Kenneth Whitmore
Biography
Louisiana Black Panther Party organizer from Baton Rouge. Convicted in the 1970s for a Klan-linked killing he denied committing and sentenced to life at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, where he spent more than three decades — much of it in extended solitary confinement in CCR (Closed Cell Restricted). A close comrade of the Angola 3, Whitmore was one of the longest-held BPP prisoners in the South. Granted parole in 2016 after a years-long international solidarity campaign.
A correction to the note above: Whitmore was never in fact paroled. The 2016 milestone widely celebrated by his supporters was his release from more than three decades of solitary confinement into the general population at Angola, around 2015; he remains at the Louisiana State Penitentiary serving the life sentence, with his non-unanimous-jury challenge still pending.
The April 2009 Angola Three article reports that Kenneth “Zulu” Whitmore met Herman Wallace while imprisoned at East Baton Rouge Prison in 1973. Whitmore was released, returned to community political organizing and was later arrested and imprisoned at Angola following robbery and second-degree-murder convictions. The article distinguishes the 1973 detention from his imprisonment beginning in 1977, without exact admission or release days. Defenestrator, issue 44, April 2009, original PDF page 14. Source: https://we.riseup.net/assets/6831/versions/2/def44.pdf#page=14
