Mandy

IT was August 15, 1958, and for the second time in six months, I was on my way to see my brother Paulie.  I had promised I wouldn’t abandon him, and I kept that promise.  Paulie was serving a prison sentence in the Louisiana State Penitentiary, in Angola, for what they termed involuntary manslaughter.  In other words, he killed a man.  Not really a man, more like a rabid animal.  Paulie killed Mr. Holmes, Mama’s second husband, when he shot him in the head with Daddy’s hunting rifle. But he was only protecting Mama.

The State of Arkansas gave Paulie 18 months in Angola Prison but said if he maintained good conduct, he could be out of prison in less time.  We all prayed that he would be out sooner.  Prison is no place for a young boy, and Paulie was only 17 years old.

When Paulie went to Angola, I asked Miss English, our schoolteacher, to give me whatever information she could about the prison.  I would be going to visit as often as I could, and I wanted to know all about the prison and its procedures.  I had to know what kind of place my brother would call home for the next year or so.  Miss English gave me what information she had on Angola prison, and it was helpful.

            Angola was named after the area in Africa where slaves came from 150 years ago.  Major James leased the prisons in the 1800s, and when he died in 1894, his son took over the lease.  However, the 1890s were years of reform, and the public was shocked by newspaper accounts of brutality inflicted upon the inmates.