, that s not who and what I am. I was raised by loving and caring parents who instilled pride, responsibility and work ethics in all of their children.

Today my political knowledge has broadened and my education has expanded, but I am still the person I used to be. I have not allowed the years innocently behind bars harden my heart or destroy me, nor will I ever let that happen.

Other than navigating my way out of this judicial maze, I am very concerned about our planet, the global warming and the epidemics of HIV/Aids, in particular among the African American communities.
These three issues: the environment, the spread of aids and the systematic incarceration of the powerless in the USA need immediate attention. These issues affect us all, directly or indirectly. What will become of our children, our grandchildren? What will they inherit? A dieing earth, aids orphans or a prison cell.

No, I am not the criminal here! I will NEVER give up the moral principals that made me who I am: Kenneth Zulu Whitmore.

For more info please visit:
www.myspace.com/awhw
www.freezulu.co.uk

Why President Obama should not speak out in the Iranian disputed election

2009-06-14T13:26:00.000-07:00

By Kenny Zulu Whitmore

My people, for the last three weeks there has been a huge media-blitz orchestrated by top republicans and a few conservatives within the democratic party, who have criticized president Obama for not speaking out against the Iranian government for its crack down on Iranians for protesting the outcome of their June 2009 presidential election.

President Obama has said he feels that people around the world have a right to peacefully assemble. The Republicans say a stronger criticism is wanted. Why? And how would it benefit Iran to have president Obama interject him self in the Iranian political dispute?

What if the Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the Iranian people had an all out media-blitz urging the American citizen to take the streets and protest against disputed presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore in 2000? No doubt there would have been cries for meddling and requests to bomb Iran.

Personally I think the Republicans should ask the president to speak out against America’s police force and its’ pre occupation with the African-American and Latino communities, their excitable appetite to randomly murder women and men with “I thought I saw a gun!” Did Oscar Grant have a gun when the police murdered him in California? Did Terrance Mearis, Amadou Diallo, Annette Gareira or Sean Bell in New York have a gun??

Why don’t they get President Obama to speak out against 3 million American citizens locked up, of which 90 % are African Americans and Latinos. Why don’t they let Obama speak out on America’s failing education system, on politician’s main focus to take away funds needed for education, allocating it into incarceration. Let the ‘conservative party” ask the president to speak out against the huge and ever growing homeless population in this land of milk and honey. Let Obama restore the health care system in this country, which is so vital to millions of Americans who cannot afford to get sick,

INSTEAD OF HAVING HIM MEDDLE IN THE IRANIAN SYSTEM, LET HIM FIX HIS OWN HOUSE FIRST!!

If you want peace, fight for justice.
In solidarity, Zulu.

The Angola Three: Torture in Our Own Backyard

2009-05-01T13:32:00.000-07:00

By Hans Bennett, AlterNet
Posted on April 2, 2009

"My soul cries from all that I witnessed and endured. It does more than cry, it mourns continuously," said Black Panther Robert Hillary King, following his release from the infamous Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola in 2001, after serving his last 29 years in continuous solitary confinement. King argues that slavery persists in Angola and other U.S. prisons, citing the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which legalizes slavery in prisons as "a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." King says: "You can be legally incarcerated but morally innocent."

Robert King, Albert Woodfox, and Herman Wallace are known as the "Angola Three," a trio of political prisoners whose supporters include Amnesty International, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Congressman John Conyers, and the ACLU. Kgalema Mothlante, the President of South Africa says their case "has the potential of laying bare, exposing the shortcomings, in the entire U.S. system." Woodfox and Wallace are the two co-founders of the Angola chapter of the Black Panther Party (BPP) -- the only official prison chapter of the BPP. Both convicted in the highly contested stabbing death of white prison guard Brent Miller, Woodfox and Wallace have now spent over 36 years in solitary confinement.

The joint federal civil rights lawsuit of King, Woodfox, and Wallace, alleging that their time in solitary confinement is "cruel and unusual punishment," will go to trial any month in Baton Rouge, at the U.S. Middle District Court. Herman Wallace's appeal against his murder conviction is currently pending in the Louisiana Supreme Court, and on March 18, he was transferred to the Hunt Correctional Facility in St. Gabrielo, Louisiana, where he remains in solitary confinement. On March 2, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court heard oral arguments regarding Albert Woodfox's conviction, after the Louisiana Attorney General appealed a lower court's ruling that overturned the conviction.

An 18,000-acre former slave plantation in rural Louisiana, Angola is the largest prison in the U.S. Today, with African Americans composing over 75% of Angola's 5,108 prisoners, prison guards known as "free men," a forced 40-hour workweek, and four cents an hour as minimum wage, the resemblance to antebellum U.S. slavery is striking. In the early 1970s, it was even worse, as prisoners were forced to work 96-hour weeks (16 hours a day/six days a week) with two cents an hour as minimum wage. Officially considered (according to its own website) the "Bloodiest Prison in the South" at this time, violence from guards and between prisoners was endemic. Prison authorities sanctioned prisoner rape, and according to former Prison Warden Murray Henderson, the prison guards actually helped facilitate a brutal system of sexual slavery where the younger and physically weaker prisoners were bought and sold into submission. As part of the notorious "inmate trusty guard" system, responsible for killing 40 prisoners and seriously maiming 350 between 1972-75, some prisoners were given state-issued weapons and ordered to enforce this sexual slavery, as well as the prison's many other injustices. Life at Angola was living hell -- a 20th century slave plantation.

The Angola Panthers saw life at Angola as modern-day slavery and fought back with non-violent hunger strikes and work strikes. Prison authorities were outraged by the BPP's organizing, and overwhelming evidence has since emerged that authorities retaliated by framing these three BPP organizers for murders that they did not commit.

Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace

Both convicted of murder for the April 17, 1972 stabbing death of white prison guard Brent Miller, Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace have recently had major victories in court that may soon lead to their release. In response, Angola Warden Burl Cain and the Louisiana State Attorney General, James "Buddy" Caldwell, are doing everything they can to resist this and to keep the two in solitary confinement. In sharp contrast, Miller's widow, Leontine Verrett, now questions their guilt. Interviewed in March, 2008, by NBC Nightly News, she called for a new investigation into the case: "What I want is justice. If these two men did not do this, I think they need to be out."

Woodfox and Wallace were inmates at Angola, resulting from separate robbery convictions, when they co-founded the Angola BPP chapter in 1971. Woodfox had escaped from New Orleans Parish Prison and fled to New York City, where he met BPP members, including the New York 21, before he was recaptured and sent to Angola. Wallace had met members of the Louisiana State Chapter of the BPP, including the New Orleans 12, while imprisoned at Orleans Parish.

On September 19, 2006, State Judicial Commissioner Rachel Morgan recommended overturning Wallace's conviction, on grounds that prison officials had withheld evidence from the jury that prison officials had bribed the prosecution's key eyewitness in return for his testimony. However, in May 2008, in a 2-1 vote, the State Appeals Court rejected Morgan's recommendation and refused to overturn the conviction. Wallace's appeal is now pending in the State Supreme Court, with a decision expected any month.

On June 10th, 2008, Federal Magistrate Christine Noland recommended overturning Woodfox's conviction, citing evidence of inadequate representation, prosecutorial misconduct, suppression of exculpatory evidence, and racial discrimination. Then, on November 25, U.S. District Court Judge James Brady upheld Noland's recommendation, overturned the conviction, and granted bail. Attorney General Caldwell responded by appealing to the U.S. Fifth Circuit. In December, the Fifth Circuit granted Caldwell's request to deny Woodfox bail, but indicated sympathy for the overturning of the conviction, writing: "We are not now convinced that the State has established a likelihood of success on the merits." On March 3, oral arguments were heard by appellate Judges Carolyn Dineen King, Carl E. Steart and Leslie H. Southwick, and a decision from them is now expected within six months. If the three judge panel affirms the overturning of Woodfox's conviction, the state will have 120 days to either accept the ruling or to retry Woodfox. The state has already vowed to retry him if necessary. If the Fifth Circuit rules for the state, Woodfox's conviction will be reinstated.

Ira Glasser, formerly of the ACLU, criticized AG Caldwell, writing that following the October 2008 announcement that Woodfox's niece had agreed to take him in if granted bail, Caldwell "embarked upon a public scare campaign reminiscent of the kind of inflammatory hysteria that once was used to provoke lynch mobs. He called Woodfox a violent rapist, even though he had never been charged, let alone convicted, of rape; he sent emails to [Woodfox's niece's] neighbors calling Woodfox a convicted murderer and violent rapist; and neighbors were urged to sign petitions opposing his release. In the end, his niece and family were sufficiently frightened and threatened that Woodfox rejected the plan to live with them while on bail." In his Nov. 25 ruling, Judge Brady himself criticized the intimidation campaign: "it is apparent that the [neighborhood] association was not told Mr. Woodfox is frail, sickly, and has a clean conduct record for more than twenty years."

When the October 27-29 National Public Radio (NPR) series on the case reported directly from Angola, reporter Laura Sullivan observed, "a hundred black men are in the field, bent over picking tomatoes. A single white officer on a horse sits above them, a shotgun in his lap … It's the same as it looked 40 years ago, and 100 years ago." Commenting that many at Angola today "seem to want to bury this case in a place no one will find it," NPR reported that Warden Burl Cain and others refused to comment. However, Caldwell told NPR he is convinced that Woodfox and Wallace are guilty, and that he will appeal Woodfox's case all the way to the US Supreme Court. "This is a very dangerous person," Caldwell says. "This is the most dangerous person on the planet."

As NPR documented, there is no physical evidence linking Woodfox or Wallace to the murder. A bloody fingerprint was found at the scene but it matches neither prisoner's prints. Prison officials have always refused to test that fingerprint against their own inmate fingerprint database. Caldwell vows to continue this policy, telling NPR: "A fingerprint can come from anywhere … We're not going to be fooled by that."

Caldwell also told NPR that he firmly believes the testimony of the prosecution's key eyewitness, Hezekiah Brown, a serial rapist who had been sentenced to life without parole. Brown first told prison officials that he didn't know anything, but he later testified to seeing Miller stabbed to death by four inmates: Woodfox and Wallace, and two others who are now deceased: Chester Jackson (who testified for the state and pled guilty to a lesser charge) and Gilbert Montegut (who was acquitted after an officer provided an alibi).

Pardoned in 1986, and now deceased, Brown always denied receiving special favors from prison authorities in exchange for his testimony. However, prison documents reveal special treatment, including special housing and a carton of cigarettes given to him every week. Testifying at Woodfox's 1998 retrial, former Warden Murray Henderson admitted telling Brown that if he provided testimony helping to "crack the case," he would reward him by lobbying for his pardon.

Solitary Confinement for "Black Pantherism"

In early 2008, a 25,000-signature petition initiated by ColorOfChange.org, calling for an investigation into Woodfox and Wallace's convictions and solitary confinement, was delivered to Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal by the head of the State Legislature's Judiciary Committee, Cedric Richmond. To this day, Jindal remains silent on the case.

In March, 2008, following a visit from Congressman John Conyers, Chairman of the US House Judiciary Committee; Innocence Project founder Barry Scheck; and Cedric Richmond, Wallace and Woodfox were transferred from solitary and housed together in a newly-built maximum security dormitory for twenty men. This temporary release from solitary lasted for eight months, during which time Woodfox reflected: "The thing I noticed most about being with Herman is the laughing, the talking, the bumping up against one another … we've been denied this for so long. And every once in a while he'll put his arm around me or I'll put my arm around him. It's those kinds of things that make you human. And we're truly enjoying that."

In April, following his visit, Conyers wrote a letter to the FBI requesting their documents relating to the case, stating: "I am deeply troubled by what evidence suggests was a tragic miscarriage of justice with regard to these men. There is significant evidence that suggests not only their innocence, but also troubling misconduct by prison officials." The FBI responded by claiming that they had no files on the case, because, they had supposedly been destroyed.

In his deposition taken October 22, 2008, Warden Burl Cain explained why he opposed granting Woodfox bail and removing him from solitary confinement. Asked what gave him "such concern" about Woodfox, Cain stated: "He wants to demonstrate. He wants to organize. He wants to be defiant … A hunger strike is really, really bad, because you could see he admitted that he was organizing a peaceful demonstration. There is no such thing as a peaceful demonstration in prison." Cain then stated that even if Woodfox were innocent of the murder, he would still want to keep him in solitary, because "I still know he has a propensity for violence … he is still trying to practice Black Pantherism, and I still would not want him walking around my prison because he would organize the young new inmates. I would have me all kinds of problems, more than I could stand, and I would have the blacks chasing after them. I would have chaos and conflict, and I believe that."

The only other known U.S. prisoner to have spent so many years in solitary confinement is Hugo Pinell, in California. One of the San Quentin Six, Pinell was a close comrade of Black Panther and prison author, George Jackson. Currently housed in Pelican Bay State Prison's notorious "Security Housing Unit", Pinell has been in continuous solitary since at least 1971. The recently freed Angola 3 prisoner Robert Hillary King says Pinell "is a clear example of a political prisoner." This January, Pinell was denied parole for the next 15 years, which King says "is a sentence to die in prison. This is cruel and unusual punishment, which may be legal but is definitely not moral."

Robert Hillary King

The new book From the Bottom of the Heap: The Autobiography of Robert Hillary King has just been released by PM Press. This inspiring book tells of King's triumph over the horrors of Angola. Born poor in rural Louisiana, he was raised mostly by his heroic grandmother, who King recounts "worked the sugar cane fields from sun up 'til sun down for less than a dollar a day. During the off-season, she washed, ironed clothes, and scrubbed floors for whites for pennies a day or for leftover food. Her bunions and blisters told a bitter but vivid tale of her travails."

King first entered Angola at the age of 18, for a robbery conviction. In his book, he admits to doing some non-violent burglaries at the time, but maintains his innocence regarding this conviction and every one since. Granted parole in 1965, at the age of 22, he returned to New Orleans, got married, and began a brief semi-pro boxing career as "Speedy King." He was then arrested on charges of robbery, just weeks before his wife Clara gave birth to their son. After being held for over 11 months, his friend pled guilty to a lesser charge and was released on time served. Simultaneously, the DA dropped the charges against King, but he was not released, because his arrest, coupled with his friend's guilty plea was deemed a parole violation. Therefore, King was sent back to Angola where he served 15 months and was released again in 1969.

Upon release, King was again arrested on robbery charges, and was convicted, even though his co-defendant testified that he had only picked King out of a mug shot lineup after being tortured by police into making a false statement. King appealed, and while being held at New Orleans Parish Prison, he escaped, but was re-captured weeks later. Upon returning to Orleans Parish he met some of the New Orleans 12--BPP members arrested after a confrontation with police at a housing project. He was radicalized and worked with the Panthers organizing non-violent hunger strikes, and engaging in self-defense against violent attacks from prison authorities.

In 1972, King moved to Angola shortly after the death of prison guard Brent Miller. Upon arrival, on grounds that King "wanted to play lawyer for another inmate," he was immediately put into solitary confinement: first in the "dungeon," then the "Red Hat," and finally to the Closed Correction Cell (CCR) unit, where he remained until his 2001 release. At CCR, King writes that the Angola BPP chapter and others continued to struggle, using the one hour a day outside their cells (when they were allowed to shower and interact in the walkway) to organize: "That was how we talked, passed papers, educated each other, and coordinated our actions."

King writes about the fight, started in 1977, to end the practice of routine rectal searches of prisoners: "Coming to a consensus conclusion that this practice was a carryover from slavery (before being sold, the slave had to be stripped and subjected to anal examination), and after months of appealing to our keepers, we decided to take a bold step: we would simply refuse a voluntary anal search. We would not be willing participants in our own degradation." When King and others refused, they were viciously beaten. Woodfox hired a lawyer on the prisoners' behalf and they filed a successful civil suit. The court ruled to ban "routine anal searches." Another victory came after a one month hunger strike that stopped the unhealthy and dehumanizing practice of putting the inmate's food on the floor to be slid underneath the cell door, whereby food would often be lost and the remaining food would usually get dirty.

In 1973, King was accused of murdering another prisoner, and was convicted at a trial where he was bound and gagged. After years of maintaining his innocence and appealing, his conviction was overturned in 2001, after he reluctantly pled guilty to a lesser charge of "conspiracy to commit murder" and was released on time served.

Kenny "Zulu" Whitmore

On June 21, 2008, Robert King attended the unveiling of a 40-foot mosaic dedicated to Angola prisoner and Angola BPP member Kenneth "Zulu" Whitmore, launching the "Free Zulu" campaign. King is working to publicize his case, saying "Zulu is a true warrior, Panther, a servant of the people. He has fought a good battle, for so long, unrecognized, unsupported!"

The mosaic adorns the back of activist/artist Carrie Reichardt's home in the West London suburb of Chiswick. Reichardt says "we chose to base the design around a modern day interpretation of the Goddess Kali. She is considered the goddess of liberation, time and transformation. We wanted to use a strong, positive image of a female that would give hope and encourage others to join the struggle to bring about social change. Her speech bubble says 'The revolution is now'."

Imprisoned since 1977, Whitmore met Herman Wallace while imprisoned in 1973 at the East Baton Rouge Prison. Whitmore was released but then arrested and subsequently imprisoned at Angola when he was convicted of robbery and second-degree murder after he had returned to the community and been a political organizer. Just like the Angola 3, the case against him is full of holes, and he is appealing his conviction. Whitmore does not have a lawyer yet, so the freezulu.co.uk website is raising money to support his appeal.

Angola: The Last Slave Plantation

Three court cases are now pending: the federal civil rights lawsuit at the U.S. Middle District Court, Albert Woodfox's appeal at the U.S. Fifth Circuit, and Wallace's appeal at the State Supreme Court. At this critical stage, a new DVD has just been released by PM Press, titled The Angola 3: Black Panthers and the Last Slave Plantation. The DVD is narrated by death-row journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal, and features footage of King's 2001 release, as well as an interview with King and a variety of former Panthers and other supporters of the Angola 3, including Bo Brown, David Hilliard, Geronimo Ji Jaga (formerly Pratt), Marion Brown, Luis Talamantez, Noelle Hanrahan, Malik Rahim, and the late Anita Roddick.

The perpetuation of white supremacy and slavery at Angola is a central theme throughout the film. Fred Hampton Jr., emphasizes that "we've got to make the connection between these modern day plantations, and what went down with chattel slavery." Scott Fleming, a lawyer for the Angola 3, says: "That prison is still run like a slave plantation … People like Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace are the example of what will happen to you if you resist that system."

Longtime Japanese-American activist Yuri Kochiyama says that Woodfox and Wallace "love people and will fight for justice even if it puts them on the spot. I think of them as real heroes … who hated to see people in the prison get hurt." San Francisco journalist and former BPP member Kiilu Nyasha adds that "it behooves us to not forget those who were on the frontlines for us. … We need to come to their rescue because they came to ours."

The many years of repression and torture have failed to extinguish the Angola 3's spirit or will to resist, as Woodfox explains in the DVD: "At heart, mind and spirit, we're still Black Panthers. We still believe in the same principles as the BPP, we still advocate the ten point program. We still advocate that all prisoners, black or white, are human beings. They deserve to be treated as human beings."

© 2009 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/139222/