3 Black Panthers & the Last Slave Plantation

We watched part of the video: 3 Black Panthers & the Last Slave Plantation.

This feature length documentary film Angola 3: Black Panthers and the Last Slave Plantation "tells the story of three former members of the Black Panther Party incarcerated in the Angola Louisiana State Prison known as the Angola 3 . We will focus on the issues that have surrounded and clouded their cases since the 70s. In addition our film explores the political climate of the 60s and 70s that produced “political” prisoners in America. By presenting a meticulously researched portrait of these men, their circumstances as well as the context of the times, we want to encourage viewers to think critically about history, racism, the prison system and to actively engage in making changes"
(from the website: Visit http://3blackpanthers.org/)

The film is narrated by Mumia Abu Jamal, an award winning journalist who is on death row in Philadelphia in 1982 (Visit http://www.prisonradio.org/mumia.htm)

I show you the film to give you a bit of background and set up for the memoir, From the Bottom of the Heap, which I asking you to read during the Spring recess.

We will use this book as the topic of the Toulmin essay. As you read, think about the following terms: prison, poverty, criminal, government surveillance, political prisoner and prisoner of war, human rights, institutional racism, resistance, Black Panther Party, resistance and its consequences, Angola State Prison, Louisiana, southern cultural, slavery, COINTELPRO, legality vs. morality, human rights vs. civil rights and so on.

Is there a relationship between imprisonment and enslavement? Is there a connection between justice and race? Is there a connection between the government and who gets prosecuted and for what?

Think once again about your thesis in the classical essay and how it applies in this case with these examples.