 "Photo: Lauren Tucker; The Daily Texan")
After 29 years of solitary confinement in one of America’s largest maximum-security prisons, Robert King Wilkerson emerged as an inspirational figure for oppressed and wrongly convicted prisoners.
King, who now lives in Austin, spoke Wednesday night at Burdine Hall on his sentencing, release and hope of freeing two other allegedly framed inmates still in the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola.
Known as the Angola 3, King, Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox were silenced for attempting to expose segregation, corruption and abuse in the 18,000-acre jail and former slave plantation.
“My focus now is on my comrades,” King said. “I made a declaration once I left Angola that I’ve been released from Angola, but Angola will never be released from me. I’ve kept that promise to Angola and to my friends.”
While in jail on a robbery charge in 1970, King and other prisoners established the only recognized prison chapter of the Black Panther Party to improve jail conditions, such as inhumane work conditions and the sale of inmates into sex slavery.
To single out key organizers, the all-white prison administration accused King, Wallace and Woodfox, all of whom are black, of committing murders within the jail, he said.
Over the next three decades, King, Wallace and Woodfox lived 23 hours a day in 6-by-9 cells, working to overturn their convictions and win better conditions for themselves and fellow inmates.
“Some people don’t stay sane,” King said. “But you find a means of survival and a way to survive because you have to.”
King, who just released his biography, reminded the audience that the 13th Amendment did not abolish slavery for the imprisoned.
“The connection must be made that solitary confinement was used as a tool to repress the message that America was not living up to its word that all people were created equal,” King said. “It is hell to know that all evidence that proves you innocent has been undermined and that you, and the state knows, that you are an innocent man.”
In December 2000, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that King had been denied the constitutional right to a fair trial, as he was handcuffed, shackled and had his mouth duct taped during the murder arrest in 1973. Though King was able to leave prison before serving out his life sentence, his record was never cleared.
King said he hopes that students consider that anyone could be put in his position.
“I’ve come away with a better understanding of what it means to actually hear someone who’s been through the events and times that I’m reading about now,” said economics and government sophomore Kevin Mokoli.
English sophomore Ryan Riley said he was aware of King, his message and his goal to shed light on the issue on an international level.
“Our justice system has some problems,” Riley said. “Hopefully, this will put more pressure on it to be wary of certain biases that might exist on a subconscious level. There’s a guilt built into our system.”
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