Who they are

The Formation of the Black Panther Party at Angola in 1971, Woodfox and Wallace organized the Black Panther Party at Angola. Woodfox had joined the Party in New York, where he had fled after a daring 1969 escape from the courthouse in New Orleans. After spending time imprisoned under an assumed name in New York, where he helped organize several rebellions in the New York City correctional system, Woodfox, along with his newfound politics, was extradited back to Louisiana. Wallace became a Panther while he was incarcerated at the New Orleans Parish Prison with the political prisoners known as the "New Orleans Panther 12." When they were shipped off to Angola, Woodfox and Wallace took the Black Panther Party with them.

The Angola Panthers not only challenged the prison administration, but they also organized to end aspects of the inmate social order that hindered prisoner unity and played into the hands of the guards. The Panthers risked their lives to protect younger and weaker inmates from the rape, prostitution, and sex slavery that pervaded prison life. As Woodfox puts it, "It wasn't much help to go to the security because most of the security people were condoning that type of activity. They would benefit from it because they would get money or favors for allowing rapes to happen. Some of the guards themselves would be involved in the rapes."

The Panthers worked to mend the schism between black and white prisoners that the prison officials manipulated to their advantage, a difficult feat considering that the prisoner housing, dining halls, and worksites were still racially segregated, with privileged living arrangements and work assignments going to white prisoners. The BPP also exposed the widespread corruption of the people who ran Angola, many of whom came from families that had lived on state land and had worked at the prison for several generations. Guards often diverted food, grown by the prisoners for their own consumption, to their own families and friends or sold it in town.

The administration of the prison responded to the rise of the Panthers by filling its isolation units with activist prisoners. The associate warden of the prison, Hayden Dees, testified in court proceedings to the need to keep "a certain type of militant or revolutionary inmate, maybe even a Communist type," on permanent lockdown.

Indeed, Woodfox and Wallace believe they were targeted for prosecution and long-term lockdown because of their organizing.
" I think the fact that they were never able to break my spirit or Herman Wallace's spirit, the fact that they could not shake our political beliefs or convictions, contributed to the reason why we were held in CCR [Closed Cell Restricted, or solitary confinement]," Woodfox says.