Urban Book Featured: In the Place of Justice: A Story of Punishment and Justice and Delierance

In 1961, a black young man in the south robs a bank and recklessly stabs one employee and shoots two others that were taken as hostages.  After spending 44 years in jail, does he deserve a second chance?  Mr. Rideau was only 19 years old, and was looking to make some money to start his life over in California.  It was when one of the hostages tried to escape that he panicked and everything went awry.
IN THE PLACE OF JUSTIC: A STORY OF PUNISHMENT AND JUSTICE AND DELIVERANCE, is the memoir of Wilbert Rideau.  After the mortal stabbing and shootings, it will come as no surprise that Mr. Rideau was convicted and sentenced to death by an all white, male jury.
Mr. Rideau was sent to Angola, a notorious prison known for its brutality, and put on death row.  It is here in Angola where his memoir begins.  Here he becomes a reader and writer.  He becomes the first black editor of a prison magazine in America.  The Angolite was the first prison publication nominated for a national magazine award and Mr. Rideau received many high honors as a journalist.  His magazine was uncensored and ran exposes about malfunctioning electric chairs, poor medical services, and sexual life at the prison.  He also becomes a correspondent for National Public Radio (NPR) and co-directs, ‘The Farm: Angola, USA”, which was nominated for an academy award.
Mr. Rideau spent more than a decade in solitary confinement.  He tells real stories with real names of wardens, guards and fellow prisoners.  Life Magazine called him, “the most rehabilitated prisoner in America”.  It was a white woman who believed in him and took his case.  Mr. Rideau’s conviction was overturned after four retrials.  In his final retrial in 2005, he was convicted of manslaughter by seven whites, four blacks and one person of mixed race.  Manslaughter carries a twenty-one year sentence and Mr. Rideau had been in jail for forty four years.  Mr. Rideau was immediately released.
Mr. Rideau married the woman who helped to overturn his conviction.  He now lives a quiet life.  As he says, “I rise early because I don’t want to miss a thing.”
Mr. Rideau made a mistake at a young age.  He killed one person and injured two others.  Does he deserve the second chance he was given?  What do you think?  We would love to hear your opinion.

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