Robert Hillary King

In 1970, a jury convicted Robert Hillary King of a crime he did not commit and sentenced him to 35 years in prison. He became a member of the Black Panther Party while in Angola State Penitentiary, successfully organizing prisoners to improve conditions. In return, prison authorities beat him, starved him, and gave him life without parole after framing him for a second crime. He was thrown into solitary confinement, where he remained in a six-by-nine-foot cell for 29 years as one of the Angola 3. In 2001, the state grudgingly acknowledged his innocence and set him free. This is his story. It begins at the beginning: born black, born poor, born in Louisiana in 1942, King journeyed to Chicago as a hobo at the age of 15. He married and had a child, and briefly pursued a semi-pro boxing career to help provide for his family. Just a teenager when he entered the Louisiana penal system for the first time, King tells of his attempts to break out of this system, and his persistent pursuit of justice where there is none. Yet this remains a story of inspiration and courage, and the triumph of the human spirit. The conditions in Angola almost defy description, yet King never gave up his humanity, or the work towards justice for all prisoners that he continues to do today. From the Bottom of the Heap, so simply and humbly told, strips bare the economic and social injustices inherent in our society, while continuing to be a powerful literary testimony to our own strength and capacity to overcome. The paperback edition includes additional writings from Robert King and an update on the case of the Angola 3.

The Autobiography of Black Panther Robert Hillary King

From the Bottom of the Heap

Mumia Abu-Jamal

Terry Kupers

From the Bottom of the Heap is the revised autobiography of Robert Hillary King, the only freed member of the Angola 3. After being convicted of a crime he did not commit in 1970, King was sent to Angola State Penitentiary where he became a Black Panther and tirelessly worked to improve conditions for prisoners. After years of beatings, starvation and solitary confinement, he was declared innocent in 2001. Somehow he never lost his humanity. In this book, King strips bare society's worth injustices and remains a beacon of human strength and capacity to overcome.

Robert Hillary King

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