Albert Woodfox has been in solitary confinement in Louisiana USA for 43 years and counting. His conviction has been overturned three times, he’s been cleared for unconditional release – yet he’s still there.
A campaign of vengeance by Louisiana state officials has kept Albert unjustly in a solitary cell for 43 years. His next hearing is in August.
Wikipedia: Angola Three
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Music video (2006) produced by Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics in protest of the incarceration of the Angola 3 features Saul Williams, Nadirah X, Asdru Sierra, Dana Glover, Tina Schlieske, Derrick Ashong and Stewart.
As he went through Angola
fields he saw a solitary cell.
The devil was pleased for it
gave him a hint for improving
his prisons in hell.
It was the year 1971 when the Black
Panther movement begun in Angola,
Louisiana, Woodfox and Wallace were
the organising soldiers, trying to
protect themselves and others. From
the corruption and degradation,
that is most times covered by the
prison wardens.
In a segregated situation, trying to
mend bridges is a difficult one.
When the privilege is given to the
whites, blacks in solitary confinement
are trying to fight for some rights.
Constant struggles day and night
when the evidence is planted after
the match strikes.
Life keeps moving on,
Are we waiting in vain?
Will anything change?
Life keeps rolling on,
Are we waiting in vain?
No I believe it will change.
Diversion, confusion, creating the
illusion that what is, is not, it’s
like being stuck. Back on the Farm,
life is tough, it’s getting caught
between a hard place and a rock.
Here is a place where survival of the
fittest is faced. Here is a place
that operates as it did in the slave
days, the back breaking labour from
dawn to dusk days.
There’s certainly some crazy ways.
Inmates lie and they steal and they
wheel and they deal and I don’t think
they feel. Like in the case of King
who was duct taped and shackled up
in a court of law by a judge. No-one
showed him some love.
Is there no justice in the
minds of the prosecution?
Is there no justice in the
minds of the jury and judge?
Is justice truly blind or is
colour defined?
They say that we ended
those times.
Life keeps moving on,
Are we waiting in vain?
Will anything change?
Life keeps rolling on,
Are we waiting in vain?
No I believe it will change.
Every morning I rise and face
the firing squad. Every morning
there is one who holds his fire.
His dilemma is my system of
belief. They fire rounds but I am
seldom in their circle.
A quiet mind is labelled sound and
coloured purple. My little boy has
not yet learned to colour within
lines. His jumbled diction not yet
learned our contradiction. We speak
of art with flaming passion, then do
work void compassion. And wonder why
reality is bleeding fiction.
Life keeps moving on,
Are we waiting in vain?
Will anything change?
Life keeps rolling on,
Are we waiting in vain?
No I believe it will change.
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