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now on bbc news, it's hardtalk. stephen sackur interviews albert woodfox, who was jailed for over four decades for a crime he says he didn't commit. welcome to hardtalk, i'm stephen sackur. there are some human experiences which most of us find it ha rd to experiences which most of us find it hard to get our heads around. my guest today experienced the unimaginable torment of more than four decades in solitary confinement ina tiny four decades in solitary confinement in a tiny cell in one of america's most notaries prisons. albert woodfox was the victim of ingrained racism and brutality inside america's system of criminal justice. he is now a free man, but what does freedom really mean after everything he's been through?

albert woodfox, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. here you are, in london, asa thank you. here you are, in london, as a free man, but given everything you've been through, is it possible for you to ever feel truly free? well, yeah. philosophically, mentally, emotionally, iwas well, yeah. philosophically, mentally, emotionally, i was free long before actual physical freedom occurred. so there was a part of i guess you could say my survival... one of my many survival techniques that allowed me to survive being in solitary confinement for such a long period of time. ijust solitary confinement for such a long period of time. i just wonder in terms of literally muscle memory,

the way your body is, the way your muscles rememberfor the way your body is, the way your muscles remember for decades in shackles, whether you still have that feeling of being in an enclosed space of literally two metres by three metres, or has that left your body? well, i still have claustrophobic attacks occasionally. i guess, yes, several times i wake up i guess, yes, several times i wake up disorientated, because i'm used to getting up and seeing bars, so you wake up and use the walls in the bedroom and stuff. for a brief moment, i'm disorientated. you had an awful long time to reflect on the course of your life, and i want to ta ke course of your life, and i want to take you right back to near the beginning. you growing up in louisiana as a young boy. you made choices and you made some really bad choices and you made some really bad choices i guess one could say now.

looking back, why did you make those choices? well, i was a young african—american kid growing up in the south of the united states. racism was blatant. the opportunities from economic to political to social were almost non—existent. and, you know, if you are denied access to society, if you're denied opportunities and stuff, the instinct to survive is probably the strongest instinct we have. so it was almost predestined that i would turn to petty crime to survive. ifi survive. if i may survive. ifimayi survive. if i may i want to read you a little passage from your extraordinarily frank and honest book, solitary, where you talk about being a youth growing up. i rob people, i scared them, you say, i threatened them, i

intimidated them, i stole from people who had almost nothing. they we re people who had almost nothing. they were my people, black people. i broke into homes and took their possessions. i was a chauvinist pig andi possessions. i was a chauvinist pig and i never thought about the pain i caused. yeah, i made terrible choices. there were things i did that i will never be able to forgive myself for and i will probably spend the rest of my life trying to atone for those things. but i was not a criminal. i thought i had to do criminal. i thought i had to do criminal things to survive and, you know, later on in life, because of the influence and joining the black panther party, i began to understand how society function. i began to understand what, you know, individual racism, supported by institutional racism and the systemic... how it affected my life individually and as a member of the

african—american community. individually and as a member of the african-american community. you talk about the black panthers, and i guess it was actually inside a prison in new york where you first really ca m e prison in new york where you first really came face to face with black men who were committed members of the panther movement. where you already aware of them? where you already aware of them? where you already being drawn to that ideology, which was sort of an extremely strong black power ideology. or was it meeting these people that changed your head? no, guess there's a question as to whether the influence of the black panther party awaken something that was already in me, where, you know, the influence of the black panther party raised my level of consciousness to where i began to understand the forces around me, that i began to understand that there was certain policies from the

government on down to, you know, white america that pretty much determined the course of my life. the black panthers talked a lot about justice and equality the black panthers talked a lot aboutjustice and equality for black people in the united states after centuries of discrimination. of course slavery but post— slavery, the discrimination continued. but there were also some black panthers who were clearly explicitly committed to violence. now, were you pa rt committed to violence. now, were you part of the movement that believed violence was justified or not? part of the movement that believed violence wasjustified or not? well, you know, like any organisation, the organisation has a goal. has, you know, a parameter within which they function in. now, there are going to be people within that same organisation that knocked on that head to the values of the black panthers, whatever. i knew we had

people like that in the party. but overall... but what about you? no, no, me personally, my experience in the party was in prison. the only recognised chapter black panther party in prison. a lot of stuff that happened within the party in society we we re happened within the party in society we were not exposed to. happened within the party in society we were not exposed tolj happened within the party in society we were not exposed to. i take your point because really, your active involvement with the black panthers was all behind bars. yes. which ta kes was all behind bars. yes. which takes us to angola, that no tory is prison in louisiana where you ended up prison in louisiana where you ended up ini97i prison in louisiana where you ended up in 1971 when you first walked through the gate into thatjail, and you did not leave it for more than four decades after. 44 years. yeah.

before we get through to solitary, tall me through your first impressions of what's long been regarded the most brutal and perhaps most racist prison in america. that pretty much sums it up. angola has been designated by various social organisations, including government organisations, including government organisations, as being the bloodiest and most violent prison in the united states at that time. almost everyday, prisoners, either by security or prisoner on prisoner crime, someone by security or prisoner on prisoner crime, someone was by security or prisoner on prisoner crime, someone was stabbed, bludgeoned or murdered. so that was the type of environment that you we re the type of environment that you were forced to survive in. and it was segregated? yes. and the staff, obviously, from the governor on down, but pretty much all of the staff were white? yes. as a matter

ofa staff were white? yes. as a matter of a fact, in angola itself, you had about 300 personnel in charge of 5500, 6000 prisoners. and what was unique about angola was that it was a former breeding slave plantation. it had been a plantation throughout the course of the slave period? and you still had families that work there that go back generation and generation to the slave period... to child slavery in america. and you, the black prisoners, were put to work in the fields? mostly. there we re work in the fields? mostly. there were a fewjobs, janitorialjobs. mostly what's called the plum jobs went to white prisoners. let's get to 1972, the murder of a young white prison guard, brent miller. did you do it? no. there's a certain

abundance of physical evidence that clearly says i was not involved in his murder. physical evidence... they found a bloody fingerprint in mr miller's blood on the door. they never pursued it other than comparing it to me and the other quys comparing it to me and the other guys that were charged. so it raises the very obvious question, why were you targeted by the authorities? the prison staff, both administrative and security, they were aware that herman and i were members of the black panther party. herman wallace, who was your friend, a fellow too, and you were explicit in the prison. you organised other prisoners stop eu formed what you called an

antirape squad to try to control the sexual assaults and abuse inside your wing of the prison. you were in hiding your black panther loyalty. know, and we actually lasted longer than i thought because there was an internal conflict in the department of correction. mr miller was murdered in that environment. so you are convicted of a crime, which of course you insist... always insisted you simply didn't commit, but the fa ct you simply didn't commit, but the fact is, you were hauled off to that special part of the prison for the solitary confinement prisoners, and it began. life in a cell of two metres by three, and i think everybody watching and listening to this will not be able to get their heads around what you then

experienced for 43 years and ten months, so try and capture it for me. it's kind of hard to find words to describe the horror of being confined to a nine feet long and six feet wide cell, and the actual space itself is quite smaller because you have beds on the wall taking up a good size of the cell, a table on the other side and a sink combination with the toilet at the back. you have a very narrow pad in which to manoeuvre up and down the cell. although the cell is nine feet long and six feet wide, the actual space is much smaller. tried to use stay in your bedroom for 23 hours. go in your backyard and draw a nine feet by six feet square and you stay in there for 23 hours. now multiply

that a million times. to add to that, you know that there's absolutely nothing you can do to the situation you're in. and add to that the attitude and behaviour of the guards who are responsible for you, because that was a huge element in the... let's the use the word, torture, that was imposed on you. not only... at that time, now they refer to them as correctional officers, but at that time they referred to them as free men. and you add to that you had the other inmate guard system. these guys were brutal. what do you mean by brutal? brutal, they used physical violence against other prisoners. they beat them, they gassed them... they had pretty much the same power and

authority as free men as they were referred to who worked there. they never hesitated to use the power they had. but if i may say so, as you have said since, you and herman, your great friend who was locked up in solitary in the same place as you, me and herman, we didn't put up with all the racist comments. if they talk trash to us, we talked trash back to them just as bad. i force myself to learn how to not give in to the fear. but as a result you got the pain and brutality even worse. they referred to us as troublemakers and ringleaders. and, yeah, no idea of the political foundation or

philosophy that we had to motivate us philosophy that we had to motivate us to fight against injustice and inhumanity and the horrible conditions and clothing and lack of food. if i asked you right now, looking back, what was the worst thing, the thing that really got closest to breaking you? that would be my mother's death. other than that, with all i went through and all that happened to me, i never came close to being broken. when i lost my mom in 1994 to cancer there was a policy in to go home for the funeral and in african—american families it is important to say that final goodbye. it usually occurs at the wake or the funeral. but because they had singled me out as a troublemaker,

i was denied that. so i had to carry that burden for 27 years. fortunately before my mother passed away my life changed tremendously. a transformation from criminal to political and social activist had occurred and i was in the process of educating and re—educating myself to try and raise my level of conscience and so i was able to thank her for the things that she values and what she tried to instill in me and to tell her she was my first hero. you did an awful lot of reading in prison and became something of a legal expert. you looked at so many legal books. you launched so many appeals and you did, actually, deliver change to the prison regime while you were there. and thanks also to people working

outside on your behalf, various appeals against the conviction and, finally, in 2016 you did not get the exoneration you were looking for, but you got the offer of a plea deal. it's called an alford plea. a plea does not admit guilt but it admits that the state has enough evidence to bring you to trial. you had always said "i will walk out of here when i am declared an innocent man" and you were not. i still have problems with that. there are times when i feel very angry and there are times when i am disappointed that i took the plea deal. because for my whole life i taught men to fight, to stand for what was right and, you know, i tried to do it by not just words but example. so in the final analysis, you know,

i accepted a plea deal. and there were many factors involved but i think the one factor is a conversation i had with my brother. he said that he was visiting with my daughter and she broke down crying. he asked what was wrong and she said "why don't i have a daddy?" ahd he said you have a daddy, and he has accomplished things in the prison system, you would be very proud of him. and she said "no, i don't know what it is to call him daddy and get a response, i don't know what it is for him to hold me in his arms and comfort me when i'm troubled. i don't know if i'll ever experience that." and that was kind of the tipping point of the mental and emotional battle i was waging with myself.

and you do have that now. you can hug your daughter and your grandchildren and your great grandchildren. you can do all that. but you were released and now live as a free man in a united states of america where there is still clear racial injustice at the heart of the criminal justice system. one only has to look at the statistics on rates of incarceration, one only has to look at what happens to too many young black people, particularly young black men in their experiences with the police in different parts of your country. how does that make you feel after everything you have been through? when i was released from prison it took me about three weeks

of being in society to realise that nothing had changed. so nothing had changed? racism was still part of the very fibre of american society. and the brutality of racism had not changed in its application. it had just changed in how it was applied. but i am mindful that you walked out in the year that barack obama served his last year as president of the united states of america, the first black man to hold that position. can you really say that nothing had changed in 44 years? a technicality. i was in prison when president obama was elected. my reality was that nothing would change. this is one man, we have a culture of racism and bigotry and white supremacy that goes back to the founding of america. and one man cannotjust change that in eight years. that's the longest period of time he would be allowed to be president.

will it change? i wonder what you say to your children and your great—grandchildren because you speak as a man who all those years ago committed to the black panther movement to achieve what you regard as justice for black people in america. how do you think your grandchildren and great—grandchildren should carry out that struggle? if you still see it as a struggle. i think it's a social struggle. as a matter of fact it is one of the personal motivations for me. i don't want my great grandkids 30 years from now to be sitting here being interviewed on a stage talking to people about racism and institutional racism and systemic application of racism. as martin luther king said, i would rather that society that has evolved to the point where they are judged by content of character not the colour of their skin or their ethnicity

or physical features or hair checks.. let me ask you this. a different sort of question but the same thing, are you proud of your country today? my country, yes. my government, no. and a last thought, and ifind this remarkable about you and the strength of your mind, you say that when you consider everything that had happened to you in your life, and i mean everything, you say "i would not change one thing. all i went through made me the man i am today." do you really mean that? that you would not, on reflection, take different decisions that would have avoided those 44 years in solitary confinement? no. no, i would not change a thing. because for one thing,

i didn'tjust survive solitary confinement, i prospered as a human being. i developed moral principles, values and a code of conduct. i self—educated myself. all the things that society had denied me as a human being i was able to provide myself in a hostile and isolating environment. so, no, i wouldn't change anything. as painful as it has been as brutal as it has been the beatings, the gassings, forced to drink out of the toilet because they turned the water off while i was in the dungeon... all the things i went through, they helped build me and shape the man i am today and my mum used to always tell me to always be proud of what you look at in the mirror.

and so far i think the way i have conducted myself and the way i have transformed myself and the way i have evolved, i am proud of what looks back at me. albert woodfox, it has been a pleasure to talk to you. thank you for being on hardtalk. hello. the forecast brings us pretty mixed fare across the uk

in the next few days. sunny spells for almost all areas and, i think, if anything, some increasing warmth. but look out for some hefty old showers as well, especially across the northern half of the uk. low pressure is driving the weather here. we'll swing in some fronts as well, which means more organised bands of rain. for wimbledon, though, with high pressure sitting to the south of the uk, we are clinging on to a fine picture for wednesday, perhapsjust a raised risk of a shower later on in the afternoon. you can see some of those showers so start to tuck a little bit further south at times through the day, but southern england and south wales very likely, i think, to escape with a largely dry picture, although some heavier showers across eastern england cannot be ruled out through the afternoon. scotland gets the wettest of the weather first thing, brighter through the afternoon. thunderstorms likely in the north—east later, and then northern ireland seeing some more persistent rain arriving as we move into the latter

part of the day. just light winds and that's a complication where you get some heavy showers developing. nothing to drive them on so the rainfall can really mount up. a pretty clear evening to the south and east, but the showers pile into wales and eventually roll through northern ireland and head into scotland. overnight lows to take us into thursday, 12—14just about covers it. for thursday daytime, we are still under the influence of high pressure, and some of those more organised bands of showers are perhaps a greater risk of seeing some heavy showers across the eastern side of the uk on thursday, and particularly for eastern scotland — signs are there could be some quite intense thunderstorms. again to the far south, things looking drier and clearer with some pleasant spells of sunshine. and then for the end of the week, things starting to calm down somewhat. a few showers possible for northern ireland. again the chance of heavy ones though across eastern england, perhaps easter scotland, with the odd rumble of thunder. in the sunshine, though,

our temperatures starting to lift — perhaps 23, 24. certainly through the weekend that looks to be the case because the reason things are starting to calm down by friday is high—pressure is beginning to build from the west, and it will spread out across the uk to take us through the weekend. i can't promise you faultless blue skies but i can promise you a much quieter couple of days with very, very few showers, perhaps just the odd one or two in the east on saturday, in the west on sunday. sunshine and temperatures into the mid—20s.

this is the briefing, i'm sally bundock. our top story: the two contenders to be british prime minister face each other in a head—to—head debate, clashing over brexit and the economy. what we should be doing is getting ready and encouraging the people of this country to believe they can do it, because they can do it. being prime minister is about telling people what they need to hear, not just what they want to hear. the us seeks to set up an international military coalition to protect waters off iran and yemen. one life saved in yemen's civil war — the little girl who got medical treatment thanks to donations. reforming retirement — brazilian lawmakers are set to vote through a dramatic rise in the pension age and workers are not happy.