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

Chapter 29
The Shakedown and the Sham
of the Reclass Board
Shakedowns are always part of prison. When we first got to CCR in the
seventies they shook down our cells almost every day—sometimes five or six
times a day—as a form of harassment. Back then freemen knew if they
disrespected our possessions we’d eventually get into physical altercations
with them and it gave them an excuse to gas or physically beat us. Until we
won our lawsuit against strip searches in 1978, a shakedown always started
with prisoners being forced to strip out of all our clothing and go through the
humiliating act of raising genitals, lifting feet, opening mouth, bending over
and spreading cheeks for visual inspection; then we got dressed and were put
in restraints, taken out of our cells, and forced to stand against the opposite
wall. After our lawsuit they couldn’t strip-search us before a shakedown, but
we were always put in restraints and had to go into the hall to stand against
the wall.
In the eighties, there were two types of shakedown crews. One crew
worked all over the prison and did shakedowns all day, every day, looking for
drugs, weapons, or other forms of serious contraband; they usually didn’t
bother with minor violations like having too many Styrofoam cups,
magazines, or books. The in-house shakedown crews looking for minor
violations worked at CCR. The policy in CCR was to shake down two cells
every day on each shift—four shakedowns a day on each tier. So each of us
had a cell shakedown at least once every four days, sometimes more. The
sergeant could order an “extra” shakedown at any time.
The way we—and our possessions—were treated during a shakedown
depended on the security guards doing it. Some came into the cell like an
invasion, going through our personal belongings, reading our personal mail.

---

They would flip the mattress, throw our possessions on the floor, and walk on
our things. They were allowed to open legal mail but they weren’t supposed
to take it out and read it. Some made us stand facing the wall while the
shakedown crew tore our cells apart behind us. That was horrible because
you couldn’t see what they were doing, you could only hear it.
A lot of prisoners would argue with the guards, then they’d be written up
for “defiance” or “threatening an officer” and be taken to the dungeon. I had
learned not to let them provoke me to that point. The only time I spoke was
when they started reading my legal mail. I’d say, “You can’t read my legal
mail, you know that.” I never showed any emotion on my face. Killing them,
beating them up, spitting on them, cussing them out—all of that was going
through my mind. If, in that moment, any of us could have gotten our hands
on them without restraints, there is no telling what might have happened.
Then there were the guards we called “robocops,” the ones who weren’t
cruel but who followed the rules to the letter. We were only supposed to have
six pairs of underwear, six T-shirts, and six pairs of socks. Anything over that
the robocop threw into the hall. Whatever he said we weren’t supposed to
have—extra newspapers, envelopes, postage stamps, magazines—went into
the hall. An extra sheet or blanket (we were officially allowed to have only
one of each) would be thrown into the hall. All of it would be swept into a
pile and swept off the tier by the orderlies who went through the piles and
took whatever they could for themselves.
Other guards had a kinder attitude and let you keep an extra pair of socks;
they wouldn’t drop your photos on the floor or empty your lockers. Some
didn’t even do the shakedown but just checked off in the book that they did.
They would put you in restraints in the hall and come into your cell and sit on
your bunk and flip through a magazine for 10 or 15 minutes and leave.
Almost every prisoner had what we called a “shot book,” a spiral-bound
notebook that had pictures of women cut out of magazines glued into it:
movie stars wearing thong bikinis or models in underwear and nude pictures
from porn magazines. These books were passed around and traded all over
CCR. Some prisoners made or bought shot books just to have one on hand for
when the freeman came in to shake down the cell. They left it on their bunk
during a shakedown in hopes the guard would sit on the bed and look at it
and forget about doing the shakedown.
Most of the time, though, during a shakedown my cell was ransacked. All
the contents of my boxes—letters, photographs, toiletries—were scattered; all

---

my books were spread all over the floor and my bunk. It took hours to put
everything back together again. I “reshelved” all my books on the floor in a
row against the wall. I folded and put my clothes away along with my
photograph albums, writing materials, mail, and paperwork into two steel
boxes under my bed. To keep the insects out I usually put things like
toothpaste and food in empty bleach bottles I’d cut in half. Sometimes the
shakedown crew would throw the bleach containers into the hall along with
the Coke can I used to heat water for ramen noodles or hot cocoa. Sometimes
they left those things.
When the federal government took over running Angola in the seventies as a
result of the Hayes Williams lawsuit, one of the concessions the Louisiana
Department of Public Safety and Corrections had to make in the consent
decree was to create a way to review prisoner housing at Angola. For
prisoners housed in segregation, the lockdown review board—which we
called the “reclassification,” or “reclass,” board—was supposed to review
each prisoner’s housing assignment every 90 days to determine if he still
needed to be locked down, or if he could be released into the general
population. The reason given on paper for locking down me and Herman in
CCR was, “Original reason for lockdown.” Prisoners always had the option
to attend these hearings, and for years I went to them, even though it was
immediately clear to me there was no way a prisoner could “work” his way
out of CCR. There were no guidelines established that if followed by
prisoners, would require the reclass board to move them to less-restricted
housing. Prisoners were simply moved around at the whim of the officials in
charge. If officials needed a cell in CCR, they moved a CCR prisoner into a
dorm in the main prison, and someone new moved into his cell. We saw men
who were behavioral problems, men who had recent write-ups for violence
against prisoners, and men who had just been in the dungeon get out of CCR
in this way. We saw a prisoner who pulled a knife on the warden get released
from CCR. Herman, King, and I—with no behavioral problems and few
write-ups—would never be released.
In the early years, they kept us there out of hatred and for revenge. They
had talked themselves into believing that Herman and I killed Brent Miller
and that King was involved. (From the day King arrived at Angola, in May
1972, his file said he was in CCR because he was being “investigated” for the
murder of Brent Miller, even though Miller was killed a month before King

---

arrived at the prison.) Then, they kept us locked down because of our
political beliefs. They knew through our actions over many years at CCR that
we weren’t regular prisoners, that we were different. We constantly wanted to
change our environment. We were able to unify prisoners. We believed in the
principles of the Black Panther Party. Years later this was confirmed when
warden Burl Cain made statements under oath that we were being held in
CCR because of our “Pantherism.” In a 2008 deposition he said he wouldn’t
let me out of CCR even if he believed I was innocent of killing Brent Miller.
“I would still keep him in CCR,” he said. “I still know that he is still trying to
practice Black Pantherism, and I still would not want him walking around my
prison because he would organize the young new inmates. I would have me
all kind of problems, more than I could stand, and I would have the blacks
chasing after them [Woodfox and Wallace]. He [Woodfox] has to stay in a
cell while he is at Angola.”
The CCR lockdown review board was usually made up of a major or
captain and a reclassification officer. Normally, the prisoner would stand
before the officers in front of a table while his case was being reviewed.
When I went before the board they didn’t even look up while they signed the
paper indicating I was staying in CCR. I was never once asked a question at a
reclass board. I never once had the impression that anyone ever opened my
file. They’d be talking among themselves about hunting and fishing or some
other subject and slide my signed paperwork keeping me in CCR to the
corner of the table. Sometimes they’d be signing the paper while I was
walking into the room. Once in a while the major on duty would say, “Why
do you keep coming to the board, Woodfox? You know we can’t let you
out.” Even the tier guards knew it was a waste of our time to go to the board
meetings. They’d call down the tier to tell us the board was meeting and ask
us if we wanted to go. If we said yes they’d say, “Why? You ain’t getting
out.” At some point, I stopped going to the reclass board. It was a hassle to
get all the restraints on just to stand before the table for a few seconds. After I
quit going the tier sergeant would bring the signed paper keeping me in CCR
and put it between the bars in my cell every 90 days.
We didn’t have the wars on the tier in the eighties that we had in the
seventies. The inmate guards were long gone; there were black correctional
officers hired; and, after a decade, many of the people working the tiers
hadn’t known Brent Miller. A lot of guards, white and black, spent 12 hours a

---

day on the tier and got to know prisoners and didn’t hate them. They worked
at Angola to feed their families and pay their bills. They could see that
Herman, King, and I weren’t bullies, we weren’t violent, we weren’t racist.
We were polite. Many told us they were taught in the Department of
Corrections training academy that we were examples of the “worst of the
worst.” They were shocked when they got to know us. Some officers told me
and Herman they thought we were innocent; they didn’t believe we killed
Brent Miller.
There were always guards, however, who enjoyed the absolute power and
control they had over another human being, guards whose whole life and
identity were tied up in the way they acted out against prisoners. One of those
guards once opened my cell door so another prisoner could jump me. This
prisoner was a real bully and troublemaker and everybody knew he and I
didn’t get along. One day when he was out on his hour he came and stood in
front of my cell door. I got up and started to walk to the cell door. I knew
something was about to happen or he wouldn’t be standing there. Then my
door opened. He tried to come into my cell; we fought and I beat him up. I
was written up for fighting and sent to the dungeon, even though I was
obviously defending myself. I wrote to the warden, asking him to investigate
the guard who had opened my cell door. I never received a response. Years
later the state tried to say this write-up showed how violent I was, to use it as
an excuse for keeping me in CCR.

---