Try to stay in your bedroom for 23 hours. Go in your backyard, draw a box, nine feet by six feet and stay now on bbc news its hardtalk. In there for 23 hours. Welcome to hardtalk, im stephen sackur. There are some human experiences which most of us find very hard to get our heads around. My guest today experienced now multiply thati million times. The unimaginable torment of more than four decades in solitary confinement in a tiny cell in one of americas most notorious prisons. To add to that, you know there was absolutely nothing you can do to change the Albert Woodfox was the victim situation you are in. Of ingrained racism and brutality and add to that the attitude and behaviour of the guards inside americas system who are responsible for you. Of criminaljustice. He is now a free man. That was a huge element in the, but what does freedom really mean after everything he has been through . Lets use the word, torture that was imposed upon you. Now they refer to them as correction Albert Woodfox, welcome to hardtalk. Officers but at that time they were known as free men. And you add to that you had an inmate guard system and these thank you. Here you are, in guys were brutal. What you mean by brutal . London as a free man. They used physical violence against other prisoners. But given everything they beat them, they gassed them, you have been through, is it possible for you to they had pretty much the same power and authority as the free men, as they were referred to, ever feel truly free . Who work there. And they never hesitated yeah, i mean philosophically, mentally and emotionally i was free long before my physicalfreedom. To use the power they had. And so that was a part of my survival technique. It allowed me to survive but if i may say so, as you has said since, being in solitary confinement you and herman, your great friend who was locked up for such a long period of time. In solitary in the same place i wonder in terms of, as you, me and herman, we didnt put up with all the racist comments. Literally in terms of muscle memory, if they talked trash to us, we talked trash back to them just as bad. I forced myself to learn how to not give into the fear. Whether the way your body is, whether your muscles remember four i would not let fear rule me. Decades in shackles, whether you still have that feeling of being in an enclosed space, but as a result, you got the pain literally two by three metres or has and the brutality even worse. That left your body . I still have claustrophobic yeah, we were seeing a lot. Attacks occasionally. And i guess several times i wake up they referred to us and have been disorientated, troublemakers and ringleaders. Because i am used to getting up and seeing bars and stuff and you wake up and you see and um, they had no idea a wall and a bedroom. Of the Political Foundation for a brief moment or the philosophy, i am disorientated. You had an awful long time to reflect on the course of your life and i want that we did the things we did to take you right back motivated us to fight to near the beginning. Against injustice and inhumanity. Horrible physical conditions, the lack of clothing, growing up in louisiana as a young lack of adequate food. Boy, you made choices and you made some very bad choices, i guess one could say now. If i asked you right now, looking back, why did looking back, what was the worst thing, the thing that really got closest to breaking you . You make those choices . That would be my mothers death. I was a Young African american kid growing up in the south of the United States. Other than that, with all i went through and all that happened to me, i never came close to being broken. Racism was blatant, the opportunities from economic when i lost my mom in 1994 to cancer to political to social were almost non existent. There was a policy in to go home and if you are denied access for the funeral and in to society, if you are denied African American families opportunities, the instinct its important to be able to survive is probably the strongest instinct we have. To say that final goodbye. It usually occurs at the wake or the funeral. It was almost predestined that i would turn to petty crime to survive. And because of who i am and because they had singled me out id like to read to you a little as a troublemaker, i was denied that. Passage from your extraordinarily so i had to carry that frank and honest book, burden for 27 years. Solitary, where you talk about being a youth growing up. Fortunately, before my mother passed away, my life had changed tremendously. A transformation from criminal i robbed people, iscared to political and social activist had them, i threatened them, occurred and i was in the process of constantly educating i intimidated them. And re educating myself i stole from people who had almost nothing. They were my people, black people. I broke into their homes and took their possessions. I was a chauvinist pig and i never and i used it to try thought about the pain i caused. And raise my level of conscience and so i was able yes. I made terrible choices. To thank her for the things that she values and what she tried there are things that i did that to instill in me and to tell her i will never be able she was my first hero. To forgive myself for. You did an awful lot of reading and i will spend the rest of my life in prison and became something trying to atone for those things. Of a legal expert. You looked at so many legal books. But i was not a criminal. I thought i had to do you launched so many criminal things to survive. Appeals and you did, actually, deliver change to the prison regime while you were there. And later on in life, because of the influence injoining and thanks also to people working the black Panther Party i began to understand how society functioned outside on your behalf, there were various appeals and understand what individual against the conviction and, finally, racism supported by institutional racism and the systemic in 2016 you didnt get the exoneration you were looking application of racism, for, but you got the offer of a plea deal. Its called an alford plea. How that affected my life yeah. Individually and as a member its a plea does not admit guilt of the African American community. But it admits that the state has you talk about the black panthers enough evidence to and i guess it was inside the prison bring you to trial. Because you had always said in new york where you first really came face to face with black men i will walk out of here when i am who were committed members declared an innocent of the Panther Movement. Were you already aware of them . Man and you were not. Yeah, i still have problems with it. Were you already drawn to that there are times when i feel very ideology, a sort of extremely strong angry and there are times when i am disappointed that black power ideology or was it meeting these people that changed your head . I took the plea deal. Because for my whole life i taught men to fight, there is a question to stand for what was right and, as to whether the influence of the black Panther Party awaken something already in me you know, i tried to do it by not or whether the influence just words, but example. Of the black Panther Party raised my level of consciousness to where i began to understand so in the final analysis, you know, the forces around me, i accepted a plea deal. I began to understand that there were certain policies from the government on down to white and there were many factors involved america that determined pretty much but i think that the one factor is a conversation i had with my brother. And he said that he was visiting with my daughter the course of my life. And she broke down crying. He asked what was wrong and she said the black panthers spoke a lot aboutjustice and equality for black why dont i have a daddy . People in the United States after centuries of discrimination and slavery, of course, but post slavery the discrimination continued. And he said you have a daddy, and the things hes accomplished in the prison system, you would be very proud of him. And she said no, i dont know what it is to call him daddy and get a response, i dont know what it is for him to hold me there were also some black panthers in his arms and comfort me when im troubled. Who were clearly explicitly and i dont know if ill committed to violence. Ever experience that. Were you part of the movement that and that was kind of the tipping believed that violence point of the mental and emotional was justified or not . You know, like any organisation, battle i was waging with myself. The organisation has a goal, a perimeter in which they function. And you do have that now. There will be people yes. In the organisation who will not you can hug your daughter and your grandchildren and your great grandchildren. Adhere to that. We had people like that in the party but overall. I have beautiful great grandchildren. What about you . You can do all that. But you were released and now live as a free man in a United States me, personally, no. Of america where there is still clear Racial Injustice at the heart of the my experience with the criminal justice system. One only has to look party was in prison. At the statistics on rates of incarceration, one only has herman and i formed the only recognised black Panther Party to look at what happens to too many young black people, particularly chapter in a prison. Young black men in their experiences with the police in different parts of your country. Yes. So a lot of the stuff that happened with the party in society, how does that make you feel after we were not exposed to it. Everything you have been through . When i was released from prison, i take your point because, really, it took me about three weeks your active involvement with the black panthers of being in society to realise that was all behind bars which takes us to angola. Nothing had changed. I want to be clear with you. So nothing had changed . That notorious prison in louisiana racism was still part of the very where you ended up in 1971 when you walked through the gate fibre of american society. Into thatjail and you did not leave it for more than four decades. And that the brutality of racism had not changed in its application. It had just changed in how it was applied. 44 years. Before we get to solitary, talk me through your first but im mindful that you walked out impressions of what has long been in the very year that barack 0bama regarded as the most brutal served his last year as president of the United States of america, and perhaps most racist prison the first black man in the United States of america. To hold that position. Can you really say to me that that pretty much sums it up. Nothing had changed in 44 years . A technicality. Angola had been designated i was in prison when president 0bama was elected. My reality was that by various social organisations, nothing would change. You know . This is one man, we have a culture of racism including government organisations and bigotry and white as being the bloodiest and most violent prison in the supremacy that goes back United States at that time. Almost every day, prisoners to the founding of america. Either by security or by prisoner on prisoner crime and one man just cant change someone was stabbed or bludgeoned that in eight years. Or murdered so that was the type thats the longest period of time of environment that you were forced he would be allowed to be president. To survive in. Will it change . I just wonder what you say to your children and your great grandchildren because you speak as a guy and it was segregated. Who all those years ago committed yes. To the black Panther Movement and the staff, from the governor on down but pretty much to achieve what you regarded all of the staff were white. As justice for black people in america. How do you think your grandchildren and great grandchildren should carry out that struggle . Yes. Is a matter of fact, if you still see it as a struggle. In angola itself you had about 300 personnel in charge of about 5000 or 6000 prisoners. What was unique about angola is that well, yeah, ithink its a social struggle. It was a former slave plantation. As a matter of fact, its one of the personal motivations for me. I dont want my Great Grandkids 30 it had been a plantation throughout years from now to be sitting here being interviewed on a stage the course of the slave period. Talking to people about racism and you still have families who work there, they go back and institutional racism generation after generation. 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 and you, the black prisoners, were put to work in the fields. Mostly. Yes. There were a fewjanitorialjobs. Or hair checks. Most of the plum jobs went to the white prisoners. Lets get to 1972. Let me ask you this. The murder of a young a different sort of question white prison guard. Did you do it . No. But the same thing, are you proud there is such an abundance of physical evidence that clearly. You know, says i was not of your country today . My country, yes. My government, no. And a last thought, and ifind this remarkable about you and the strength involved in his murder. 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. Physical evidence, they found a bloodied fingerprint in mr millers blood on the door. They never pursued beyond blaming it on me and the other guys all i went through made me who were charged. The man i am today. Do you really mean that . That you wouldnt, on reflection, take different decisions they did not match any of the people who worked the crime scene. That would have avoided those 44 years so it raises the obvious question, in solitary confinement . Why were you targeted no. By the authorities . No, i wouldnt change a thing. Because for one thing, i didntjust survive solitary confinement, i prospered as a human being. The prison staff, administrative and security, they were aware that herman and i were members of the black panthers. I developed moral principles, herman wallace, your friend, values, a code of conduct a fellow black panther. 00 11 56,391 4294966103 13 29,430 and you were explicit in the prison. And discipline. 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 wouldnt change a thing. As painful as it has been, as brutal as it has been the beatings, the gassings, being forced to drink out of the toilet because they turned the water off while i was in the dungeon, you know. 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 each morning. 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. Thank you. Hello. When the weather makes news, its rarely a good thing. And after the extreme heat of thursday, the thunderstorms that followed caused a few problems. Its a new ukjuly record, the all time record avoided by a few tenths of a degree. Not sure that made any difference to this year unpleasa ntness of trying to get out and about in heat like this, where it has been so hot. Friday is going to be cooler and this weather front moving through will cool things further into the weekend but being for some of us heavy rain as we will see in a moment. Now, still a few thunderstorms perhaps effecting easternmost areas as friday begins. Theyre slightly pulling away out into the north sea. For many, friday is going to start dry. But, it is very warm and humid still across eastern parts in particular, some spots wont have gone below the low 20s. For many of us, friday will be a day of broken cloud and the chance of catching a shower. And still perhaps a few thundery ones popping up towards Eastern England. Remember that weather front . Its this area of cloud, and not a huge amount of rain on it so far, though thats going to change. And although its not as hot as where its been so exceptionally hot, theres still heat out there. Parts of Eastern England and northern scotland were getting near 30 celsius. Now, as we go on through friday evening and into the night, remember that weather front the area of rain, long, it will gradually expand and turn heavy through parts of northern, central and east of england, with parts of eastern scotland as well. And that is a sign of things to come for the weekend. Now that hangs around in places. And gradually, notjust by day, but by night as well, those temperatures are starting to come down. So this is the big picture for the weekend. Dominated by this weather front, now theres still something to play for on where exactly its going to be sitting, but it is across parts of eastern and scotland that will see that rain, and some of that is going to be heavy and potentially disruptive as well. We think, particularly through parts of Northern England and southern scotland, the higher parts of the pennines into the north york moors, for example, could amass around about 100 millimetres of rain by the time its said and done. The driest weather over the weekend looks to be towards Northern Ireland, wales and the south west. This is our then saturday is shaping up and look at these temperatures. Much, much more comfortable. And as we look into sunday, what youll still have that weather front, again, it may not be exactly where its looking here, but do parts of scotland, northern and Eastern England, still keeping much of wales in the south west of Northern Ireland away from that. And bar the odd shower, it will be dry with a mix of cloud and sunshine. And again, those temperatures are much, much more comfortable. Thats your latest forecast. Im ben bland, in london. The headlines scorching heat in europe, as the sweltering weather brings record breaking temperatures across the continent. The Usjustice Department reinstates the policy to use capital punishment, scheduling the executions of five federal inmates, on death row. Im sharanjit leyl, in singapore. 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