In part one, Berger discusses his new research into US prison movements of the 1970s, which Berger is researching and writing about for his PhD dissertation at the AnnenbergSchool for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.
In part two, Berger discusses prisoner movements today, particularly in light of the recent ten-year anniversaries of both Critical Resistance and The Jericho Movement.
Dan Berger is a writer and activist living in Philadelphia. He is the author of "Outlaws of America: The Weather Underground and the Politics of Solidarity" (AK Press, 2006) and co-editor of "Letters From Young Activists: Today’s Rebels Speak Out" (Nation Books, 2005).Presently, along with his dissertation about 1970s prison movements, he is editing a book about 1970s-era radicalism, titled "Hidden Histories of 1970s Radicalism" (forthcoming from Rutgers University Press in Fall, 2010). His writings have also been published in The International Journal of Communication, The Nation, Punishment & Society, WireTap, Z Magazine, and elsewhere.
The grandson of Holocaust survivors, Berger has long been involved in struggles for social justice. From 2000 to 2003, he served as founding co-editor of ONWARD, a now-defunct internationally distributed quarterly anarchist newspaper based in Gainesville, Florida, that emerged out of the global justice movement. Berger has also been involved in an array of organizing efforts against war, racism, and the prison industrial complex. A longtime activist in support of U.S. political prisoners, Berger has published and presented scholarly essays on news images and prison abuse, alternative media and globalization, and race and social movements.
This new video-interview is made by Angola 3 News, which is an official project of The International Coalition to Free the Angola 3. Through our work supporting the Angola 3, we seeks to spotlight the broader issues that are central to their story, like racism, repression, prisons, human rights, solitary confinement as torture, political prisoners, the legacy of the Black Panther Party, and more. Our first video focused on California death row prisoner Kevin Cooper. Please stay tuned for future videos and more original multi-media projects!
Below is the complete newsletter just released by the International Coalition to Free the Angola 3. Please help spread the word!
Live In Louisiana - This Weekend
In a recent email planning meals around this weekend's activities, longtime Angola 3 supporter and House That Herman Built creator, artist, Jackie Sumell wrote:
"Erica, our neighbor/7th Ward mom is doing a fish fry on friday- and cooking all the food here at our house- I would propose also to make that a venue, and spend $6 a plate for homegrown happiness? IT'S SO NICE TO BE HERE RIGHT NOW, ISN'T IT?"
We couldn't agree more - here's to our fabulous supporters in New Orleans!!!!!
-International Coalition to Free the Angola 3
New Play "Angola 3" Will Premier Friday at Loyola University
As announced on Loyola University's website, the Loyola University New Orleans College of Law chapter of the National Lawyers Guild presents the play "Angola 3" this Friday and Saturday, Sept. 18 and 19, at 8 p.m., and Sunday, Sept. 20, at 2 p.m., in Monroe Hall's Nunemaker Auditorium on Loyola's main campus. A reception will be held on Friday at 7:15 p.m. before the performance.
A3 Event at Southeastern Louisiana University on Thursday, September 17
Featuring former BPP members Billy X Jennings and Malik Rahim; Jackie Sumell of "The House That Herman Built"; Robert King, a member of the Angola 3 who was released in 2001; and a screening of the movie "The Angola 3: Black Panthers and the Last Slave Plantation."
* * * * FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE * * * *
Campus Organization Seeks the Release of the Angola 3
Featuring former BPP members Billy X Jennings, Malik Rahim; Jackie Sumell of "The House That Herman Built"; Robert King, a member of the Angola 3 who released in 2001; and a screening of the movie "The Angola 3: Black Panthers and the Last Slave Plantation. The Southeastern Louisiana University Student Union complex will be the location of a major regional event on Thursday, September 17th, when the Southeastern Sociological Association student organization hosts an event supporting the release of Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace, the two remaining incarcerated members of the Angola 3. Originally targeted as Black Panther Party members for successfully organizing the prisoners at the infamous Angola Prison in the early 1970's to stop prisoner-to-prisoner violence, Woodfox and Wallace were framed for the murder of a White guard in 1972 and placed in 6' X 9' single cells for 23 hours per day ever since.
A visit from U.S. Representative John Conyers, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, in 2008 garnered the two men several months in a specially designed dorm, but they have since been returned to their earlier conditions. Human rights organization Amnesty International has reported that the two may have now been held in solitary confinement longer than anyone of whom they are aware in any country ever.
"Even after a State Judicial Commissioner recommended the reversal of Wallace's conviction because of prosecutorial misconduct and despite Woodfox' conviction being overturned twice now, both men remain in solitary confinement yet," said Rebecca Hensley, S.S.A. advisor and sociology instructor at the University.
The event will feature award-winning documentaries and internationally-recognized speakers, including author and activist Robert King, who as the third member of the Angola 3, was released in 2001 after himself spending 29 years in solitary confinement. Besides calling for the immediate release of Woodfox and Wallace as a long overdue act of simple justice, however, the students will also use the event to celebrate the survival of the two activists by serving jambalaya and dancing to the music of a reggae band. Formal presentations will occur in the Student Union and other activities will occur in the area of the Union from 10:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m.
A related event is the world premier of "Angola 3," a new play by award-winning playwright Parnell Herbert, opening at Loyola University Nunemaker Hall at 8:00 p.m. on Friday, September 18th, and showing on Saturday, September 19th, at 8:00 p.m. and Sunday, September 20th, at 2:00 p.m.
Robert King's East Coast Book Tour and Interview on KBOO Radio
(PHOTO: The day of Robert King's release from Angola in 2001) --Listen to the September 10, KBOO Radio show here. 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
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.
Albert & Herman
Herman Wallace #76759 Elayn Hunt Correctional Center Unit 5, D-Tier PO Box 174 St Gabriel, LA 70776
Albert Woodfox #72148 CCR, Lower A5, # 13 Louisiana State Penitentiary Angola, LA 70712
The exciting new play titled "Angola 3" is premiering at Loyola University on Sept. 18. If you are interested in placing an ad in the playbill, becoming a Sponsor or Supporter, email poeticpanther2002@yahoo.com or call (832) 494-4027. Read more about "Angola 3" here.
An interview with author J. Patrick O’Connor about death row prisoner Kevin Cooper
By Angola 3 News
(Photo: Kevin Cooper)
“The State of California may be about to execute an innocent man,” wrote Judge William A. Fletcher of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco. Judge Fletcher was writing about death-row prisoner Kevin Cooper, whose recent appeal to stop his execution was rejected by the Ninth Circuit on May 11, 2009.
One of the 11 out of 27 Circuit judges that dissented against the ruling to deny Cooper relief, Judge Fletcher wrote in the 101 page dissenting opinion that Cooper was “probably innocent,” of the 1983 murders for which he was convicted, and “if he is innocent, the real killers have escaped…They may kill again. They may already have done so…We owe it to the victims of this horrible crime, to Kevin Cooper, and to ourselves, to get this one right.”
Judge Fletcher’s dissent was recently featured in a front page New York Times article by John Schwartz, titled “Judges’ Dissents for Death Row Inmates Are Rising.” Schwartz writes that Fletcher “argued that the evidence had been tainted by bumbling and misconduct and suggested that blood linking Mr. Cooper to the crime had been planted by overzealous investigators. And while the Ninth Circuit in 2004 ordered new DNA tests, Judge Fletcher wrote that the lower court had set conditions rendering the results useless. ‘There is no way to say this politely,’ he wrote. ‘The district court failed to provide Cooper a fair hearing and flouted our direction to perform the two tests.’”
On May 18, 2009 Kevin Cooper was interviewed by Flashpoints/KPFA radio, where Cooper compared his current situation with that in 2004, when he came less than 4 hours from being executed before a stay was granted: “I was able to survive this madness. And now I seem to be right back, right in it.”
J. Patrick O’Connor is the editor of www.crimemagazine.com and the author of The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal (Lawrence Hill, 2008). He has previously worked as a reporter for UPI, editor of Cincinnati Magazine, associate editor of TV Guide, and editor and publisher of the Kansas City New Times. This newly released video-interview with O’Connor was conducted in June, 2009 in San Francisco, at the law office of Orrick, Herrington, and Sutcliffe, which is the law firm representing Kevin Cooper. O’Connor is currently researching and beginning to write a new book about Cooper’s story.
Kevin Cooper’s lawyers are expected to file an appeal with the US Supreme Court later this fall, which will be Cooper’s last chance to avoid execution. The Kevin Cooper Defense Committee, based in the San Francisco Bay Area, is planning a major event for December 13, for which some details are still forthcoming. To learn more about the Dec. 13 event and about Kevin Cooper, please visit www.savekevincooper.org or contact Rebecca Doran of the Kevin Cooper Defense Committee directly by phone (415-264-6622) or email (rebecca_doran@yahoo.com).
--This new video-interview and written report was made by Angola 3 News, which is a new project of the International Coalition to Free the Angola 3. At our website www.angola3news.com, we are collecting news stories and creating our own media projects about the Angola 3, and other cases like Kevin Cooper’s, which are part of a larger picture of multi-faceted injustice within the ‘criminal justice’ system. Please stay tuned for upcoming releases from Angola 3 News!
On Monday night, Blog Talk Radio's "Lets Be Frank" show featured an interview with Parnell Herbert, who has written the new play titled "Angola 3," premiering at Loyola University in Louisiana on September 18. Read more about the play here.
The Angola 3 and their supporters commemorate the anniversary of Katrina by remembering all those who died such needless deaths and acknowledging the suffering that continues to this day due to governmental neglect and deep-seated racism.
This special commemorative A3 newsletter includes a piece by Herman entitled To Serve the People: Angola 3 Celebrates Common Cause with Common Ground, and two recent articles, Homeless and Struggling In New Orleans by Jordan Flaherty, and The Hidden History of Katrina by James Ridgeway.
We are excited to announce the launching of the www.angola3news.com network of websites. This is an official project of the International Coalition to Free the Angola 3, working to publicize news and information about political prisoners Robert King, Albert Woodfox, and Herman Wallace. We have created new websites at You Tube, Live Journal, Care2, Twitter, Facebook, and My Space, where we are compiling a variety of media projects about the Angola 3.
(Photo of the Angola 3:left to right, Herman Wallace, Robert King, and Albert Woodfox)
37 years ago, deep in rural Louisiana, three young black men were silenced for trying to expose continued segregation, systematic corruption, and horrific abuse in the biggest prison in the US, an 18,000-acre former slave plantation called Angola.
Peaceful, non-violent protest in the form of hunger and work strikes organized by inmates, caught the attention of Louisiana's first black elected legislators and local media in the early 1970s. State legislative leaders, along with the administration of a newly-elected, reform-minded governor, called for investigations into a host of unconstitutional practices and the extraordinarily cruel and unusual treatment commonplace in the prison. In 1972 and 1973 prison officials, determined to put an end to outside scrutiny, charged Herman Wallace, Albert Woodfox, and Robert King with murders they did not commit and threw them into 6x9 foot cells in solitary confinement, for over 36 years. Robert was freed in 2001, but Herman and Albert remain behind bars.
In July 2008 a Federal Judge overturned Albert Woodfox's conviction after a Federal Judicial Magistrate found his trial was unfair due to inadequate representation, prosecutorial misconduct, suppression of exculpatory evidence, and racial discrimination in the grand jury selection process. Sadly, despite this powerful recommendation, Louisiana prosecutors maintain that Albert should remain in Angola for the rest of his life. Attorney General Buddy Caldwell responded by appealing to the US 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, 2009, 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 any month. 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.
Similarly, in November 2006, a State Judicial Commissioner took the rare step of issuing a 27-page report recommending the reversal of Herman Wallace's conviction because of new, compelling evidence exposing prosecutorial misconduct. After stalling for nearly a year, the local District Court issued a curt, two-sentence ruling rejecting the Commissioner's recommendation. In May 2008 the appellate court continued to ignore justice by refusing to hear the case in a 2-1 decision without any explanation. The one judge who dissented found the verdict should be overturned because Herman's constitutional rights were violated. The case is currently on appeal to the Louisiana Supreme Court and a ruling is expected in coming months. If the appellate court agrees with the Commissioner's findings and reverses the conviction, and if the District Attorney of Baton Rouge can be convinced not to file new charges, Herman will, at long last, be a free man.
Despite a number of reforms achieved in the mid 70s in response to condemnations of the State of Louisiana's criminal justice system from all three branches of state government, many court officials have repeatedly refused to take a serious look at these cases, stubbornly sided with local prosecutors despite evidence of misconduct, and ignored constitutional safeguards requiring prison officials to hold meaningful, mandatory 90-day reviews to justify keeping inmates in solitary confinement for any extended period of time. Any month, a federal civil rights lawsuit goes to trial, detailing the decades of unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment endured by these innocent men.
Angola 3 in the News
During the last few years there have been many important stories about the Angola 3, and our new network of websites will be working to publicize these stories.
In March, 2008, NBC Nightly News interviewed Robert King about his time spent in continuous solitary confinement, and also featured an interview with the widow of slain prison guard, who now questions the convictions of Woodfox and Wallace, and told NBC that she supports 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.”
In October, 2008, a Peabody Award-wining National Public Radio (NPR) series on the case reported directly from Angola. NPR reporter Laura Sullivan observed that “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.” NPR documents how 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."
In December, 2008, The Huffington Post featured two articles about the Angola 3. One was by James Rucker, whose organization ColorOfChange.org initiated a 25,000 signature petition calling for an investigation into Woodfox and Wallace’s convictions and solitary confinement.Earlier in 2008, the petition was hand-delivered to Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s office by the head of the State Legislature’s Judiciary Committee, Cedric Richmond (watch video here).
The second Huffington Post article was written by Ira Glasser, who is the former Executive Director of the ACLU. Glasser criticized the behavior of Louisiana Attorney General Buddy 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 March, 2009, Mother Jones published a long article by James Ridgeway, which was part of an entire Mother Jones series about the Angola 3. Ridgeway writes about Warden Burl Cain’s courtroom testimony advocating continued solitary confinement for Albert Woodfox and opposing his release on bail. Cain testified that even if Woodfox was not guilty of killing Miller, he should still be kept in solitary confinement. "I would still keep him in CCR [solitary confinement]," he said. "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 [Woodfox and Wallace]…He has to stay in a cell while he is at Angola."
This month, the Why Am I Not Surprised? blog published an essay titled Black August and the Angola 3. One excerpt reads, "I've been talking with some VERY bright and VERY committed individuals connected to the campaign to free the last two members of the Angola 3, Albert ‘Shaka’ ‘Cinque’ Woodfox and Herman "Hooks" Wallace, who have now been held in solitary confinement here in Louisiana for more than 37 years -- for being Black Panthers. And I've begun to have phone conversations with Woodfox himself on a regular basis, as well."
Please Help Spread The Word!
Three court cases are now pending: the federal civil rights lawsuit at the US Middle District Court, Albert Woodfox’s appeal at the US Fifth Circuit, and Herman Wallace’s appeal at the State Supreme Court. At this pivotal time, the National Coalition to Free the Angola 3 needs your help in publicizing our new project at www.angola3news.com.
We are utilizing the resources of the internet to publicize the case of the Angola 3 and the broader issues of prisoners’ human rights, solitary confinement as torture, political repression, racism, and more. Through the www.angola3news.com network of websites, we want to link up with other individuals and groups that are organizing around these same issues.
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)
POETIC PANTHER PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS A NEW PLAY: "Angola 3"
In 1972 three Black Panthers were TARGETED as trouble makers, FRAMED for murders they did not commit andISOLATED to SOLITARY CONFINEMENT for a total of 101 years and still counting.
Herman Wallace -State court commissioner recommended a new trial
Remains in Solitary Confinement - 36 years
Albert Woodfox- Guilty verdict overturned, remains in Solitary
Confinement - 36 years
Robert King - Exonerated after - 29 Years Solitary Confinement
***WORLD PREMIER***
LOYOLA UNIVERSITY NUNEMAKER HALL
8:00PM Fri. & Sat. SEPTEMBER 18 & 19
3:00PM Sun. SEPTEMBER 20, 2009
Learn what led to this amazing dramatization of this ongoing true life story.
In the early 1970’s, two men Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox, prisoners of Angola La. State penitentiary (the most brutal penitentiary in the United States at that time) saw a need for change.
As members and organizers of the first and only sanctioned prison based chapter of the Black Panther Party they began organizing anti rape squads, work stoppages, hunger strikes, educational programs and uniting racially divided inmates.
This being considered counter productive by the “Freeman” who depended on the dehumanizing conditions, racial divide, distrust and terror to run daily activities in the prison, these organizers had to be stopped.
In 1972 a guard was murdered and two logical scapegoats were found, Wallace and Woodfox.
They were placed in solitary confinement under investigation for murder where they remained until March 22, 2008 when they were placed in a special dormitory created for maximum security prisoners.
Later in 1972 another member of the Black Panther Party, Robert King was transferred to Angola from another prison weeks after the guard was murdered.
Because his reputation as a Black Panther and an organizer preceded him, he was immediately placed in solitary confinement held under investigation for the same murder as his two Comrades.
Those charges were dropped on Mr. King but while he remained in solitary confinement he was eventually framed and charged with the murder of another inmate.
In 2001 after serving 29 years in solitary confinement Mr. King’s verdict was overturned and he was exonerated of those charges. He now dedicates his life to working to free his Comrades and other political prisoners around the world. Mr. King’s focus in life remains “SOCIAL JUSTICE.”
Angola 3 was written by Parnell Herbert friend of Robert King and boyhood friend of Albert Woodfox.
