(anti-copyright)
Prisoner Support
Bristol Anarchist
Black Cross
Report
of Back on Speech by Robert King Wilkerson//
On
Wednesday 15th May 2002 Robert King Wilkerson stood before an
audience in Easton Community Centre, Bristol to tell his story.
He talked in a quiet tone of the struggles he and his comrades
have faced against a system, overwhelming in its power and desire
to crush them; not for their alleged crimes but for simply being
black and radical. Yet despite fit-ups, brutality, racism and
29 years of solitary confinement before us stood a unbowed man
telling his story.
Robert King Wilkerson is one of the Angola 3, a group of Black
Panther Party activists’ who undertook the task of struggling
against the prison system from within one of the largest and
most brutal regimes in the US; Angola State Prison. Angola is
a 5000 bed capacity maximum security prison in Louisiana. 85
percent of the inmates who are sent to Angola will die there.
Robert described the racist-twisted judicial system that had
incarcerated him with a 35 year sentence for robbery and once
inside his continued struggles against his incarceration with
multiple escapes and attempts, all resulting in his re-capture.
In prison he discovered the radical politics of the Black Panthers
and it seems likely that if hadn't embraced their progressive
politics, he's be a free man.
As a radical prisoner the state set out the get him - at any
cost. Robert talked of being investigated for the murder of
a prison guard even though he was not even at Angola prison
when the murder took place. Next they accused him of the murder
of an inmate even though the actual murderer (acting in self
defence) said he's acted alone. The state produced 2 witnesses
to the murder and hit Robert with a life sentence. In the first
trial his ability to defend himself was somewhat restricted
by being shackled and having duct-tape over his mouth. As time
passes the inmates who testified against him recanted their
testimony; "given under circumstances of extreme duress."
Despite having the evidence of his innocence it still took many
years before he was finally freed. Robert also talked at length
of his two comrades, Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace, also
hammered by the state with charges of the murder of a guard
(the same one Robert was 'investigated' for) without forensic
evidence and based on the dubious testimony of a prisoner who
was offered rewards for testifying. He talked of the physical
punishments; of the mental tortures and the legal loopholes
all three have had to (and still continue) to be faced with
in proving their innocence. They are still locked up and need
our support. He ended his talk with a commitment to struggle
against the prison system, of struggle for his comrades and
with the powerful words that he has resolved to be a thorn in
the side of the Angola prison system, "I may be free of Angola,
but Angola will never be free of me." Stirring words from a
brave and compassionate individual who deserves our support.
