This week I interviewed Robert King, one of the Angola 3, for a special report for Mother Jones. The guy spent 29 years in solitary confinement. Unbelievable. His entire story is amazing, and tragic, but here’s just a taste:
In 1972, King was assigned to solitary confinement (for allegedly plotting to kill a guard—a murder that occurred before he arrived at Angola), where he would ultimately spend 29 years. Ensconced 23 hours a day in a 6-by-9-foot cell, King kept himself busy reading, writing, studying law—and experimenting with pralines.
He fashioned a cook pot out of segments of soda cans stacked together like a chimney. For fuel, he wrapped lengths of toilet paper into tight rings, tucked the ends in on themselves, and lit them under his makeshift stove. All of this took place on the edge of his toilet; he could easily knock the whole contraption into the bowl to avoid being busted for contraband. For the most part, the guards looked the other way.
The ingredients came courtesy of fellow inmates saving their butter and sugar, and occasionally a guard willing to smuggle a sack of sugar to King in exchange for a stack of the maple-y lumps. King says fellow inmates brought him pecans from the Angola grounds. He had many years to perfect his technique. It was crucial to get the tissue burning hot enough and long enough to caramelize the sugar, but not so hot that it would burn. The weather mattered, too; on an especially humid day the candy might not set properly.
For a cooling tray, King used the manila envelopes he was permitted to have for legal mail. Turned up along the edges, they worked well enough to contain the thick concoction while it hardened. When he was finished, he would slip the morsels to his fellow inmates in the hour he was allowed on the tier to walk each day. More often, inmates reached out their hands as they passed his cell for a taste of a New Orleans most would never see again.
In 2001, a judge overturned King’s conviction and released him as a free man. With the help from friends and family, King began selling his prison pralines under the name Freelines for $3 a bag. To order, go to KingsFreelines.com.
Tags: angola 3, freelines, Mother Jones, robert king
