Angola 3

by Kenny Zulu Whitmore

Published in: SF Bayview, August 30th, 2022

Photo of Albert Woodfox on the left, arm in arm with Kenny Zulu Whitmore on the right — Albert Shaka Woodfox and Kenny Zulu Whitmore in 2009 – two of the founding members of the first Black Panther Prison Chapter, located in the notorious Angola State Penitentiary, an 18,000-acre former plantation – set a standard for the revolutionary mentality still observed by prisoners throughout the country. Shaka was called home by the Ancestors on Aug. 4; Zulu remains in Angola.

I am Kenny Zulu Whitmore, and I want to say a few words about my late comrade, friend and mentor Albert “Shaka Cinque” Woodfox, who co-founded the Angola Chapter of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense and was a member of the political prisoners known as the Angola 3. He was called by the Ancestors on Aug. 4, 2022, due to complications of Covid.

He spent a total of 43+ years in Angola’s solitary confinement before he was released from prison on a wrongful conviction in a plea agreement on his birthday, Feb. 19, 2016, and was residing in New Orleans East at the time of his untimely demise.

I was blessed to be in communication with him 15 minutes before he took his last breath. I will deeply miss his presence in this mean old world, but as he always reminded me, “Zulu, we are never separated because we are not joined at the hip but in spirit. But still I know this pain too shall pass.”

Recently, someone asked me what do I think Woodfox would say to us now? What a question, but since I knew and know him as well as anyone beside Robert King, the third member of the Angola 3, I said: “As much as he studied Revolutionary Marcus Garvey, he would say something like what Garvey said in his Freedom Speech delivered some 98 years ago in Harlem:

“‘If I should die in America, my work will only just then begin. For I shall live in the physical or the spiritual to see the day of America’s glory. When I am dead, wrap the mantle of the red, the black and the green around me, for in the new life I shall rise up with Allah’s grace and blessing to lead the millions to the heights of triumph – that you well know.

“‘Look for me in the whirlwind or the storm! Look for me all around you. For with Allah’s grace, I shall come back with countless millions of Black men and women who were brutally murdered in America and the West Indies and the millions in Africa to aid you in your fight for EQUALITY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL.’” Comrade, rest in peace.

Zulu

Zulu is the fourth member of the Angola 3

Kenny “Zulu” Whitmore was such a close companion to the Angola 3 that they were sometimes called the Angola 4. In a 2013 tribute to the Angola 3’s Herman “Hook” Wallace, Zulu wrote about Albert “Shaka” Woodfox:

“My first two weeks on D-tier [solitary confinement] living next door to Albert Woodfox, aka Shaka, I was observing how things went. ‘Reach one Teach one’ was in full effect. Tutors were helping guys to bring their reading and writing up to standards.

“There was BPP literature everywhere. Photos of Huey, Bobby, Angela, George – you name it, they had it. The BPP Ten Point Program was taught; the movement was alive and growing. Shaka used to give me lots of books to read and he used to talk with me about politics.

“One book he gave me to read, ‘Native Son,’ by Richard Wright, changed my life and my way of thinking. I looked in the mirror and saw Bigger Thompson. Like others around me, I made that conscious choice to transform from a street soldier mentality to a revolutionary one, and my comrade Shaka helped me do that.”

Send our brother some love and light:
Kenny Zulu Whitmore, 86468
Cypress #3
Louisiana State Penitentiary
Angola LA 70712

Published in: SF Bayview, 26 June 2022

The-Zulu-shade-never-fades, Almost 50 years ain’t enough? Free Kenny Zulu Whitmore!, Behind Enemy Lines — “The Zulu shade never fades” and neither does the spirit of liberation within the too many wrongfully convicted and unjustly sentenced Black, Brown and Indigenous people languishing within U.S. prisons. With their freedom on the line, but still needing to speak, we’re honoring their anonymity – and need for support. “Because of people’s appreciation of craft, it gets into places where it really shouldn’t and the politics become secondary to the workmanship of the actual art piece. I’ve always found that when people come to look at something from an aesthetic point of view they are more open to reading it and looking at it and taking it in.” – Carrie Reichardt, of ‘Treatment Rooms Collective’ a team of artists/Zulu supporters out of the UK.

by an anonymous supporter

I recently read an article on May 10, 2022, where elderly political prisoner Sundiata Acoli, 85 years of age now, was ordered released by a New Jersey Supreme Court after serving more than 49 years in the belly of the Beast.

And on Wednesday, May 11, 2022, Kerry Shakaboona Marshall walks out of prison after being held captive for 34 years into the arms of his mother who was known as Mama Pat. Patricia Vickery worked tirelessly for her son’s release. This made me think of Kenny Zulu Whitmore, Political Prisoner in Louisiana.

Kenny Zulu Whitmore was “captured by the modern-day slave catchers,” as he once said, in February 1975, for the August 15, 1973 robbery and murder of the mayor of a rural town in the Parish of East Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Zulu was 18 years of age at the time, and racial tension was, as it was around the country in 1973, high and violent. Zulu has maintained his innocence of the robbery and murder. At the time of his arrest in February 1975, he was held incommunicado by E.B.R.P.D. for three days, taken out of jail into a heavily wooded area beaten and tortured, refused food and drink by his captors, until they beat a false confession out of him.

Zulu was tried and convicted of armed robbery and second-degree murder and was sentenced to Life Without the Possibility of Parole (LWOP), plus over 100 years in prison.

Shortly afterward, Zulu was transferred to the notorious Louisiana state plantation better known as Angola. Upon his arrival to Angola, Zulu was immediately placed into CCC/Close-Cell Restriction, known around the country as solitary confinement.

In solitary, Zulu met members of Angola 3 and joined the Angola chapter of the Black Panther Party for Self-defense. Our beloved comrade would spend the next 37 1/2 years in solitary confinement. He is now being housed in general population.

Currently, Zulu’s case is pending in the district court awaiting a ruling by the judge. Zulu has been incarcerated 47 and a half years. We cannot forget our Elderly Warrior in his struggle for justice. As more legal updates become available, I will pass them on. Let’s show our brother some love and light.

Kenny Zulu Whitmore

Send our brother some love and light: Kenny Zulu Whitmore, 86468 Cypress #3, Louisiana State Prison, Angola, LA 70712.