Sept. 23-25: Robert Hillary King's Book Tour in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington DC

Sept. 23, Wednesday:
At Busboys and Poets, 14th st, 6:30 pm, Washington DC

Sept. 24, Thursday:
At George Mason University, 4:30 pm, Fairfax VA

Sept. 25, Friday:
At Baltimore Bookfair, 6 pm (co-sponsored by Jericho)

Robert Hillary King's new book From the Bottom of the Heap: The Autobiography of Robert Hillary King is available for purchase from PM Press. King's 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

In 1970, a jury convicted Robert Hillary King of a crime he did not commit and sentenced him to 35 years in prison. He became a member of the Black Panther Party while in Angola State Penitentiary, successfully organizing prisoners to improve conditions. In return, prison authorities beat him, starved him, and gave him life without parole after framing him for a second crime. He was thrown into solitary confinement, where he remained in a six by nine foot cell for 29 years as one of the Angola 3. In 2001, the state grudgingly acknowledged his innocence and set him free. This is his story.

It begins at the beginning: born black, born poor, born in Louisiana in1942, King journeyed to Chicago as a hobo at the age of 15. He married and had a child, and briefly pursued a semi-pro boxing career to help provide for his family. Just a teenager when he entered the Louisiana penal system for the first time, King tells of his attempts to break out of this system, and his persistent pursuit of justice where there is none.

Yet this remains a story of inspiration and courage, and the triumph of the human spirit. The conditions in Angola almost defy description, yet King never gave up his humanity, or the work towards justice for all prisoners that he continues to do today. From the Bottom of the Heap, so simply and humbly told, strips bare the economic and social injustices inherent in our society, while continuing to be a powerful literary testimony to our own strength and capacity to overcome.


(PHOTO: The day of Robert King's release from Angola in 2001)

--To learn more about King, please visit his website: www.kingsfreelines.com