I spent the last week in Angola finishing up the Ten Down Shoot.  The amount of wisdom, sorrow, hope and kindness in a place so steeped in pain, suffering and violence never ceases to amaze me.  

Every day I’m there I hear stories that blow my mind…

One day I hear a beautiful rendition of “Happy Birthday” by Stevie Wonder in honor of Martin Luther King.  When I speak to the singer, Archie Williams, he tells me that he’s due to leave any day as his DNA has come back clean, all thanks to the world of the Innocence Project.  Yet, according to the District Attorney, “if DNA wasn’t used convict, why should DNA get a man out of prison?”  For the most part DAs don’t like letting go of a conviction.  Archie Williams was certain that once the DNA cleared him he’d walk to freedom, but apparently it’s going to take a bit longer.  He’s already been down over 25 years. 

I met Sean Vaughn’s wife, Tina and their daughter.  Sean is serving a life sentence as well for murder.  He works at LSPtv.  There’s somethig about him that is different from most of the others here.  Any doubts I have about his special qualities disappear as I watched him and his family hold hands in the visiting area.  They never let go.  He said as long as they’re touching he feels free.  For each of them the end of the visit is the hardest part of their lives.  I am blown away by their love.

Old Swede, one of my favorites, entered the gates of Angola in 1957, June 14^th.  Just 12 days after I was born.  He was traveling across the US and got picked up for vagrancy in a small Louisiana town.  He had just graduated high school.  The first night he got into a fight with a cell mate.  The cell mate died and Swede was sent to Angola.  Later on he escaped and lived a freeman for ten years, eventually running a successful software company in California.  He was married and living a good life, but they tracked him down and brought him back.  Now in his 70’s, he was just turned down by the Pardon board.  Louisiana can be an unforgiving place.

The stories go on and on and on and I have been blessed to chronicle many of them.  

The most exciting news, we signed the deal with the Department of Corrections to build a t.v. studio to train inmates how to tell their own stories…

Onwards,

Jonathan