“… A big part of the journey with this book is realizing that people’s humanity shouldn’t be negotiable.” Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s debut novel Chain-Gang All-Stars tells an explosive, unrelenting and ultimately compassionate story about a not so unbelievable future in which incarcerated people become gladiators fighting their way to freedom at any cost. Adjei-Brenyah joins […]
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Overview
FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN NONFICTION
Solitary is the unforgettable life story of a man who served more than four decades in solitary confinement—in a 6-foot by 9-foot cell, 23 hours a day, in notorious Angola prison in Louisiana—all for a crime he did not commit. That Albert Woodfox survived was, in itself, a feat of extraordinary endurance against the violence and deprivation he faced daily. That he was able to emerge whole from his odyssey within America’s prison and judicial systems is a triumph of the human spirit, and makes his book a clarion call to reform the inhumanity of solitary confinement in the U.S. and around the world.
Arrested often as a teenager in New Orleans, inspired behind bars in his early twenties to join the Black Panther Party because of its social commitment and code of living, Albert was serving a 50-year sentence in Angola for armed robbery when on April 17, 1972, a white guard was killed. Albert and another member of the Panthers were accused of the crime and immediately put in solitary confinement by the warden. Without a shred of actual evidence against them, their trial was a sham of justice that gave them life sentences in solitary. Decades passed before Albert gained a lawyer of consequence; even so, sixteen more years and multiple appeals were needed before he was finally released in February 2016.
Remarkably self-aware that anger or bitterness would have destroyed him in solitary confinement, sustained by the shared solidarity of two fellow Panthers, Albert turned his anger into activism and resistance. The Angola 3, as they became known, resolved never to be broken by the grinding inhumanity and corruption that effectively held them for decades as political prisoners. He survived to give us Solitary, a chronicle of rare power and humanity that proves the better spirits of our nature can thrive against any odds.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780802129086 |
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Publisher: | Grove/Atlantic, Inc. |
Publication date: | 03/05/2019 |
Pages: | 320 |
Product dimensions: | 6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.70(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
February 19, 2016.
I woke in the dark. Everything I owned fit into two plastic garbage bags in the corner of my cell. “When are these folks gonna let you out,” my mom used to ask me. Today, mom, I thought. The first thing I’d do is go to her grave. For years I lived with the burden of not saying goodbye to her. That was a heavy weight I’d been carrying.
I rose and made my bed, swept and mopped the floor. I took off my sweatpants and folded them, placing them in one of the bags. I put on an orange prison jumpsuit required for my court appearance that morning. A friend had given me street clothes to wear, for later. I laid them out on my bed.
Many people wrote me in prison over the years, asking me how I survived four decades in a single cell, locked down 23 hours a day. I turned my cell into a university, I wrote them, a hall of debate, a law school. By taking a stand and not backing down, I told them. I believed in humanity, I said. I loved myself. The hopelessness, the claustrophobia, the brutality, the fear, I didn’t say. I looked out the window. A news van was parked down the road outside the jail, headlights still on, though it was getting light now. I’ll be able to go anywhere. To see the night sky. I sat back on my bunk and waited.
Table of Contents
Prologue xiii
Chapter 1 In the Beginning 1
1960s
Chapter 2 The High Steppers 13
Chapter 3 Car Chase 21
Chapter 4 Angola, 1960s 24
Chapter 5 Prison Days 31
Chapter 6 Parole and Back Again 39
Chapter 7 Stickup Artist 46
Chapter 8 Tony's Green Room 52
Chapter 9 Escape 56
1970s
Chapter 10 Meeting the Black Panther Party 63
Chapter 11 What Is the Party? 67
Chapter 12 NYC Prison Riot 74
Chapter 13 Hostages 80
Chapter 14 Angola, 1971 84
Chapter 15 Herman Wallace 91
Chapter 16 April 17, 1972 96
Chapter 17 CCR 103
Chapter 18 King Arrives 113
Chapter 19 CCR Wars 115
Chapter 20 My Trial, 1973 126
Chapter 21 Herman's Trial, 1974 142
Chapter 22 King Is Set Up 150
Chapter 23 Gary Tyler 154
Chapter 24 Food Slots 157
Chapter 25 My Greatest Achievement 161
Chapter 26 Strip Search Battle 165
1980s
Chapter 27 "I Got You" 175
Chapter 28 Sick Call 185
Chapter 29 The Shakedown and the Sham of the Reclass Board 189
Chapter 30 Comrades 195
Chapter 31 Contact Visit 201
Chapter 32 Maturity 206
1990s
Chapter 33 Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied 213
Chapter 34 My Greatest Loss 220
Chapter 35 Preparing for My Trial 225
Chapter 36 Amite City 230
Chapter 37 The Crusaders 236
Chapter 38 My Trial, 1998 240
Chapter 39 Back to Angola 250
2000-2010
Chapter 40 We Stand Together 261
Chapter 41 Hidden Evidence 266
Chapter 42 King Leaves the Belly of the Beast 275
Chapter 43 Torture at Camp J 278
Chapter 44 Cruel and Unusual 288
Chapter 45 "Are You Still Sane?" 297
Chapter 46 2008 302
Chapter 47 Never Apart 329
2011-2016
Chapter 48 Torture 341
Chapter 49 Forty Years 344
Chapter 50 Man of Steel 352
Chapter 51 The Ends of Justice 372
Chapter 52 Theories 387
Chapter 53 The Struggles Continues 393
Chapter 54 A Plea for Freedom, Not Justice 397
Epilogue 405
Acknowledgments 415
Index 419