Benefiet voor de Angola 3, 24 nov, Vrankrijk
henk - 21.11.2001 10:59
Robert King Wilkerson, in februari dit jaar vrijgelaten na 29 jaar onterechte isolatie in een Amerikaanse gevangenis, zal in november Nederland, Duitsland en Frankrijk bezoeken.
Benefiet voor de Angola 3
November 24, 21:00
Vrankrijk
Spuistraat 216, Amsterdam
Entrance F 4 minimum
Robert ´King´ Wilkerson
is one of the ´Angola 3´. These former Black Panthers and prison activists have been kept in isolation for almost 30 years, for a crime they did not commit. Earlier this year, he was finally released. Now he is here to fight for the release of the other two, who are still political prisoners in the racist, violent hell-hole prison in Louisiana, USA that is known as Angola. (more info) (audio )
Kgafela oa Magogodi
is a radical poet and performer from South Africa, directly addressing subjects such as Aids, sex and racism in hard-edged language.
Songs and poetry between rap, beat and hip-hop. Partly political commentary, partly social observations, but always right on target. A celebration of life, struggle and resistance. (An intervieuw)
The Farm: Angola U.S.A
is an award-winning documentary about this prison, written by one of the inmates. The Louisiana state penitentiary at Angola is the largest maximum-security prison in the United States. It houses some 5.000 men, three-quarters of them black and 85 percent of whom will die within it´s walls. It sits on the site of a plantation that derived it´s name from the areas in Africa that provided the slave labor. (more info)
Diskjochie Grrrt & DJ Andrea
´Post-punk-african-D´N´B & the eclectic unexpected´
to keep you dancing till the wee hours!
November 24, 21:00
Vrankrijk
Spuistraat 216, Amsterdam
Entrance F 4 minimum
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Robert King Wilkerson, who was released after 29 years in solitary confinement in a US prison in February this year will be visiting the Netherlands, Germany and France in November.
Wilkerson, a member of the Black Panther Party who spent a total of 31 years behind bars, was transferred to the Lousianna State Penitentiary at Angola in 1972. He was placed straight in solitary confinement in a tiny cell and locked down 23 hours a day.
[Wallace Wilkerson Woodfox] Nonetheless, he and fellow Panthers, Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox, who had been framed for the murder of Brent Miller, a prison guard, managed to organize with other inmates against sexual misconduct and inhuman conditions in the prison. They became known as the Angola 3 after Wilkerson was wrongfully convicted of taking part in the murder of another inmate.
In 1999 they led a hunger strike by 60 inmates against filthy living conditions and curtailed privileges. For their pains, Wilkerson, Wallace and Woodfox were placed in Camp J - the extreme punishment unit - where they remained for 8 months. The American Civil Liberties Union filed civil rights proceedings on their behalf in March 2000.
[angola prison] Angola, (pop. More than 5000) the largest maximum security facility in the USA, is built on the site of a former slave plantation whose workers came mainly from Angola in Africa. Many of the guards are the sons, grandsons, great-grandsons, etc. of former plantation foremen and usually raised right on the plantation grounds, equipped with a school and playground. Brent Miller came from such a family, which had been employees of Angola for almost 100 years. He still has two brothers working there. When Albert Woodfox´s appeal came through, and he was moved from Angola prior to his second trial, the guards tried to set him up, with members of the Miller family waiting in uniform to take him off the grounds and never arrive at his destination. Another guard, not related to the family stepped between them and refused to allow him to be taken. He stood there until help arrived and the Miller family members left. Not before vowing that he would never leave Angola alive.
In Louisiana´s general population white people make up 63% - in the prison population they are a mere 23%. Incarceration rates of black people in the state has risen from 437 per 100,000 residents in 1980 to 1771 per 100,000 in 2000. [Debt to Society - Mother Jones, 2001]
The warden estimates that 85% of the inmates will die there - a life sentence in Louisiana means exactly that.
Mumia Abu-Jamal has called the Angola 3 ´ political prisoners of the highest caliber´.
Wilkerson still considers himself part of the Angola 3 and campaigns for the release of his brothers in Angola and political prisoners throughout the USA. Since his release he has been travelling in the US and speaking out on what Angela Davis called the prison-industrial complex in the US.
Asked by a journalist shortly after his release ´How free do you feel?´ King laughed, paused and said ´I feel as free as a person can be? and this freedom which I feel right now is the freedom to expose the corruption of the State of Louisiana and the politicians and the prison officials from the warden on up to the Secretary of the Department of Corrections. I have the freedom to do that - no restrictions.´
Robert King Wilkerson has a number of speaking engagements in Amsterdam and Den Haag between 22 and 29 November, some of which will include a showing of "The Farm" a film about life at Angola, followed by discussion and questions.
He will be available for interviews on Friday 23 November, 2001, or by arrangement.
Contact: 06.1265 4521
The Farm - 1998, 93 minutes Liz Garbus, Wilbert Rideau & Jonathan Stack
Debt to Society - Mother Jones www.motherjones.com
 E-Mail: mumia@dds.nl  Website: http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/spg/mumia-nl/art/wilkerson.htm
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