RIP Herman Wallace - The Muhammad Ali of the Criminal Justice System

From the Angola 3 Newsletter.


This morning we lost without a doubt the biggest, bravest, and brashest personality in the political prisoner world.  It is with great sadness that we write with the news of Herman Wallace's passing.

Herman never did anything half way.  He embraced his many quests and adventures in life with a tenacious gusto and fearless determination that will absolutely never be rivaled.  He was exceptionally loyal and loving to those he considered friends, and always went out of his way to stand up for those causes and individuals in need of a strong voice or fierce advocate, no matter the consequences.

Anyone lucky enough to have spent any time with Herman knows that his indomitable spirit will live on through his work and the example he left behind.  May each of us aspire to be as dedicated to something as Herman was to life, and to justice.

Below is a short obituary/press statement for those who didn't know him well in case you wish to circulate something.  Tributes from those who were closest to Herman and more information on how to help preserve his legacy by keeping his struggle alive will soon follow.

On October 4th, 2013, Herman Wallace, an icon of the modern prison reform movement and an innocent man, died a free man after spending an unimaginable 41 years in solitary confinement.

Herman spent the last four decades of his life fighting against all that is unjust in the criminal justice system, making international the inhuman plight that is long term solitary confinement, and struggling to prove that he was an innocent man.

Just 3 days before his passing, he succeeded, his conviction was overturned, and he was released to spend his final hours surrounded by loved ones.  Despite his brief moments of freedom, his case will now forever serve as a tragic example that justice delayed is justice denied.

Herman Wallace's early life in New Orleans during the heyday of an unforgiving and unjust Jim Crow south often found him on the wrong side of the law and eventually he was sent to the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola for armed robbery.  While there, he was introduced to the Black Panther's powerful message of self determination and collective community action and quickly became one of its most persuasive and ardent practitioners.

Not long after he began to organize hunger and work strikes to protest the continued segregation, endemic corruption, and horrific abuse rampant at the prison, he and his fellow panther comrades Albert Woodfox and Robert King were charged with murders they did not commit and thrown in solitary.

Robert was released in 2001 after 29 years in solitary but Herman remained there for an unprecedented 41 years, and Albert is still in a 6x9 solitary cell.

Herman's criminal case ended with his passing, but his legacy will live on through a civil lawsuit he filed jointly with Robert and Albert that seeks to define and abolish long term solitary confinement as cruel and unusual punishment, and through his comrade Albert Woodfox's still active and promising bid for freedom from the wrongful conviction they both shared.

Herman was only 9 days shy of 72 years old.

Services will be held in New Orleans. The date and location will be forthcoming.

For more information visit angola3.org and angola3news.blogspot.com.

Robert H. King responds to Louisiana Attorney General James Caldwell

From the Angola Three News website:

Many thanks to all of you who have aided our cause and added your voices to our quest to free Albert from an obviously unjust imprisonment of more than 40 years. Please continue to make your voices heard and your dissent known, especially in light of the recent email response by Louisiana's Attorney General, James Caldwell. One wonders: Why in the face of so many mitigating facts and circumstances would the Attorney General persist in his unethical efforts to pursue the persecution of Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace? Is it really justice he seeks, or is there something else he wants? The following may add some light to the subject.

When Woodfox was first granted a new trial in 1993, the Attorney General's Office elected to retry the case, which is a rare occurrence. Twenty-three years earlier, John Sinquefield, a young and ambitious local assistant district attorney, prosecuted Albert and made repeated references/inferences to Albert's political beliefs and militancy. Having had prior involvement in this case, Sinquefield could not (or chose not to) prosecute in his second hearing. However, this recusion (or self restraint) did not apply to his assistants. Enter Julie Cullen, an attorney working with Sinquefield.  It was Cullen who declared to the press, that she would retry Albert as "a 'Black Panther." During that trial in 1999,when I appeared as a character witness for Albert, Julie Cullen made repeated references to Woodfox's militancy as Sinquefield had done before her and Woodfox was again convicted.

Sinquefield, Cullen and Caldwell were all previously connected to this case by the thread of time and they have all used this case to further their careers. Sinquefield and Caldwell are well-documented boyhood friends, who went to school together, graduated together and became lawyers together. In Sinquefield's own words, "We've been friends, allies ever since." Julie Cullen has worked with and been very close to both men. As you can see, their careers have been protected at all costs, even accusing innocent men of murder or rape, as Caldwell in his recent email has done once again.

Buddy Caldwell has long done a great disservice to people of intelligence, especially lawyers...and jurists, in his attempt to sell this malicious and unsubstantiated rape lie. If, in 1969 there had been actual evidence of Albert committing rape, why would the system instead choose to try Woodfox on only the lesser charge of robbery? According to Caldwell, Albert was considered "a career criminal." The logical question therefore remains...If Albert had committed all of these other alleged crimes and was in fact a career criminal, why was he not prosecuted? Just for the record - any young black man that was arrested became a suspect for unsolved crimes. This was a process so widespread that across the country the practice is known as "clearing the books."    

It is in this same context that Caldwell has wrongfully accused Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace of committing the murder of prison guard Brent Miller. The evidence linking Herman and Albert to the crime is nonexistent. The bloody fingerprint at the scene of the crime did not match Herman or Albert's. A knife found at the scene of the crime had no fingerprints on it at all. Other DNA evidence that allegedly had Albert's specks of blood on it was lost by the prison. Furthermore, multiple alibi witnesses testified that Albert and Herman were in other parts of the prison at the time of the murder. In contrast, it has been proven that state witnesses were bribed to lie under oath. Albert's conviction has now been overturned three times, and Herman's conviction is similarly under Federal Court scrutiny for evidence exposing prosecutorial misconduct and constitutional violations.

Finally, by claiming that the Angola 3 have never been in solitary, Caldwell is redefining the nature of solitary confinement and minimizing its inhumane conditions. Courts here in the US have already ruled that confining prisoners in cells 23 hours a day constitutes solitary confinement regardless of any small privileges that may or may not be incrementally given and taken away at random. Over a decade ago, we filed a civil lawsuit challenging the State of Louisiana for their unconstitutionally cruel and unusual treatment that is solitary confinement. Magistrate Judge Dalby describes our almost four decades of solitary as "durations so far beyond the pale" she could not find "anything even remotely comparable in the annals of American jurisprudence." It is for the courts and not for Attorney General Caldwell to define whether or not being held in close cell restriction constitutes solitary confinement.

Attorney General Caldwell would do well to consider that I was prosecuted for being a "co-conspirator" by proxy for only knowing Albert and Herman and for my affiliation with the Black Panther Party. I had never met prison guard Brent Miller but I was put in solitary confinement and placed under investigation for this crime for 29 years. More to the point, had I not been 150 miles away at the time in another prison but at Angola prison, I would probably have been charged and convicted for a murder I did not commit. As I am free, speaking out now is what I must do.

Again, thanks to the many individual supporters and organizations who stand by the Angola 3 and ask you to continue to take action.

Power to the People/As Ever

Robert H. King
International Coalition to Free the Angola 3

Celebrate Juneteenth

A Juneteenth Message from our friends at Critical Resistance:

Tuesday, June 19, marked Juneteenth, the commemoration of the end of formalized slavery in the United States.  The date coincides with the last wave of notification of the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, reaching enslaved people in Texas more than two years after the document was initially signed, and its prominence across the US is often connected to the 1968 Poor People’s March on Washington, DC.  Recognizing Juneteenth provides us with an opportunity to reflect on Black people’s history in the United States, on forced labor and confinement, and on the deliberate disorganization, dispersal, and death of African peoples through the slave trade.  It also seems impossible to consider Juneteenth without reflecting on the rise of the prison industrial complex, as well as Black peoples’ undying resistance to oppression and fights for liberation.

From the emergence of modern policing from enforcement of slave laws and codes, to the ratification of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, to convict lease, to COINTELPRO, to the war on drugs, Black people have been the target of systemic exploitation, criminalization, dispossession, disenfranchisement, militarization, and brutalization in the US.  The lasting legacies of slavery are present in every aspect of our modern punishment system.  As recently as four years ago, reports indicated that one in 15 Black adults was in jail or prison.  The number soared to one in nine for Black men ages 20-34.  From Sean Bell to Oscar Grant, III, to Trayvon Martin, African Americans are consistently in the crosshairs of formal and informal policing apparatuses, understood as innately suspicious and dangerous. In charting centuries of this violence, it is not extreme to perceive a war on Black peoples in the United States.

While the legacies of slavery are still felt acutely, Juneteenth also provides us with an opportunity to remember that oppression breeds resistance.  We recall the Stono Rebellion or the St. John the Baptist Parish rebellion in Louisiana—during which enslaved people organized resistance and rose up to take their freedom.  We recall The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the National Negro Congress, the 1199 Health Care Workers' Union, and the League of Revolutionary Black Workers—in which Black workers led dogged struggle against poor working conditions and racism in the workplace, and for the dignity of their labor and their right to organize.  We recall, the UNIA-ACL, SNCC, CORE, and other civil rights organizations—through which millions of Black people mobilized to expose the inhumanity of white supremacy and to fight for the most basic rights in the US.  We recall the Deacons for Defense, the Black Armed Guard, and the Monroe Chapter of the NAACP through which people armed themselves and protected their communities from racist attacks.  We recall the Revolutionary Action Movement, the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, and the Black Liberation Army through which the imaginations and legacies of militant self-determination in the US, were linked in spirit and practice to worldwide revolutionary struggles against imperialism.  We recall organizations from the National Association of Colored Women to the Combahee River Collective in which Black women and queer people built deeper understandings of oppression, and liberation.  We recall the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, the Black Arts Movement, and the Black Artists Guild in which the radical creativity of Black peoples blossomed and established new art forms and stretched our imaginations and hopes. These examples only scratch the surface of the vast landscape of organizations, rebellions, and communities that make up the collective struggles, histories, and traditions of Black freedom struggle that continue to push us forward.

For many people Juneteenth is also an occasion to reconnect with family—both given and made.  It is an occasion to share food and stories. For Critical Resistance, we also see it as an opportunity to imagine how we might continue to break the grip of the prison industrial complex through our work against the violence of policing, against the expansion of jails of imprisonment, against government attempts to neutralize our struggles for self-determination.  We celebrate Juneteenth as an opportunity to forge stronger alliances across movements and communities to eventually rid ourselves of all the vestiges of slavery—and the build the new world carried in the hearts of our predecessors into future generations.

Angola Warden Burl Cain on "Black Pantherism"

Last week, the newsletter of the International Coalition to Free the Angola Three published recently transcribed testimony of the October 2008 deposition of Burl Cain, Warden of Angola Prison, questioned by Nick Trenticosta, an attorney representing former Black Panther and Angola Three member Albert Woodfox. The testimony, quoted below, reveals a lot about Cain's view of Black Panthers and others who have engaged in prison organizing.
NICK TRENTICOSTA: I would like to show you State's Exhibit 30. Are you familiar with this document? It purports to be a letter, and who is it from?

BURL CAIN: Albert Woodfox.

NICK TRENTICOSTA: Is this letter significant to you?

CAIN: Yes, it is. You can read here, "I view amerikkka" - and he spelled it real crazy, more like the Black Panther would, I suppose - "and her lies, capitalism, imperialism, racism, exploitation, oppression, and murder of the poor and oppressed people as being highly extreme. It is my opinion that anyone who views these situations as anything other than extreme is petty bourgeois or a capitalist fool!!! History has taught us that revolution is a violent thing but a highly necessary occurrence in life. Revolution is bloodshed, deaths, sacrifices, hardships. It is the job of the revolutionary forces in this country to manufacture revolution instead of trying to avoid it. To do otherwise is the act of an opportunist." This is very scary because it means that it needs revolution. Violent revolution is scary for America, for us.

NICK TRENTICOSTA: What is the date of that letter?

CAIN: September 9, 1973.

NICK TRENTICOSTA: And do you know whether his political views have changed since that time?

CAIN: That is what is scary to me. I think not because even in 1997 we had the protest in front where - "Release the Panther" and "Angola is a shame, Burl Cain to blame" - there was a Black Panther demonstration there. Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace is locked in time with that Black Panther revolutionary actions. Even when Robert King Wilkerson came with Congressman Conyers to Angola, they gave me a little pack of pralines, Congressman Conyers did, and on that pack of pralines was a Black Panther.

NICK TRENTICOSTA: Let's look at State's Exhibit 3. You stated, if I can paraphrase, Woodfox was throwing human waste?

CAIN: Apparently they were throwing human waste at each other. It's on their cell bars, both of them. So either he was throwing it out or throwing it in.

NICK TRENTICOSTA: Could it possibly be someone throwing human waste at Mr. Woodfox?

CAIN: It could be, and I would ask why. How did Mr. Woodfox provoke him to throw human waste at him?

NICK TRENTICOSTA: You have some mentally ill people that live on CCR, don't you?

CAIN: I have 1,900 inmates taking psychotropic medicines. I don't know where they live, but I would hope the medicine would tame them down.

NICK TRENTICOSTA: An inmate only gets human waste thrown on them when they provoke it to happen? Is that your testimony?

CAIN: Not only, but if you're throwing human feces at somebody, you have to have normally a reason. You just wouldn't throw it at the wall.

NICK TRENTICOSTA: Are you aware that a federal judge has ruled that Mr. Woodfox's conviction is now reversed?

CAIN: Until we get release papers, he's in our prison guilty of the murder of Brent Miller.

NICK TRENTICOSTA: So it's your understanding everybody in jail is guilty? Come on.

CAIN: In Angola. Because he's in Angola.

NICK TRENTICOSTA: In the last five years he has done pretty good, hasn't he?

CAIN: He's like a man on death row could do good, but he is still on death row. He's just good because he is locked in CCR, not because he's good at heart.

NICK TRENTICOSTA: He didn't cause very much trouble, correct?

CAIN: Because the lion in a cage can't cause much trouble, you see.

NICK TRENTICOSTA: Let's just assume, if you can, that he is not guilty of the murder of Brent Miller.

CAIN: I would still keep him in CCR. 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 kinds of problems, more than I could stand, and I would have the whites chasing after them. I would have chaos and conflict.

NICK TRENTICOSTA: Warden Cain, what is Black Pantherism?

CAIN: I have no idea. I know they hold their fists up. I know that they advocated for violence.

NICK TRENTICOSTA: Assume that he did not kill Brent Miller and he is not a member of the Black Panther party, because you don't know what the Black Panther party is, then why are you considering him so dangerous?

CAIN: You would like me to say yes to everything you say so you can go say I did, but you can't go there, and you're trying everything in the world to get me there. I'm happy. I'm laughing at you. I'm not mad. You just ain't going to get me there. That's just Angola. What can I say? He's bad. He's dangerous. I believe it. He will hurt you. They better not let him out of prison.

Of Traitors and Fools: Robert King Comments on Brandon Darby

In a recent newsletter published by the International Coalition to Free the Angola Three, former New Orleans Black Panther Robert King has written his first comments on notorious FBI informant Brandon Darby. His comments are quoted here:
Unfortunately this year has seen the rise of the far right and it saddens me that people have the propensity to be gullible, tricked and trapped by the lies spun by the likes of Brandon Darby who by his own actions has undermined his credibility.

In a recent presentation to a far right group, Darby recalls his endeavors within the progressive movement and his abrupt epiphany which led him to become an informant. However he fails while telling his tales to disclose he only had a short life as a credible informant. He now continues to spin his lies to far right groups who have no regard for the truth.

One word describes Darby: deranged. He continues to mislead people and he continues to attempt to rewrite the truth. In the final analysis, he goes the way of the fool, he impales himself on his own sword.

Robert H. King, a.k.a. Robert King Wilkerson, is the only freed member of the Angola 3. Along with his comrades Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace, he was targeted for his activism as a member of the Black Panther party. After 31 years in Angola prison in Louisiana, 29 spent years in solitary confinement, King was released in February 2001. Since that time he has been described as an author, a candy maker, a former political prisoner and an activist. His life’s focus is to campaign against abuses in the criminal justice system and for the freedom of Herman and Albert, who are now serving their 40th year in solitary confinement.

LJI Director Tracie Washington Among Stars of Film Premiering Tonight at PATOIS Film Festival

The eighth annual PATOIS Film Festival opens tonight with a short film made by the Al Jazeera international television news network that profiles the response of a number of New Orleans and Gulf Coast activists, organizers, and community leaders to the BP Drilling Disaster. The film, called In Deep Water: A Way of Life In Peril, also features Aaron Viles of Gulf Restoration Network, Monique Harden of Advocates for Environmental Human Rights, Byron Encalade of the Louisiana Oystermen Association, Debra Ramirez of the Mossville Environmental Action Network, and many others. The film is showing with the Sundance hit Hot Coffee, a film about the legendary "McDonald's coffee case" and the ways in which propaganda about the case has been used to protect corporate interests.

The festival runs for five days and features 22 New Orleans premieres, plus live music, food, art, Q&A's with filmmakers from around the world, and discussions with special guests. Among other highlights are: Land of the Free, about the former New Orleans Black Panthers who became known as the Angola Three; Better This World, about the actions of Common Ground co-founder and FBI informant Brandon Darby; 40, a fiction film starring Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine, who is best known to local audiences as the sous chef character on the tv show Treme; Egypt: Seeds of Change, about the behind the scenes planning that created the Egyptian revolution, and Black August, a film that blends stunning concert footage of some of our era's best conscious hip-hop artists with exclusive interviews with legendary activists like former Black Panthers Assata Shakur and Kathleen Cleaver. More information can be found at patoisfilmfest.org.

Rest In Peace Althea Francois

Althea Francois, a life-long activist for peace and social justice, passed away on December 25th at the age of 60.

Althea spent her life actively engaged in struggles for justice, starting with her involvement in the New Orleans chapter of the Black Panther Party, where she began her efforts to help political, economic and racial prisoners. She embodied the finest and most basic ideals of empathy and generosity and inspired all that had the privilege of coming in contact with her.

Althea has long been a leader in local organizing against the Prison Industrial Complex. In the late '90's, Althea worked to create a base for political prisoner work in New Orleans, and was one of the main organizers in the campaign to free the Angola Three; three Black Panthers held in solitary confinement for their political beliefs. When Angola Three member Robert King was released in February of 2001, he moved to the home of Althea and Marion Brown, another former panther.

Shortly before Katrina, Althea was able to purchase a home-base for her daughters and grandchildren in New Orleans' Gentilly neighborhood. In 2005, the flooding of New Orleans ripped apart the security she had at long last established. The years since then were a tense balancing act between work in Atlanta, work in New Orleans, her children and her grandchildren. Though Althea rarely complained, she was beset with a number of crippling maladies - asthma, high-blood pressure and the incessant pressure of keeping a family together in these difficult times with never enough support.

In the months after Katrina, she was one of those who came together to form a new organization, called Safe Streets / Strong Communities. Her dedication, vision, and commitment guided the organization through several intense years of struggle over the city's criminal justice policy. Her efforts brought real reforms, from the establishment of the city's Office of the Police Monitor to uncovering and exposing the role of New Orleans police in post-Katrina killings.

When told the news of her passing, former prisoner Robert King struggled to find words to express the depth of his sorrow. Invoking Matthew 25:35, he said "I was hungry and you fed me, was thirsty and you gave me drink, was in prison and you visited me. Althea fed us with hope. She had an enormously giving spirit that we will all deeply miss."

Althea loved her daughters with the ferocity of a lioness and was so proud of their accomplishments. They were the center of her being.

Sadly, Althea had no insurance and no savings, thus leaving her daughters not only with the grief of losing her, but with the challenge of raising funds for her funeral.If you can help with a donation to the family, donations to defray the funeral costs can be sent to:

Rhodes Funeral Home
3933 Washington Avenue
New Orleans, LA
(504) 822-7162

Or:

Olga Francois
c/o Todd Taylor
7704 Benjamin St.
New Orleans, LA70118
(202) 277-0997

Althea's Service will be Saturday, January 2, 2010 at 1:00pm at Rhodes Funeral Home.

Thanks to the Campaign to Free The Angola Three for some of the information above.