Remembering Abdullah

Abdullah
His jury contained
a cousin of the victim,
so the fix was in.
 

The man behind the food counter greets me with an infectious grin. He’s tall, solidly built, sporting a black kufi.

I’ve been wandering up and down the lunch counter where members of the prison clubs serve up traditional, delicious, artery-clogging, Louisiana fare. We’re in the Main Prison visitation area of Angola, where families can share a meal with their loved ones. It’s noisy, many of the tables filled by groups laughing and swapping news, while dotted about are other groups who look lost, and couples with hands clasped, heads close, often silent.

One of my favourite parts of visiting is walking up and down that long counter, ostensibly checking out the offerings, but mainly making the most of this opportunity to chat with the guys. Over the years, I’ve come to know quite a few of them.

I offer my hand and my name to the man behind the counter. His name, I learn, is Abdullah Muhammad.

Abdullah is irresistible with his geniality and warmth and beaming presence. We become instant buddies, and before I leave he comes over to give me a bear hug.

From then on, whenever I visit in Main Prison I seek him out, find out what he’s been up to, tell him what I’ve been doing in the outside world. We start writing via JPAY.

A lost chance

Then, my chance to visit Main Prison evaporates. I’ve been going there as Sister Helen Prejean’s sidekick. We visit Eddie Sonnier—brother of the man whose execution sparked Dead Man Walking—and Eddie’s friend, Floyd Dore (Boo), before heading over to Death Row in the far corner of Angola to visit Manuel Ortiz.

But when Eddie dies in 2019 and Boo moves to Camp F, the trusty camp over near Death Row, not long after, Helen no longer has a reason to go to Main Prison, and I can’t be on Abdullah’s visiting list because I’m already on Manuel’s.

(Unless you’re in a special category such as spiritual advisor, as Helen is, or you’re a close family member of more than one inmate, you can only be on one man’s visiting list at a time. One of the many rules that grate.)

Abdullah and I continue to write to one another, but the only chances I have to see him are during the twice-yearly Angola Prison Rodeo and Arts Festival. He works on the snowball stand in the area outside the rodeo arena.

Abdullah and me at the Angola Arts Festival in 2022.

A justice warrior

It’s always great to see him, but from month to month he becomes increasingly angry, disheartened by the lack of progress on his case. He has sent me transcripts and other documents, and I’ve built a website to draw attention to the many flaws in his trial.

He is also furious at the dehumanizing treatment he and his fellow prisoners suffer in “this slave plantation.”

Abdullah has a passionate hatred of injustice, and when prison officers institute a series of particularly invasive full-body cavity searches after a number of drug deaths in the prison, he braves retribution by reporting the story to The Lens.

Such searches undertaken in front of a room full of other inmates and officers contravene the Department of Corrections’ own regulation, which stipulates that “strip searches shall be conducted in a respectful and dignified manner.” (You’ve gotta marvel at the bureaucratic double-think that can conjure up a dignified strip search.)

Then from out of the blue, I learn that he has died. The news comes from another of my friends, Solomon, who’s in the middle of writing to me when he signs off with: “Just heard that Abdullah passed, I'll pause here.”

And that’s it. This big, strong, passionate man is suddenly gone.

Solomon let’s me know more of the details in a later email:

“He had been stressing about his legal situation, working nights at the hospital and by day researching in the law library…nurturing his physical [self] on ramen noodles, full of sodium and of no real nutritional value.”

He’d suffered an aneurism and had been sent to a public hospital, then returned to the prison hospital where he hung on in a coma. His family were allowed to visit and, as soon as they left, he died.

Abdullah entered Angola when he was 25 and found his freedom at the age of 57.

This past Tuesday was his birthday.

(You can only view the video online, but it’s worth it to see Abdullah showing his moves!)