statements

THE HOUSE THAT HERMAN BUILT

artist statement

- Angola is an 18,000 acre former slave-breeding plantation with an annual operating budget of $105,000,000.
- It was officially established as the Louisiana State Penitentiary in 1901.
- Primary crops: corn, soybeans, cotton and wheat.
- Sustaining crops: tomatoes, cabbage, okra, watermelon, onions, beans, and peppers.
- There is a 1,500 cattle beef herd, which is sold for profit, to the open market through Prison Enterprises.
- Prison Enterprises also manages the for profit license tag shop, metal fabrication facility, mattress, broom and mop
factories housed on Angola.
- Every physically able prisoner is required to work for 2- 20 cents an hour a minimum of 40 hours a week.
- LSP is the largest employer in West Feliciana Parish, providing more jobs than the nuclear power plant and
paper mill combined.
-It costs an averge of $45,000 a year to imprison someone in Rhode Island versus about $13,000 spent in Louisiana.
- A new $10,000,000 Death Row facility was completed in April 2007.
- The 11,300 seat arena which houses the annual Angola Prison Rodeo, was completed in 2002, with prison labor.
- 2 New Chapels have been built on Angola in the last 2 years with profit from the Angola Rodeo and prison labor.
- 28,987 Religious Materials, and 8,424 Bibles were distributed in 2005.
- Approximately 400 religious services and programs are offered each month throughout LSP.
- Brent Miller rifle range was recently renovated and provides employees of Angola with training in firearms,
tactical response, chemical agents, electronic capture shields, and restraints.(Brent Miller is the prison guard
Herman and Albert are accused of killing)
- Prison View Golf Course, is open to the public inside Angola. 24 hour reservations are required and
tee off is $20 (including cart rental).
- The United States represents 4.6 percent of the world’s population, but houses nearly 23 percent of humanity’s
prison population.
- In 2008, over 2.3 million (1 out of every 100) Americans are currently behind bars in the United States.
This represents the highest per capita incarceration rate in the history of the world.
- Some ethnicities have higher rates,1 out of every 36 Latinos and 1 out of every 15 black adults is behind bars.
- The United States has approx. 500,000 more prisoners than China.
- Blacks represent about 12 percent of the U.S. population, but 48 percent of the prison population.
- In 2006, Incarceration rates for white males between ages 25-29; 1,685 per 100,000. For Black males ages 25-29;
12,603 per 100,000.
- Incarceration rates for Black males in the US today are nearly 6-times greater than in South Africa under apartheid.
(US 4,919 per 100,000; South Africa (1993), 851 per 100,000).
- Records show black Americans represent just 13 percent of drug users, but 38 percent of those arrested for drug crimes,
and 59 percent of those convicted.
- When convicted of the same drug felony, blacks are about 50 percent more likely to be sentenced to prison than whites.
- A white man’s chances of spending some time in prison over the course of his life is 5.9%. For black men, the odds
are 32.2%, nearly one in three.
- One out of every 17 African-American adult males has been incarcerated.
- Slavery has NOT been abolished in the United States. Section 1) of the 13th Amendment to the United States
Constitution reads: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall
have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
- Inmates working at UNICOR (the federal prison industry corporation) make recycled furniture and work 40 hours a
week for about $40 per month.
- One of the fastest growing sectors of the prison industrial complex is private corrections companies. Investment firm
Smith Barney is a part owner of a prison in Florida. American Express and General Electric have invested in private prison
construction in Oklahoma and Tennessee. Correctional Corporation Of America, one of the largest private prison owners,
already operates internationally, with more than 48 facilities in 11 states, Puerto Rico, the United Kingdom, and Australia.
- Most of the incarcerated population in the US is poor people who commit nonviolent crimes often out of economic need.
Violence occurs in less than 14% of all reported crime, injuries occur in just 3% and violent crime only constitutes
about 4.6% of all arrests.
- In California, the top three charges for those entering prison are: possession of a controlled substance, possession of
a controlled substance for sale, and robbery. Violent crimes like murder, rape, manslaughter and kidnapping don’t even
make the top ten.
- The state of California now spends more on prisons than on higher education, and over the past decade has built 19 prisons
and only one university branch.

Reference: www.corrections.state.la.us/LSP
Bureau of Justice and US Statistics: www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/pjim04.htm
Prison Policy Initiative: www.prisonpolicy.org
The Sentencing Project: www.sentencingproject.org

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Jackie's bio

Born in Brooklyn NY in 1973, Jackie Sumell is inspired most by the lives of everyday people. As a multidisciplinary artist
her work transcends the boundaries of art and activism in an attempt to connect people in provocative and meaningful ways.

In 2001 Sumell received critical acclaim for her project directly condemning Bush’s conservative policies on reproductive freedoms.
More recently she has been working on behalf of political prisoners in Angola Prison, Louisiana and spent several months grass-root
organizing in a post-Katrina New Orleans. Her work has been exhibited consistently in the Bay Area and in various non-profit
venues throughout the US, including the Canzani Center, Columbus OH and Disjecta, Portland OR. Internationally she was included
in Kunst Lebt, Stuttgart Kunstgebaude, TULCA Arts Festival, Galway Ireland, Axis of Good Exhibition in Lisbon Portugal, and
the 2003 Havana Biennale, Havana Cuba. In 2006 she published the book The House That Herman Built which documents the
five-year collaborative project between she and black panther/political prisoner Herman Wallace. In December 2006 Domus magazine
featured this project as it cover and in March 2007 it was covered by the NYTimes Sunday Arts section. Ms Sumell was in residence
at the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart Germany October 2005 through September 2006 and will be an Artist-in-Resident
November 2006 through November 2008 in Dublin Ireland. She received a B.S. in Allied Health/Sports Medicine from the College
of Charleston, and an M.F.A. from Stanford University.

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Herman's bio

Herman Wallace was born in the 12th Ward, New Orleans LA on October 13th 1941. He was first imprisoned in Angola Penitentiary
in 1960, but released two years later. In 1971 he established the Angola Chapter of the Black Panther Party with Ronald Ailsworth,
Albert Woodfox, and Gerald Bryant after receiving permission from the Panther central office in Oakland. The Panthers risked their
lives to end prisoner rape, facilitate race relations and improve inhumane conditions in the slave-plantation-turned-prison.

In 1974 Wallace received a life sentence with out possibility of parole for the murder of a prison guard named Brent Miller.
The sentence was based on false testimony. The State withheld evidence from the jury in 1974 which may have exonerated Wallace
(and Woodfox) from the crime. That evidence was the fact that the state’s only eye witness, Hezekiah Brown was paid for his
testimony by Angola officials. Wallace’s conviction is now up for review in the 19th Circuit Court of Appeals. Several notable officials
and organizations have demanded Wallace’s release. These include, Amnesty International, Dame Anita Roddick, Mumia Abu Jamal,
Former US Attorney Ramsey Clark, and freed political prisoner Geronimo JiJaga Pratt. More recently, Congressman John Conyers, the chairman
of the Judicial Committee, visted Herman and Albert in prison and insisted that they be released.

Herman Wallace’s writings have been notably published in several publications and journals. As an activist he has focused his efforts
on educating other prisoners, and has become a reputable jail house lawyer. Recently, Linda Carmichael has written a play about his
life in solitary confinement. A song documenting his struggle produced by Dave Stewart (Eurythmics) was released in in 2006.
Herman Wallace has been kept in solitary confinement at Angola since 1972. Albert Woodfox, Robert King and Herman Wallace are
collectively known as the Angola 3.