Albert Woodfox, one of the “Angola Three,” three Black political prisoners in US jails, whose conviction has been overturned three times, is continuing to struggle today for his freedom. On February 3, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals denied a request for a rehearing to the state of Louisiana, affirming the overturn of his conviction for murder.

Woodfox and his comrade Herman Wallace, Black Panthers who built a chapter of the party inside the notorious prison, a former slave plantation rife with corruption, segregation and horrific racist abuse, were accused of killing a prison guard in 1973, despite the fact that no physical evidence lined them to the murder and potentially exculpatory DNA evidence was lost by the state, and the witnesses who testified against them later retracted their statement. He has been held for over 40 years in solitary confinement, including 23 hours a day confined in his cell, lack of access to exercise, work, or education; he has been denied review of his isolation and is 67 years old today.

Herman Wallace died in 2013, free for only three days after 41 years in solitary confinement after his own conviction was overturned, and the third member of the Angola Three, Robert King, was released in 2001. The campaign to free Albert Woodfox – and end long-term solitary confinement – is supported by Amnesty International and numerous human rights organizations.

angola3Coup Pour Coup 31, an anti-imperialist collective in Toulouse, France, is organizing a campaign to free Albert Woodfox, noting that “his life bears witness to the popular and political struggle for self-defense and liberation of the African American community, denouncing all of the realities of racial and economic oppression of African American people: from neighbourhoods to prisons, from the slave trade to the industrial slavery of prison labor, from cultural and mental alienation to institutional destruction. It is the political strength of the resistance and the legacy of revolutionary fighters that has sustained Albert Woodfox through 42 years of isolation, and must also encourage the international campaign of solidarity for his release and against the racist system of oppression of US prisons.”

Coup Pour Coup is fundraising and holding events to support the case: learn more here: http://www.couppourcoup31.com/2015/02/campaign-for-the-release-of-albert-woodfox.html

Write to Albert Woodfox and send your support to:

Albert Woodfox #72148
David Wade Correctional Center
670 Bell Hill Road
Homer, LA 71040