Louisiana State Penitentiary

For similarly named locales, see Angola (disambiguation).

Angola (also known as "The Farm") is the Louisiana State Penitentiary and is estimated to be one of the largest prisons in the U.S. with 5,000 inmates and over 1,000 staff. Located on an 18,000 acre (73 km²) plantation in West Feliciana Parish close to the Mississippi border, it is surrounded on three sides by the Mississippi River, making flooding a constant menace.

Contents 1 History 2 Today 3 Misc 4 Musical references 5 See also 6 References and footnotes 7 Books about Angola 8 External links 9 Geography

History

The land that has become Angola Penitentiary was purchased by Isaac Franklin from Francis Routh during the 1830s with the profits from his slave trading firm, Armfield and Franklin, of Alexandria, Virginia and Natchez, Mississippi as four contiguous plantations. These plantations, Panola, Belle View, Killarney and Angola, were joined during their sale by Franklin's widow, Adelicia Hayes, to Samuel Lawrence James in 1880. The plantation, named after the area in Africa where the former slaves came from, contained a building called the Old Slave Quarters. ^[1] Samuel James ran the plantation using convicts leased from the State of Louisiana. The State of Louisiana only assumed full control in 1901. In 1916 to save money, all the guards were fired, and selected inmates were used as trustees (similar to Mississippi's Trusty system), a system which led to a great deal of abuse. ^[2] By the 1950s, Angola had degenerated to become one of the very worst prisons in the U.S. In 1952, 31 inmates cut their Achilles' tendons in protest of the hard work and brutality (referred to as the Heel String Gang.) ^[3] In 1972, a reforming director of corrections was appointed by Governor Edwin Edwards, and the U.S. courts in Gates v. Collier ordered Louisiana to clean up Angola once and for all, ending the Trusty system.^[4] Successive wardens have continued the improvements, and Angola is now regarded as a showcase among U.S. penal establishments. Current Warden Burl Cain maintains an open-door policy with the media, which led to the production of the award winning documentary The Farm. ^[5] Films such as Dead Man Walking ^[6] and Monster's Ball ^[7] were partly filmed in Angola.

Today

Angola is still run as a working farm; Warden Cain once said that the key to running a peaceful maximum security prison was that "you've got to keep the inmates working all day so they're tired at night." The prison hosts a rodeo every April and October, and its inmates produce the award-winning magazine The Angolite, available to the general public and relatively uncensored ^[8] There is a museum which features among its exhibits Louisiana's old electric chair, "Gruesome Gertie", last used for the execution of Andrew Lee Jones on 22 July 1991. Angola Prison is also home to the country's only inmate-operated radio station. ^[9] Because of the large number of prisoners serving very long sentences, of every six men who enter the penitentiary, only one lives long enough to complete their prison term and be freed. There is no realistic prospect of parole. A "short" prison sentence at Angola is 50 years. The average prison term is 88 years and many are serving even longer. As a result, the vast majority of prisoners sent to Angola die there of old age or illness. Inmates who develop a terminal illness are treated at a secure hospice within the grounds of the prison, and subsequently buried in the prison cemetery.

Misc

Angola is also the place of confinement of the Angola 3. Robert King Wilkerson was freed in 2001 after 30 years in solitary confinement and Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox remain in solitary confinement after the last 35 years, a form of punishment to which the Eighth Amendment is not considered to apply.^[10][11]

Musical references

The prison has held many musicians and been the subject of a number of songs. Blues singer Leadbelly and Tex-Mex artist Freddy Fender were both pardoned from there.

The song "Grown So Ugly" by American blues musician and ex-convict Robert Pete Williams references Angola. The song's lyrics have some basis in fact, as Williams was imprisoned there and was officially pardoned (from a murder charge) in 1964, the year the song says that he left the prison. The classic New Orleans song "Junco Partner" includes the lines:

Six months ain't no sentence, and a year ain't no time

They got boys down in Angola doin' one year to ninety-nine

Aaron and Charles Neville wrote "Angola Bound":

I got lucky last summer when I got my time, Angola bound

Well my partner got a hundred, I got ninety-nine, Angola bound

Angola also features in the Neville Brothers song "Sons and Daughters" on the album Brother's Keeper. Folklorist Frederick Oster recorded "Angola Prison Worksongs" for his Folklyric Records in 1959, now re-released on Arhoolie Records. According to Oster, between 1929 and 1940, 10,000 floggings were carried out in Angola. Singer Gil Scott-Heron wrote and recorded the song "Angola, Louisiana" on his 1978 album with Brian Jackson, Secrets. The song deals with the inprisonment of inmate Gary Tyler. Comprising the entire B-Side of his album Remedies, New Orleans musician Dr. John features an extended 17:35 song titled "Angola Anthem". Singer-songwriter Myshkin recorded "Angola" in 1998 for her album Blue Gold. The song refers to the case of former Angola warden C. Murray Henderson, who was sentenced to 50 years in Angola prison for the attempted murder of his wife, writer Anne Butler:

Release me from this life I will seek my punishment

On the other side but the judge said

"Warden in cold blood you shot your poor poor wife

You're going back to Angola, there your hell to find"

New Orleans rap artist Juvenile has part of a verse in the Hot Boys song "Dirty World" that says:

They'll plant dope on ya, go to court on ya

Give ya 99 years and slam the door on ya

Angola, the free man bout it, he don't play

Nigga get outta line, ship 'em to Camp J

New Orleans pianist James Booker mentions Angola prison in his cover of "Goodnight, Irene" ; he was a resident there for heroin possession at the same time as Lead Belly, as he describes in the song:

Lead Belly and little Booker both, had the pleasure of partying,

on the pon de rosa, *laughs* you know what I mean, you dig?

Yeah, on the pon de rosa, you know, down in Angola

where they have boys doing from one year to ninety nine

New Orleans rap group Bottom Posse recorded a song entitled "Angola Bound" that is unrelated to the Neville Brothers song of the same name. Ray Davies has recorded a song entitled "Angola (Wrong Side of the Law)", which is due for release as a bonus track on the expanded release of Working Man's Café in February 2008.

See also

• Trusty system

References and footnotes

Books about Angola

• Cain's Redemption by Dennis Shere
• Dead Man Walking by Sister Helen Prejean
• God of the Rodeo - Daniel Bergner
• by Billy Wayne Sinclair.
• The prison is referred to in A Confederacy of Dunces by Jones when describing the racial inequality in the New Orleans judicial system.
• The main character of Poppy Z. Brite's novel The Lazarus Heart is sent to Angola for the murder of his lover.
• The House That Herman Built by Herman Wallace of the Angola 3, co-written with Artist Jackie Sumell.

External links

• Louisiana State Penitentiary
• Paste: Inside Angola's Incarceration Station
• United States District Court Middle District of Louisiana Magistrates Report & Recommendation- regarding complaints of "cruel and unusual punishment" at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola

Geography

• Louisiana State Penitentiary is at coordinates 30°57′18″N 91°35′42″W / 30.955107, -91.594927Coordinates: 30°57′18″N 91°35′42″W / 30.955107, -91.594927