Five years and
eleven months ago yesterday, I first laid eyes on Albert Woodfox. He was
still in the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola then, where he had been
locked up in solitary confinement almost continually since April of 1972. I had
been a prison abolitionist myself for thirty-eight years at that point, so it
was not surprising that we found each other. Despite the 6 X 9 foot cell in
which he had been held so long, hundreds, maybe thousands, of people around the
world had already found him before me. But unknown to him, when he turned 62 in
February, 2009, I threw him a birthday party and invited students on the
Louisiana university campus where I teach to come.
As a sociologist
and long-time activist, I consider it one of my principle roles to introduce
students not only to what is really going on in the world so they can become
conscious of social injustice, but also conscious of the option to develop a
dedicated willingness to work for positive social change. A few came out and
ate some cake and learned a little about Woodfox, but I had only been at the
school for three semesters and this was hardly business as usual there as yet.
Still, I thought it would only be appropriate to send him a short letter and
tell him what we had done.
I didn't fully
realize who he was until he answered that first letter, which I didn't really
expect, though I had written many prisoners over the years and they always write
back. It was then that I did what journalists do and looked the man up on the
internet. Reading his whole story, I was stunned. Here was a real live Black
Panther Party organizer and hero ninety minutes away from me, living in a cage
at the whim of a States' Attorney with what seemed to be a remarkably personal
vendetta against him. I was fascinated. I almost immediately decided this was
too romantic not to be kismet.
Albert Woodfox,
with humility and grace, declined the offer of my heart, recommending that I
read The Prisoners' Wife,
instead, a painfully honest book about how prison relationships can grind the
soul. I read it, but I was insulted and suspected that he was not taking me
seriously or that I had simply not met his standards in some way. I did not yet
understand the effects of four decades of solitary confinement, but I came to.
More importantly, I eventually came to know the extraordinary person that
Albert Woodfox is.
In any case, I
soon gave up the fantasy of being a political icon's love interest -- but not
without some chagrin and more than a little embarrassment, which he kindly
never mentions. And we became close friends. We have shared forty visits -- or
more -- since then, even when they moved him from Angola to a smaller prison
five hours away and cut the visits to a couple of hours each. I drove it in the
pouring rain (which I loathe doing). I drove it when they put him behind a
glass shackled to the floor (for no reason). I even drove it while we were
arguing about gender issues for a while. And yesterday morning, I drove the
ninety minutes to the Parish jail where he's been held in more recent months to
share with him what could very likely be his last visiting day in prison.
I arrived at the
West Feliciana Parish Detention Center, a squat white building surrounded by a
chain link fence I suspect even I could scale. I entered at 10:11 am and left
at 11:14, though visiting hours were over at 11 and all the other visitors were
ushered out promptly on time. He told me he had already heard I was coming,
which I found odd since I didn't really make my decision on the matter until I
woke up in the morning to unexpectedly perfect travel weather and a fierce need
to make sure he was doing okay.
The reason I was
concerned was that on Monday afternoon, more than 43 years after Albert Woodfox
entered solitary confinement for a murder even the victim's widow no longer
thinks he committed, a federal judge issued what is sometimes called a
"unicorn decision" -- a decision so rare most legal minds think it
doesn't really exist. Judge James J. Brady, who stepped down as Chief Justice
not all that long ago and may well retire relatively soon, who has been hearing
legal arguments related to Woodfox' case for a very long time, ordered that he
be released immediately and further ordered that the State be
banned from re-trying him. And there it was. After 43 years. The door.
We all knew
instantly that he wouldn't simply waltz out of the place. We had been warned
many times, most often by Albert himself, that these legal battles can last a
lifetime. Indeed, Herman Wallace, another member of the Angola 3, was released
in October, 2013, only days before his death from liver cancer. And we knew
that, while Albert has become a political icon to so many, he is still just a
man -- or as he is wont to say at times, "an ordinary man who has found
himself in a set of extraordinary circumstances." In phone calls, he was
admitting to members of the Campaign that his feelings were "all over the
place" (about as strong a statement as he ever makes, especially about
himself). And I knew no one else could make it Wednesday, the only regular
visiting day all week. So that meant that, other than lawyers, he was going to
be alone with his thoughts.
Sure enough, the
State jumped on that decision like a starving lion on a prey in a trap,
in hopes that the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals would put a stay on Albert's
release while they spent as much time as they could attempting to get the
Appellate Court to reverse Brady's elegant, air tight, carefully worded 27-page decision,
however unlikely that seemed to be. The Court agreed to give the State a
temporary stay until Friday, June 12th, at 1 pm, when it will hand down its
decision on whether or not it will order a longer stay.
So that left
Albert sitting in a closed front cell alone for three more days, contemplating
how close he is to freedom without having it. Not a good space to be in while
trying to keep your wits about you after 43 years of waiting.
I remember him
saying one time, "Can you imagine what it was like for me as a kid in my
twenties, sitting on the floor of my solitary confinement cell surrounded by
law books I could barely read, trying to figure out how to save my own life?
For the first twenty years of this sentence, I didn't have a big campaign supporting me. I didn't get
twenty or thirty letters a day like I do now. My drawers were hanging off the
elastic and I had no reason to believe it would necessarily ever be any other
way."
I couldn't leave
him there alone. I didn't realize until I arrived at the jail, though, how
different I felt about it now. I entered the building looking at the
correctional officers like my team had won and theirs had gotten skunked. I
didn't have to rub it in. They knew. And there was a new respect in the air.
The
"visiting room" at this particular jail is a 7 X 10 foot area with
six little backless round metal stools facing six cloudy little windows
containing little mesh rectangles through which you have to speak to be heard.
Four of the stools already had visitors perched on them when I got in there and
the hub-bub in the room killed any ability to sit back far enough to both see and hear the prisoner on the other side of the glass. So I
spent the bulk of the visit with my ear as close to the mesh as I could get
without actually touching it because, once I sat down, it occurred to me in a
blinding flash of the obvious that this was going to be a very special visit.
This man, who so many around the world have grown to love so much, might very
likely be leaving prison in a matter of days and I was in a position to capture
this moment for history.
You could tell,
after we exchanged greetings and the initial "can-you-believe-this"
exaltations, that he realized I was moving into interview mode. He knows I
write. And this was too important for us to waste our hour on gossip or talking
about the elections or whatever. Yet with no pen or paper, we were going to
have to trust that I would remember whatever he said. We've had many hours of
conversation, after all, over these six years. So I know how he says things and
there wasn't any choice, so we were going to have to make the best of it. All
of a sudden, in his characteristically gentle way and with no prompt from me,
he gave me a shy smile and said, "You can just fill in the holes. You know
the way I talk..." And I became determined to memorize his every line.
"How did you
first learn about the decision?" I asked.
I already knew
that George Kendall and Carine Williams, Albert's lawyers, had brought him the
news late Monday afternoon, but I wanted to hear the details from his
perspective.
"Well,"
he began. "I figured George and Carine were just coming to discuss the
meeting Tuesday morning about the civil case, so I didn't think much about it.
We met in the usual little room and they didn't act like anything special had
happened. Even their facial expressions didn't tip me off. And then Carine just
took out the decision, opened it to the judge's signature on the last page, and
dropped it in front of me. I read it and then she turned back to the page just
before it and let me read that one, too. And that was it."
He paused,
returning to the moment in his mind.
"How did you feel right then?" I had to ask him three
times before I got an answer.
"I was shocked!" he responded, the emotion suddenly
showing on his face to match the statement. "I always knew it could happen, but I was just shocked that it had."
"Later,"
he continued, "I noticed these strange lights flashing and when I looked
out the window, all I could see all the way down the street was news vans from
all over the place -- different channels and AP and all of them were out there
-- and equipment set up with bright lights aimed at the jail so they wouldn't miss
anything."
Members of the
core Campaign to Free the Angola 3 have been waiting for this day for varying
lengths of time. Some have been involved for decades, some for only a few
years. Some have written Albert for a long period of time without ever actually
meeting him. And some travel considerable distances -- even from other
countries -- to spend a few hours with him. Some family members, formerly
estranged, have reached out in recent years to create relationships with him,
but only his brother Michael has visited him at least monthly for virtually the
duration.
"Michael was
on his way back out into the Gulf to work when he heard," Albert recalled,
"but when he said he was just going to turn around and come back, I told
him no, don't do that. Go on with your life. We have no way of knowing how this
is gonna go. Jackie [a woman who created an art project around Herman Wallace's dream home] is in
Paris. She told me if she hears I'm getting out Friday, she's gonna spend the
$800 to come back. I said, don't do that. Everybody should just keep doing what
they're doing."
"So how are
you going to use your next 48 hours?" I queried.
He looked puzzled
and it dawned on me -- again -- that it hadn't entirely sunk in yet.
"I don't
usually eat breakfast," he began. "The grits come in one big lump and
I would never eat oatmeal in prison. So I usually just exercise instead."
The court case
has been graphic about Albert's health issues, including Hepatitis C, diabetes,
and the other health concerns documented to be directly related to his
long-term incarceration and his decades in solitary confinement. In fact, Judge
Brady specifically mentioned his need for better quality and more comprehensive
health care in the decision released Monday. But Albert has continuously tried
to mitigate these issues to the extent he can. He has been committed to
outliving the State's determination to see him die behind bars. So he turns to
forms of exercise he can do in a cell, like push ups and jumping jacks and
stretches of various kinds.
"I eat some
lunch while I watch the news or the History Channel," he went on.
"And I'm reading a book about socialism and the prison-industrial complex
right now. The next one I'm planning to read is The Burglary -- about J. Edgar
Hoover."
It occurred to me
as I listened that he might not be doing any of this routine much longer, but I
didn't interrupt.
"I got to
see George [Kendall] and [Angola 3 member Robert] King talking to Amy Goodman on Democracy Now!
about the decision. They did a good job, I thought. And," he grinned at
this point, "I could hear the guys yelling, 'Free Albert Woodfox! Free
Albert Woodfox!' until a guard came down and said, 'Can you hear that? They
sound like they're gettin' out.' Some of the guys have called
down to me, 'When they let you out, can you come shake my hand?' and I tell 'em
I'll do my best."
He paused here
and flashed another soft smile. "You know, they're calling me The Last Man
Standing."
It's not just the
prisoners who are boldly showing their respect either. At one point on Tuesday,
Albert said, the Warden came down to his cell and tapped politely on the door.
"You
dressed?" he called out.
And when Albert
said he was, the Warden entered the cell with another man, who he introduced as
the new Warden.
"I've been
doing this for more than thirty years," he told Albert, "and this man
is the one who'll be taking my place."
The new Warden,
an African-American, stepped over and offered his hand for Albert to shake. And
after he told me the story, we sat for a moment looking at each other,
processing the new world order, as it was.
"I've been
talking to King about what it's like to get out and all," he changed
topics. "You know, all this time I've been thinking about what it would be
like to be outside, what I'm going to do when I'm outside, it never occurred to
me that I'd be leaving jail."
As if he still
couldn't begin to wrap his head around this thought, he repeated it again,
sounding incredulous, trying to make a point I would never truly understand.
"It never occurred to me that I'd be leaving jail."
His incredulity
isn't surprising when you consider the fact that Albert has spent three-fourths
of a fairly long life incarcerated. Asked what he wants to do first, he looked
for a minute like a man hanging from a cliff.
"Well, of
course, first," he finally answered, "I want
to visit my mother...and my sister...and my brother-in-law, who was my
childhood friend..."
These are the
ones who died without his being able to say goodbye.
"And
then," he returned to less emotional and more logistical matters, "if
I go out on bail, I'll be going to a half-way house in New Orleans..."
There was a pause
while a mischievous gleam appeared in his eyes and a sly grin replaced his
usual studied composure.
"But if I'm
just released, I can go anywhere I want. We might be having our next
visit at my place."
Our hour was
coming to an end.
"You said
this is the closest you've ever been to freedom since this journey first
began," I said as I approached my last question. "So... are you
satisfied?"
His answer was
vintage Albert Woodfox: "I'm satisfied with who I've become as a result of
all I've been through. But I'm not satisfied with the way things are in this
world. I won't be satisfied until racism disappears in this country and Black
people are treated like full citizens in the land of their birth. I won't be
satisfied until poverty doesn't put entire generations into prison to live like
I've had to live. I won't be satisfied until there's a different distribution
of wealth in this country and capitalism is replaced by a system that supports
and sustains the common good. Then...I'll
be satisfied."
As I walked away
from the building, I turned to give it one more look. I may be seeing it again
tomorrow. I would love to get to meet my brother at the door. But no matter how
it comes down, when it comes down -- and it will -- Albert Woodfox will be the freeest man
in the world.
NOTE: This interview was originally posted on Thursday, June 11th. It was subsequently removed and re-posted after being corrected for a factual inaccuracy. I chose not to modify anything else herein, despite the fact that references to day or date may now seem incorrect.
UPDATE: On Friday, June 12th, the Appellate Court continued the stay and blocked Albert Woodfox' release until the State's appeal is heard. While this was disheartening for Albert and his supporters, the Court did rule to expedite the proceedings, so that Oral Arguments are set for the week of August 31st. Once the appeal is heard, we will have to wait for the decision to come down, which is typically a matter of some months. In the meantime, Albert remains strong and committed to the struggle. As do we all.
You may write him at:
Albert Woodfox #72148
West Feliciana Parish Detention Center
PO Box 2727
St. Francisville, LA 70775
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