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Ear to the Ground

29 Years in Solitary Confinement

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Posted on Apr 18, 2012
Derek Purdy (CC-BY)

Robert King, one of the “Angola 3,” spent three decades in prison—most of them in solitary confinement—for activities involving the Black Panthers. He was released in 2001, but the others remain. One week before the 40th anniversary of their incarceration, he told the ACLU what doing time did to him. —ARK

American Civil Liberties Union:

ACLU: What about the emotional side?

RK: Being in solitary confinement is nothing enjoyable, I can tell you this. It definitely wears you down and tears you down to a great degree.

… Only thing I know is this, when you are in solitary confinement, the best way I could describe it is, the soul cries and I think the brain shrinks. Especially if you are in a 6x9x12 foot cell, your brain is automatically shrinking, and I think everything else shrinks with it. And I think that’s lasting.

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By heterochromatic, April 20, 2012 at 12:19 pm Link to this comment

well, they wasn’t entirely truthful. if’n you ally yourself with people with whom
we’re engaged in combat and you work to spread their message and advocate
death to Americans, Americans tend to think that you might not be a good person
to be walking around America’s streets.

Americans are just that unreasonable, at their best.

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By A. Benway, April 19, 2012 at 7:38 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

They say that “in ah murka vee doan haf po lit ical prisoners” - How nice.

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By do over, April 19, 2012 at 3:11 am Link to this comment

Has everyone forgotten about Leonard Peltier?

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By heterochromatic, April 18, 2012 at 8:24 pm Link to this comment

—-“Robert King, one of the “Angola 3,” spent three decades in prison—most of
them in solitary confinement—for activities involving the Black Panthers.”——


c’mon ARK….. no one thinks that he was in prison for all those years because
he was a Panther.


you might do a bit better to mention that he was a criminal before he joined up
and that he was imprisoned for actual, you know, felonies….serious damn
felonies.

would you write some sentence declaring that Timothy McVeigh was imprisoned
and executed because he was a right-wing militia member?

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By gerard, April 18, 2012 at 4:00 pm Link to this comment

Down with the death penalty.

Down with solitary confinement.

Down with rotten private and state prisons.

Alternatives to Violence programs in all prisons.

Now.

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