May 22, 2013
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Description
The Angola Three are three men, Robert Hillary King, Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace, who were put in solitary confinement for decades in Angola Prison, Louisiana after the death of a prison guard.
While inside prison, contact with members of the Black Panthers led to the creation of a prison chapter of the Black Panther Party in 1971. The men then organized prisoners to build a movement within the walls to desegregate the prison, to end systematic rape and violence, for better living conditions, and worked as jailhouse lawyers helping prisoners file legal papers. They organized multiple strikes and sit-ins for better conditions. Woodfox and Wallace were convicted of the 1972 stabbing murder of 23-year-old prison guard Brent Miller. King was said by authorities to be linked to the murder but was not charged.
The three men were taken out of the general prison population and were held in solitary confinement after Miller's murder in 1972. They remained in solitary confinement until former black panther member Malik Rahim of Common Ground Collective, and a young law student, Scott Fleming, in 1997 discovered that these men were still locked up. They began investigating the case, questioning the facts of the original investigations at Angola and raising questions about their original trials.
(via Freebase)
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