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

Herman’s House
. “I get to the front gate,” he says, “and there’s a whole lot of

---

people out there and, you ain’t going to believe this but”—Herman laughed
—“I was dancing my way out. I was doing the jitterbug. And I was doing all
kinds of crazy stupid-ass shit, you know. And people were just laughing and
clapping until I walked out that gate. And . . . I look and there are all the
brothers in the window waving and throwing a fist sign, you know.”
Carine told me the sun was setting when Herman was brought out of
prison on a stretcher and put in the ambulance. He was conscious but very
weak. After he was put inside the ambulance he asked, “Is everybody
smiling?” Many of his friends had gathered outside the prison and called out
to him, shouting words of support. Herman’s fiancée, Maria Hinds, and
friend Ashley Wennerstrom were in the ambulance with him. Carine and
Katherine drove behind the ambulance, following it to a New Orleans
hospital emergency room. After they arrived, Carine walked up to Herman as
he lay in a hospital bed. He looked at her and smiled. “Now I’m free,” he
said.
That night, George released a statement: “Tonight, Herman Wallace has
left the walls of Louisiana prisons and will be able to receive the medical care
that his advanced liver cancer requires. It took the order of a federal judge to
address the clear constitutional violations present in Mr. Wallace’s 1974 trial
and grant him relief. The state of Louisiana has had many opportunities to
address this injustice and has repeatedly and utterly failed to do so.”
On the drive back to Wade, my hands were numb and in pain from the black
box. I was numb and in pain too. I was elated that Herman was getting out,
but the miracle I ached for now was his life. The next day Herman was taken
from the hospital to the home of Ashley Wennerstrom and her husband for
hospice care. I called the house and spoke to several old friends and
comrades who had gathered. They told me Herman was resting and in and
out of consciousness, but he knew where he was. He knew he was in
Ashley’s house. He knew his family, supporters, lawyers, and friends were
around him, coming and going. They played music for him, took turns
reading to him and holding him. Ashley brought him flowers to smell.
On the next day, October 3, District Attorney Samuel D’Aquilla had
Herman reindicted by a West Feliciana Parish grand jury for the murder of
Brent Miller. East Baton Rouge Parish district attorney Hillar C. Moore III
asked the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to return Herman to prison. The
vengeance by the state of Louisiana against us had long been

---

incomprehensible to me, but this move pushed at the boundary of sanity.
Herman was dying. Nobody ever told him he was reindicted. If he’d known
there is no doubt in my mind he would have begun to mentally prepare the
way he did for every battle, without hesitation.
On October 4, I woke up around four a.m. with a very strong urge to call
Ashley. When I got through to her she told me Herman had died in the night.
He went to sleep and never woke up. He was 71. I sat on my bunk and wrote
a statement for our supporters.
The old man has decided to leave us. I am sure it was a very hard choice for him, Who will I
serve? The ancestors who have called me home, or humanity who I love so much?
“Old man” was my term of endearment for him—it had to do with the age of everything—his
heart and his soul. Herman “Hooks” Wallace was not a perfect human being, and like all men, he
had faults and weaknesses, but he also had character. He could make me so mad that I wanted to
rip his head off. Then he would melt my heart with a word, or an act of kindness to another human
being.
On October 1 sitting in a hospital room, with the other part of my heart, Robert King, I tried to
will a miracle and a miracle was granted, not the miracle of life that I wanted for Herman, but the
miracle of freedom. After 42 years of tireless struggle against evil, he was a free man.
I had a chance to say good-bye to my comrade in the struggle, my mentor in life, my fellow
Panther, and most of all, my friend. Herman taught me a man can stumble, even fall, as long as he
gets up. That it’s OK to be afraid, but hold on to your courage. To lose a battle is not the loss of a
war.
Herman Wallace’s greatest pride was joining the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. He
believed in duty, honor, and dedication. He never broke the faith of the party, his comrades, or the
people. As I bent to kiss his forehead, my heart said good-bye—I love you forever. My soul said—
separated but never apart; never touching but always connected. He was the best of us. As long as
we remember him, he lives on.
In Washington DC that day, Rep. John Conyers read a tribute to Herman
on the floor that would go into the Congressional record.
Mr. Speaker, we rise to commemorate and celebrate the life and contributions of Herman Wallace,
one of the bravest champions for justice and human rights whom we have ever met. Nicknamed
“The Muhammad Ali of Justice,” Mr. Wallace was a member of Louisiana’s “Angola 3” who
spent 41 years in solitary confinement. Mr. [Cedric] Richmond and I had the opportunity to visit
Mr. Wallace at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, justifiably called “the Alcatraz of the
South” several years ago. I was impressed by his courage, determination, and dignity. We received
word that Mr. Wallace passed away earlier this morning, only three days after he was freed
pursuant to a federal judge’s ruling that he had not received a fair trial in 1974. . . .
Mr. Speaker, it was with great sadness that we learned of Mr. Wallace’s passing earlier this
morning, nine days shy of his 72nd birthday. Mr. Wallace’s personal fight against injustice and the
inhuman plight that is long term solitary confinement has ended for him. The larger fight against
that injustice must go on, however, and his legacy will endure through a civil lawsuit that he filed
jointly with his fellow Angola 3 members, Albert Woodfox and Robert King. That lawsuit seeks

---

to define and abolish long term solitary confinement as cruel and unusual punishment.
Mr. Speaker, we ask my colleagues to join me in honoring Mr. Wallace for his many-decades-
long fight for the humane treatment of prisoners. We, and all of us, owe Mr. Wallace a debt of
gratitude.
Three days later, the United Nations special rapporteur on torture, Juan E.
Méndez, called on the United States to immediately end the indefinite solitary
confinement imposed on me. “This is a sad case and it is not over,” he said.
“The co-accused, Mr. Woodfox, remains in solitary confinement pending an
appeal to the federal court and has been kept in isolation. . . . Keeping Albert
Woodfox in solitary confinement for more than four decades clearly amounts
to torture and it should be lifted immediately.”
Herman was buried on October 12. Friends and loved ones visited me and
told me about Herman’s memorial service and funeral, held in a community
center in the Treme, a block from where I grew up. People sent me
photographs. Somebody had made a light blue tapestry with a large black
panther across it that was draped over Herman’s coffin. Six former Panthers
were pallbearers, including King and Malik Rahim, all wearing blue shirts
and black ties—Panther colors—and black berets. There were drawings and
paintings of Herman, me, and King on the walls. Herman’s sister sang. Many
friends and family members spoke, remembering Herman’s spirit, his
commitment, his humor, his courage, his heart. How he never gave up.
Carine held up her phone and played a recording of one of Herman’s favorite
songs, Etta James singing “At Last.”
I looked at the photos from Herman’s funeral and memorial service
several times in the following weeks. I told myself, and everyone, “Don’t
think of what we lost, remember what we had.” The day Herman died I felt a
great pain and sense of loss that is still with me, and I will carry it to my
grave.
Two weeks after Herman died, Amnesty International tried to deliver yet
another petition to Governor Bobby Jindal. This one requested that the state
drop its appeal to keep me in prison. Fifty thousand people signed it. The
governor was not in his office so it was left with his staff.
It was strange: this time instead of demanding our freedom, Amnesty was
demanding my freedom. I had never felt more alone. Before they delivered
the petition, our supporters held a press conference on the state capitol steps.
They had spread calendar pages on the steps to represent the time I had spent

---

in solitary confinement and held signs that said 
REMEMBER HERMAN WALLACE
and 
FREE ALBERT WOODFOX.
Malik spoke, demanding that state legislators get
involved in ending my confinement in solitary, calling it a human rights
issue. King spoke, saying we would never stop pushing for justice. Billie
Mizell read a statement for Teenie Rogers:
 
“Each time I look at the evidence
in this case, I remember there is no proof that the men charged with Brent’s
death are the ones who actually killed him. It’s easy to get caught up in
vengeance and anger, but when I look at the facts, they just do not add up.”
Rogers said she hadn’t been planning to sign Amnesty’s petition, but after
Herman was reindicted on his deathbed she changed her mind. “That’s not
anything I want to be a part of, and I don’t think it’s something Brent would
have done,” Rogers said. “If the state had a strong case, I might feel
differently. But I have not seen anything yet that proves to me these men
murdered Brent.”
My brother Michael read the statement I gave him, “On good days I am
allowed, at most, an hour of exercise in a cage outside. I do not have the
words to convey the years of mental, emotional, and physical torture I have
endured. I ask that for a moment you imagine yourself standing at the edge of
nothingness, looking at emptiness. The pain and suffering this isolation
causes go beyond mere description.”
The next month I was in federal court, testifying about the strip searches and
visual cavity searches that were still going on at Wade. My attorney,
Sheridan England, asked me how having multiple strip searches a day made
me feel. I told him the visual anal cavity inspections were humiliating and
stressful. They made me feel hopeless and helpless.
Richard Curry, representing Louisiana prison officials, argued that strip
searches were necessary in maximum-security prisons to prevent prisoners
from having contraband, like drugs or razor blades. “Weren’t you once found
guilty of having a handcuff key in your possession?” Curry asked me. “No,” I
said. Curry showed me a disciplinary order that was issued 36 years earlier at
Angola, in 1977, stating that a handcuff key had been found in my cell. I told
him if I had a handcuff key in my cell in 1977, it was planted in my cell.
Especially back in those years many guards hated me. “You were never
found innocent of this charge,” Curry countered. No contraband had been
found on me or in my cell since I’d been at Wade, I pointed out. The warden
at Wade confirmed that.

---

Back in my cell, I was feeling out of balance. It was December. Most
years run into the next when you are locked down 23 hours a day. A few
years stand out for being worse than others. The year my mom died. The year
I lost my sister. That year, 2013, was one of those years. Herman was gone.
The degrading strip searches continued. I was being slandered in the press by
the attorney general’s office—again. The state of Louisiana, which had
already spent millions of dollars to defend my wrongful conviction and to
keep me in prison, was now expending considerable resources to fight to
restore my conviction—again. I was reminded of a valuable lesson I’d
learned, and relearned, many times before. Whenever you don’t think you
can take another step, the human spirit keeps going, even when you don’t
want to.

---

Would the loss of Herman finally tip the scales of sanity against me? Would
this be the year of justice and freedom or another year of the same? My
habeas case was before a three-judge panel of the most conservative judges
on the Fifth Circuit. Two of them were appointed by President Ronald
Reagan. The third was appointed by President George W. Bush. I didn’t have
a lot of hope for justice and freedom. But I was feeling the support of the
people. I was receiving thousands of letters from people through Amnesty
International. And that gave me strength. I wanted to write back to each and
every person who wrote to me, but it wasn’t physically possible. In January
2014, I released a statement, which Amnesty distributed. “To the many
people around the world who have taken us into your lives and your hearts,
who have told us ‘I know you, and what you have given to this world,’ who
have taken the time to write to me and to Louisiana State officials, you have
no idea what a source of strength and courage you have been in my darkest
moments. It is impossible for me to personally respond to the 1000s of letters
and cards that encourage me to stay strong, don’t give up, don’t lose hope
and to fight on. Thank you. The message is heard. I ask that this letter feels as
if I am reaching out to you personally and saying, in solidarity and struggle,
All Power to the People!”
On January 31, 2014, eight months after the strip searches at Wade began,
my attorney Katherine Kimpel called me to say Judge James Brady had
issued a preliminary injunction against them. In his ruling Judge Brady wrote
that routine searches were not shown to be necessary or justified for security
“as is required constitutionally of such policies. Therefore,” he wrote,
“Woodfox’s human dignity [as] protected by his fourth Amendment rights”
outweighs the “legitimate penological interest. In this circumstance.”
The state appealed immediately, not on the grounds that the strip searches

---

were legitimate, but on the grounds that Judge Brady, a federal judge, didn’t
have the jurisdiction to enforce a state-issued consent decree. Louisiana
argued that my case could only be heard in the 19th Judicial District Court in
Baton Rouge. During the appeal process I was protected from strip searches,
but every other CCR prisoner at Wade was still being strip-searched. Some
officials in the administration tried to play it to the other prisoners as if I was
getting special treatment, as if I’d orchestrated the whole thing. Most of the
guys saw through it. I reminded all of them that I had asked them to join me
to fight the strip searches but they didn’t want to get involved.
Next, the Fifth Circuit reversed Judge Brady’s injunction, not because the
court agreed with the strip searches, but on the grounds that the matter had to
be adjudicated in a state court. Officially, Wade corrections officers could
start strip-searching me again, but most of them didn’t. My attorneys
immediately filed for an injunction in the 19th Judicial District.
Over the winter and spring of 2014, King was on yet another A3 tour. He
spoke on solitary confinement at California state legislative hearings in
Sacramento; on the impact of solitary confinement at a scientific meeting in
Chicago; at the Toronto Black Film Festival; at the Rutland Institute for
Ethics Presidential Colloquium at Clemson University in South Carolina; and
at Central Connecticut State University. At each stop he spoke about the
horrors of solitary confinement and about our cases. I was worried about him
—he had given his life up for me, and for Herman. He answered every collect
call we ever made, spent part of each week on conference calls with our
lawyers, with Marina Drummer, with Tory Pegram, with individual
supporters and members of our advisory board; he took every call from every
reporter who ever contacted him and sat down for interviews with anyone
who could give us publicity for our case. I knew the travel was exhausting,
that he sometimes got stopped by airport security. He never complained.
In May 2014, Rep. Cedric Richmond introduced HR 4618, called the
Solitary Confinement Study and Reform Act of 2014, to study and reform the
use of solitary confinement in the U.S. prisons, jails, and juvenile detention
facilities. In July, it was referred to the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism,
Homeland Security, and Investigations. That was the last action taken on that
bill. (In early May 2018, Rep. Richmond introduced HR 5710, the Solitary
Confinement Study and Reform Act of 2018. Later that month it was referred
to the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and
Investigations.)

---

In July 2014, Amnesty International released a 54-page report on solitary
confinement in U.S. federal prisons that began, “The USA stands virtually
alone in the world in incarcerating thousands of prisoners in long-term or
indefinite solitary confinement, defined by the UN Special Rapporteur on
Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment as
‘the physical and social isolation of individuals who are confined to their
cells for 22 to 24 hours a day.’ More than 40 US states are believed to operate
‘super-maximum security’ units or prisons, collectively housing at least
25,000 prisoners. This number does not include the many thousands of other
prisoners serving shorter periods in punishment or administrative segregation
cells—estimated to be approximately 80,000 on any given day.”
That fall, I got unbelievable news. In November, the conservative Fifth
Circuit panel reviewing my claim that racial bias tainted the selection of the
grand jury foreperson who presided in my case had ruled in my favor. It was
a unanimous decision. All three of the Fifth Circuit judges agreed with Judge
Brady’s ruling. Judge Patrick Higginbotham wrote a powerful decision for
the panel (which included fellow circuit judges E. Grady Jolly and Leslie
Southwick).
We begin with an important observation. Woodfox’s claim is not just about the selection of the
grand jury