Color of Change needs our help to right a long-time wrong in Louisiana.  On a week when race is in the forefront of the American political dialogue, please take a moment to take action on behalf of men brutalized in Angola, the Louisiana State Penitentiary.

For 35 years, Jim Crow justice in Louisiana has kept Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox locked in solitary confinement for a crime everyone knows they didn’t commit.

Despite overwhelming evidence of their innocence, the "Angola 3", spend 23 hours each day in a 6×9 cell on the site of a former plantation. Prison officials – and the state officials who could intervene – won’t end the terrible sentence. They’ve locked them up and thrown away the key because they challenged a system that deals an uneven hand based on the color of one’s skin and tortures those who assert their humanity.

We can help turn things around by making it a political liability for the authorities at Angola to continue the racist status quo, and by forcing federal and state authorities to intervene.

Color of Change did extraordinary work bringing the Jena Six to America’s attention. Now they’ve asked for our help again. And for good reason.

When ColorOfChange.org spoke up about the Jena 6, it was about more
than helping six Black youth in a small town called Jena. It was about
standing up against a system of unequal justice that deals an uneven
hand based on the color of one’s skin. That broken system is at work
again and ColorOfChange.org is joining The Innocence Project and
Amnesty International to challenge it in the case of the Angola 3.

"Angola", sits on 18,000 acres of former plantation land in Louisiana
and is estimated to be one of the largest prisons in the United
States. Angola’s history is telling: once considered one of the most
violent, racially segregated prison in America, almost a prisoner a
day was stabbed, shot or raped. Prisoners were often put in inhumane
extreme punishment camps for small infractions. The Angola 3 -
Herman, Albert and Robert – organized hunger and work strikes within
the prison in the 70’s to protest continued segregation, corruption
and horrific abuse facing the largely Black prisoner population.

Shortly after they spoke out, the Angola 3 were convicted of murdering
a prison guard by an all-white jury. It is now clear that these men
were framed to silence their peaceful revolt against inhumane
treatment. Since then, they have spent every day for 35 years in 6×9
foot cells for a crime they didn’t commit.

Herman and Albert are not saints. They are the first to admit they’ve
committed crimes. But, everyone agrees that their debts to society
for various robbery convictions were paid long ago.

Please add your voice in protest of Louisiana justice here.

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  3. Amendments to Watch For Tuesday and Beyond
  4. As Justice Stevens Winds Down, Will Obama Continue Court’s Trend to the Right?
  5. Chief Justice Roberts on Michael Jackson: Let Him Carry His Own Lantern