The Journey From Solitary To Activism

African American Studies at Princeton University

Professor Eddie Glaude Jr. sits down with Assistant Professor Autumn Womack to explore the process of developing a book. Professor Womack sheds light on the power of the archive, the importance of honing in on your ideas, and insights on organizing your ideas for manuscript.

We then join Professor Joshua Guild in conversation with activist and author Albert Woodfox. His book, Solitary, follows his unforgettable life story and journey of serving more than four decades in solitary confinement—in a 6-foot by 9-foot cell, 23 hours a day, in the notorious Angola prison in Louisiana—all for a crime he did not commit.

That Albert Woodfox survived was, in itself, a feat of extraordinary endurance against the violence and deprivation he faced daily. That he was able to emerge whole from his odyssey within America’s prison and judicial systems is a triumph of the human spirit, and makes his book a clarion call to reform the inhumanity of solitary confinement in the U.S. and around the world.