It has been my experience that because of institutional and individual racism

Chapter 19
CCR Wars
Gassing prisoners was the number one response by security to deal with any
prisoner at Angola who demanded to be treated with dignity. Gas
incapacitates the prisoner so the guards can easily get into the cell and beat
the hell out of him. Our tier was gassed many times, and guards ran into our
cells, jumped us, kicking and punching us, forcing us to the floor or onto the
bunk so they could put restraints on us. Whenever they beat us they tried to
cause as much pain as possible. They were willing to break some part of our
bodies if possible. It’s very difficult to fight back in restraints but I did what I
could. I’d spit, bite, head-butt the guards. Then they’d take us to the dungeon
and write us up. On his tier King didn’t take any shit from security either, so
he was gassed and bounced into and out of the CCR dungeon like us. In the
seventies we were gassed so often every prisoner in CCR almost became
immune to the tear gas. It was always painful at first but after the initial cloud
of gas dissipated we’d forget about it until a freeman came onto the tier to
make a count and he’d be wearing a gas mask. That made us laugh.
Our resistance gave us an identity. Our identity gave us strength. Our
strength gave us an unbreakable will. My determination not to be broken was
stronger than any other part of me, stronger than anything they did to me. The
prisoners around us saw how Herman, King, and I talked back to inmate
guards and freemen who trash-talked us, how we refused to go into our cells
if we wanted to talk to a supervisor. They saw we were fighting for them too.
For better conditions, for more respect.
We talked to the men, explaining why we needed to protest, showing
them that we had leverage. We could refuse to go back into our cells when
our hour was up; we could refuse to hand back the trays after a meal. We
could shake our cell doors, “shaking down,” or bang on our tables or sinks
with shoes, “knocking down,” and this would be heard downstairs by the

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camp supervisor. We could refuse to come out of our cells on our hour, we
could refuse to eat the next meal, or we could write a petition of grievance
and all sign it. We didn’t invent knocking down or shaking down, but we
showed men there was more strength if we did it as a tier rather than as
individuals. Any one of these actions, if we all did it together, was sometimes
enough to get a ranking officer on the tier to talk to us. Prior to any action we
took together as a tier we got a consensus, because usually security retaliated.
Most of the time we were fighting to get supplies or make conditions more
humane but if the tier guard was just an asshole and constantly fucking with
us we’d take a vote on having him removed and we’d make an official
request to whoever was running the camp: either move him or move us.
The response usually started with a lieutenant or captain coming up and
threatening us, saying something like, “What the fuck you making all this
noise for? We’re going to gas you motherfuckers.” And we’d say, “Man,
we’re trying to get toilet paper for the last couple of days. These people won’t
give us the motherfucking toilet paper.” He might say OK, no problem and
leave. Then after one hour passed, and then two hours, without any word
from him we’d start shaking the bars again. Next thing we knew the dark
yellowish smoke of tear gas would be rolling down the tier. Or sometimes
after he left he gassed the tier immediately. Sometimes when ranking officers
came they turned the whole tier into a dungeon. They’d take each man, one
cell at a time, put him in restraints—if he resisted he was hit with pepper
spray and beaten—and walk him to the bridge outside the tier. Then they’d
go in his cell and throw everything he had into the hall, lock him back in his
cell, and go to the next prisoner and walk him to the bridge, empty his cell,
and so forth. After all the cells were emptied they pushed everybody’s
belongings into one pile at the end of the tier and we lived under dungeon
rules. The pile would stay there until we could get out on our hour again;
during that time, we’d go through it to find all our possessions and put them
back in our cells. What wasn’t ours we’d hold up and ask the men, “Whose is
this?” and walk it down to them. It took days.
Other times the captain on duty might come and talk with some sense of
doing the right thing. Once we were complaining there wasn’t enough food
on our trays and the captain came up and told the tier sergeant, “Take these
trays out and put food on them.” Another time, after being served expired and
sour milk for days, we held our trays after a meal, refusing to put them under
our doors, and told the guard we would hold them until we could see a

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dietician. The captain on duty brought someone to talk to us.
The most effective way of protesting was the hunger strike. If we didn’t
eat for three days prison officials were required by law to notify the
Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections. The same way
freemen didn’t want ranking officers summoned to the tier, ranking officers
didn’t want state officials called to the prison. They might find something
wrong besides what the prisoners were protesting. Once we voted to go on a
hunger strike to get toilet paper that wasn’t being passed out. Just the threat
of a hunger strike, that time, got the tier guard to pass out the toilet paper.
Our victories were few, but each victory made up for the losses before it.
It was an adrenaline rush to win. We had to deal with some prisoners who
suddenly wanted to shake their bars about everything. They’d say, “Man, his
cinnamon roll is bigger than mine” or “I only got one piece of bread and he
got two.” I had to talk to those prisoners and make them understand that not
every problem meant you have to go through the most extreme form of
protest to get it resolved. Sometimes you can do other things. If a man got
gassed, even if it was just pepper spray in his cell, it affected the whole tier
because the gas would spread. There is no such thing as gassing one prisoner;
whenever they gassed anyone we all felt it.
Herman and I were only on the same tier in CCR for about a month when a
freeman showed up at my cell door and told me to pack. I asked him why and
he said, “You’re moving.” I said, “No, I’m not.” He walked away. I talked to
Herman. “Man, I’m not going, I’m fighting these motherfuckers,” I said.
We knew they’d be back with gas. Hooks yelled down the tier to warn
everyone as I looked around my cell for something to use as a weapon to
defend myself with when they came in my cell. I grabbed the motor out of
my fan and put it in a sock and then put that in another sock. The sock was
hidden in my waistband behind me when seven or eight freemen showed up
holding cut-off baseball bats, billy clubs, and leather blackjacks. One of them
carried restraints they wanted to put on me.
Herman and the rest of the tier started shaking their bars and yelling at
them. “Leave that man alone.” “Don’t jump him, motherfuckers.” My door
was opened and they told me to come out. When I refused, a freeman holding
a blackjack took steps toward my cell and I raised my arm holding the sock.
A guard yelled, “Look out, he’s got something in his hand,” and pulled the
freeman out of the cell. They shut the door again. Captain Hilton Butler

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appeared with a CS gas launcher and started firing it directly at me. One of
the gas cartridges hit my chest. A very strong gas, the kind created to be used
outside to disperse crowds, was filling my cell. I could hear the other
prisoners on the tier screaming at me, “Put your head in the shitter. Put your
head in the shitter.” I put my head in the toilet bowl and flushed. Usually the
vacuum created when the water leaves the bowl gives you a breath of air. It
wasn’t enough. I started kicking the bowl until it broke in pieces. I leaned
down and put my face directly above the hole where the pipe was. Between
breaths I picked up pieces of the toilet bowl and threw them at Butler to
prevent him from aiming the gas gun directly at me. He moved to the front of
the cell next to mine, Herman’s cell, and pointed the gun around the corner
through the bars into my cell, firing blindly. Hooks was cursing at him and
screaming for him to stop and threw whatever he could toward him. I don’t
remember how long it lasted but eventually Butler stopped firing.
After a while Butler told me if I’d come out and let them put the restraints
on me they wouldn’t jump or beat me. I didn’t believe him but I was close to
passing out. The mucus in my throat was choking me. I couldn’t open my
eyes. I didn’t want to die in my cell. When they opened the door, I walked
into the hall and let them put the restraints on me. They didn’t beat me.
Walking down the tier I could see that everyone in the other cells was sick
from the gas. I heard Herman’s voice behind me, hoarse from screaming, still
yelling. They ended up moving King and Herman too. While they were
fighting to move me, they told King they were moving him to B tier. He
didn’t resist because he wanted to be on the tier with me and Herman. First,
they put him on what we called the short tier, on the first floor, which had 13
cells, while they moved me. They put me in King’s old cell on D tier. Then
they moved King to B tier. Later, they moved Herman to A tier. That night
they stripped everybody’s cell in CCR and took our mattresses, turning CCR
into a dungeon to punish everyone for my actions.
They thought they would stop our organizing by separating us but all they
did was spread our influence. Wherever they put us, we started over,
organizing our tiers. Pooling resources. Educating prisoners. Setting
examples by our own conduct. In this way, we taught men the power of unity.
Our efforts worked better on some tiers than others. It depended on the men.
One time I was on a tier with a prisoner who was dangerous, a real bully, and
he had a house slave mentality. He wouldn’t protest with us. Whenever we
were on a hunger strike for something he would take food off trays of other

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prisoners’ who weren’t eating. Prisoners started spitting on their food to
prevent him from doing that.
In June 1972, we got word that the Louisiana House of Representatives
had passed a series of bills by Rep. Dorothy Mae Taylor that would eliminate
inmate guards at Angola, racially integrate prisons, and implement health
protocols that would be overseen by the Louisiana Department of Health.
State and prison officials would not implement any of these for years to
come, but Representative Taylor was persistent. She had long been
advocating for better conditions at Orleans Parish Prison and Angola and was
used to being criticized for it by the racist white establishment. A week after
Brent Miller was killed, the adjutant general of the Louisiana National Guard,
Lieutenant General David Wade, who at one time in his career oversaw
correctional programs in the state, even blamed Representative Taylor for
Miller’s death. “I feel very strongly about the damage that she has done . . .
by stirring up the unrest at Angola,” he told the New Orleans