Originally from San Francisco, Dave Gilson has been senior editor for "Mother Jones" for the past nine years. His articles typically focus on campaign finance, income inequality, and prison riots. Dave Gilson had the wonderful opportunity of meeting with Wilbert Rideau to hear more about his own personal experience in the Angola Prison. In 1961, Wilbert Rideau was sentenced to death for killing a woman during a bungled bank robbery in Lake Charles, Louisiana at the age of 19. His sentence was eventually commuted to life leading him to the decision of becoming the new editor of the Angola prison magazine. It wasn't long before Rideau was writing about the abuse and hostility inmates were receiving from guards. However, his writings based on this topic ended up reaching out to the public allowing him to be nominated for seven National Magazine Awards. In 2005 Wilbert's case was finally reopened finding him guilty of manslaughter and he was let go with time served.
--Dave Gilson (former editor at Mother Jones) had the opportunity of having an interview with Wilbert Rideau and his experiences at the Penitentiary along with his published work. Check it out at this link below.
In The Place of Justice: A Story of Punishment and Deliverance
In The Place of Justice is a book based on Wilbert Rideau's story written himself. It's a great insight to his balanced and invaluable view not only on encompassing rivalries, but sexual slavery, ingrained racism, and daily, soul-killing injustices. He talks about acts of courage along with decency and displays examples of roles of his tireless advocacy and his fierce, uncensored journalism played in a treacherous institution. This also shows many of the failures our legal system has and the dramatic tale of a prisoner who, aided by those who believed in him, finally attained his dream of freedom.
Life Sentences: Rage and Survival Behind Bars
Life Sentences is a collection of articles from The Angolite which was published by Times Books and a division of Random House, in 1992. It was compiled and annotated by Wilbert Rideau and associate editor Ron Wikberg.