Why:
Targeted because they were organizing for humane treatment and to put an end to segregation in the prison.
• Herman, Albert, Robert and others routinely spoke out against injustice.
• Although not activists when arriving in prison, brutal, squalid conditions, and news of
a growing civil rights movement on the outside, prompted the Angola 3 to form a Black
Panther chapter behind bars.
• Prisoners organized a well publicized 6-day non-violent hunger strike in August of
1971 calling for an end to segregation, inadequate medical care, sexual slavery, armed
inmate guards, and excessive (16 hours a day/ 6 days per week) work schedules.
• In response, Representative Dorothy Taylor, the only African-American member of the
state legislature, took up the cause of prison reform, met with prisoners, and called for
public hearings into conditions in the Louisiana penal system.
• As a result, one year later, Governor Edwin Edwards appointed a prison reformist as
Director of the Department of Corrections.