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Robert King Wilkerson on Angola 3, Black Panthers.Recently freed political prisoner Robert King Wilkerson spoke at the News & Letters library in Chicago on Oct. 22. Wilkerson is on a national tour to publicize the struggle to free Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox, the still-incarcerated members of the Angola 3. We take note of what happened on Sept. 11, and we sympathize with the lives that were lost. We understand and share the sentiments of the victims that survived and the sentiments of the families of those that didn't survive. J. Edgar Hoover used terroristic tactics to bring about the demise of the Black Panther Party. Here in Chicago, it was terror that struck on Dec. 21, 1969 when Fred Hampton was drugged and murdered in his sleep for telling the truth. Hoover stated that if you can't kill them, intimidate them, frame them. Party members that you have in prison-make sure they don't get out. This brings me to my comrades. We all became members of the Black Panther Party while incarcerated. Albert Woodfox became a member after having made an escape from an Orleans Parish prison. He made his way to New York and met up with some of the Panther 21, who were in Queens at the time, and he became politicized. He was reapprehended and subsequently sent to Angola. At the same time Herman Wallace was also brought to Angola. After forming the Black Panther chapter in Angola they politicized some of the people who we used to call politically dead. I mean dead to the world because they were taking part in their own victimization. Angola was one of the most notorious prisons in the U.S. Guys were killing each other. We used to call it "committing lemming-cide," after the little animals that mass drown themselves. Prison rape was taking place. All of this was perpetuated by the prison officials. Angola is a huge prison inside a prison. There is strength in numbers but they can take a few people and hide them and you'll never see them again. I might not see you for 40 years in the same prison. They built a psychiatric unit. It was designed to kill you or get you to kill yourself. There was racial segregation, and racism among the guards. Long, long work hours-17 and 18 hours a day-at two cents an hour. You had inmate-guards who were called khaki-backs, because they wore khaki while others wore stripes. They carried guns. They inherited the concept or mindset of the free prison guards; they would run you down, beat you up, kill you. Wallace and Woodfox were upsetting this routine by politicizing the guys. The prison officials saw this as losing control. A guard was found slain in the dormitory. The first people suspected were Black Panthers. Officials began en masse picking up Black convicts, even in the cell blocks away from the main prison where the body was found. They put them in isolation, beating, intimidating, and whatever other coercion goes with police terror. They found some people willing to say Wallace and Woodfox participated in the murder along with two others. We have learned that the state's star witness, Hezekiah Brown, received a carton of cigarettes a week. Initially, Brown had the electric chair, but because of his testimony he was recommended for and got clemency. He was released with $1,000 in his account, which shows his testimony was bought and paid for. I was arrested in 1970, originally on a robbery charge. They offered me 15 years. I thought they were crazy and elected to go to trial. The victim, who had said that I didn't remotely resemble the perpetrators, did an in-court identification, which carries a lot of weight. I was given 35 years. I escaped but was reapprehended. When the Black Panther Party came to Orleans Parish, I was in prison. I was not allowed to articulate what I felt and they did it for me. Their ideology was, to me, something good. We want freedom, we want power to determine our own destiny. We want housing, education, clothing, justice and peace. We want freedom. So I became a member of the Black Panthers. I also became a target. They couldn't get me for murdering the free guard, so when an inmate was killed the officials got another inmate to say I participated. During the trial we had duct tape over our mouths, hands cuffed and our feet shackled. I remained in solitary confinement from April 1972 until Feb. 8, 2001 when the jury on a federal appelate court recognized that the charge was a frame-up. Since then I have committed myself to free my two comrades. If the Angola 3 are free, then we will work on freeing the Angola 300, freeing the Angola 3,000. There are millions in the prison system. You either had to succumb to the dehumanizing effect of prison or rise above it. I might be in prison but I never let prison be in me. Over the years we studied Marxism. Up until a few years ago I had an idea that the struggle was dead. But after coming out and seeing so many people taking the forefront, not only in America but around the world, I'm impressed and inspired. Especially the demo in D.C. against the International Monetary Fund. Young people realize what is taking place, not only here but around the world. I am still opposed to capitalism. |
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