The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Mansa Musa:

Welcome to this edition of Rattling the Bars. I’m your host, Mansa Musa. Eric King is a father, poet, author and activist. In December of 2023, he was released from the federal Supermax, ADX prison after spending nearly 10 years as a political prisoner for an act of protest over the police murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. He was held in solitary confinement for years due to his radical resistance and was met with violence by guards throughout his in conservation. Eric has published three zines and co-edited Rattling the Cages, all history of North American political prisoners in 2023. Eric now works as a paralegal for the Bread and Rose Legal Clinic. Welcome Eric to Rattling the Bars.

Eric King:

Glad to be back. Nice talking to you again.

Mansa Musa:

Alright, most definitely. And for the benefit of our, Eric is no stranger to the Real News or Rattling the Bars. So Eric, okay, let’s start by talking about the book that we are here to discuss today. A Clean Hell: Anarchy and Abolition in America’s Most Notorious Dungeon. And here we talking about, you wrote a book about specifically your experience in experience what is known as the supermax, the ultra Supermax, Florence, Colorado, ADX. And in it you outline a series of chapters that evolved into the conclusion where you ultimately got out. Okay. The term a clean hell. And I’ve been in Supermax, I did four and a half years in what they call the Supermax in Maryland, Baltimore. And it was a control, basically a control unit. You had 12 people on the pod. We never interacted with each other. Everything was, all the movement was controlled when you came out you had to turn around, put handcuffed from the back, taken out of yard by yourself. It was the only difference between this and the ADX. It was a small version, but it was founded on the principle of the Supermax principle control unit. And one thing I noticed about it when I got in there was how quiet it was. Oh my God.

Talk about how did you come up with this name A Clean Hell, how did that come about? Hell being clean. But in terms of how did you come into that space that you recognize that this is actually hell no matter how they sugarcoat it.

Eric King:

So that saying comes from this punk ass warden that used to be the warden of ADX, and he was describing it to ABC News. And he was saying that the prison, usually prisons are kind of dingy, gross places, but this prison looks clean, it looks pristine, it looks new, but you go inside it and it is just a soul sucking desolate hell. There is no, you are not provided any joy, any stimulation. You got to find that yourself. And I had read about that shit before and I didn’t understand how real it was. I didn’t understand what weeks and months of silence can do to someone’s psyche. And that’s serious. That can tear people apart if you’re not conscious of what’s happening to you

Mansa Musa:

And evolution. Okay. So let’s talk about the evolution of, before we unpack some of the nuances of this hellhole, the evolution of the supermax. It started with in this country it started the concept of, it started with Alcatraz, the isolation and what you talking about. Silence, because it was mandated that you talk, you make any noise. After they lock them doors, you going to bring you out, bring out and beat you and put you back or put you in the hole, put you back. So this evolved out of that concept, the perspective of silence and control. Silence and control evolved out. Then they closed Alcatraz and they create Marion and then create Marion. Same principle, only difference is the control they had, the control that they was using, they phased in different aspects of allowing people to have access to each other or to interact at some juncture. Then you had Terry Hutt and all these, the control mechanism was not in the prison in and of itself. It wasn’t like is a controlled unit. Marion went, Marion went into a shutdown mode after a number of murders that took place, then they locked it down completely. But the control mechanism, and you can pick up from here, the control control mechanism might’ve been a section in Marion. Talk about that.

Eric King:

Yeah, so Marion, they called it a supermax when it first opened, but it was wasn’t like we have now. They still had several hours out of their cells. They could still congregate with people. But when the brand, the Arian Brotherhood, they butchered two cops in the same day. Somehow they didn’t lock down after the first one. And once that happened it became a full control unit. And once they had that, once they had that unit, they started filling it not just with dangerous prisoners but with influential prisoners or radical prisoners. That’s when you saw a lot of the black liberation cats go there. The white political prisoners, Leonard Pier, the Puerto Ricans. And they realized that they can use these supermaxes to shut down descent. And after about 20 years, the merit control unit finally got shut down. But while that was happening, they were already building ADX because they saw in Pelican Bay that you can really isolate people. And so they took avert, they had the same architect take a version of Pelican Bay, shrink it, make it a little more controlled, and then put the federal prisoners in there. And they sold it. They sold it to the public, they sold it to Congress and they created this shoebox. Ray Luke caught ’em rail like box cells,

Mansa Musa:

Right? They’re all concrete. Yeah. Like you taking them concentration camp.

Eric King:

Yeah,

Mansa Musa:

Like a train.

Eric King:

I can’t hear nobody, I can’t hit on the wall and play chess, have a conversation. So they wanted to take it to the next level and they did. They have no qualms taking things to that extent.

Mansa Musa:

Talk about the structure of the ADX for the benefit of our orders. We hear live things and you hear, oh, it’s underground. They bring the shower to your door, they open the backs of your cell, you go out in the yard, you come back in live futuristic stuff. Talk about the reality of it.

Eric King:

So ADX is, I guess it’s underground because it’s built into the ground. So we don’t see anything except for other parts of the other walls, the walls of the other units. But it’s broken down into about 12 units right now. I think they only have six or seven open, but each unit has four levels. Downstairs, A upstairs A downstairs B, upstairs B. And each unit has six to eight cells in it. And that’s where your law library is. That’s where your inside rec is. Your outside rec is either in a concrete box by yourself or in a dog kennel. And in your cells you have two doors. You have the inside door, which is where the cops bring you your food and laundry and shit. And then four feet away from that is the outside steel door. So they have you really contained and it’s very similar to what you said to where if you leave this cell, you’re handcuffed behind your back. You have two guards on you. One of ’em has a baton at all times. But the units are small and they’re small so that they can control and isolate them. If anything happens,

You get into the unit, you have to pass through two doors basically just to get to the unit. Everything is electronic. When they open the doors, the guards can’t just open the doors. The bubble has to do it.

Mansa Musa:

Right, right.

Eric King:

And depending on what unit you’re in, depends on the amount of access you have. But every unit is at least 23 hours locked down, usually 24. We don’t get wreck every day. You know that. And the showers are in our cells in most units except for the H unit. And you press the button, you get 30 seconds of water every time you press it, but your life is that box. You don’t have an existence outside of that box anymore.

Mansa Musa:

And that right there, everything you described, the sax and the Maryland since in Maryland in Baltimore, it was identical in this regard. You had pods a, par, BPC, PA, DAE, A FP. On each pod it was four sections and each section had six, bottom, six on the bottom, six on the top. Same principle, same identical principle that you just outlined. So the architect of this and its designs, it wasn’t so much the architect of the design, it was the intent behind it is design to control. And a lot of dealt with lives of sensory deprivation in terms of the whole goal. Because if the isolation in and of itself, even if I give you a mechanism like a TV or radio, even if I give you something, it’s still the lack of human contact, the lack of the ability to exercise my senses. Outside of this box, you talked about in one of your sections, you talked about the new, you say a new type of institutionalization. Talk about that as we unpack this is the impact of this environment.

Eric King:

So normal prison institutionalization is violence. You’re institutionalized, have fight or flight at all times. You’re institutionalized not to trust people, you’re institutionalized to be wary of everyone to be on guard. And ADX reverses that and now you’re institutionalized to not trust yourself.

Mansa Musa:

Yeah. Come on, talk

Eric King:

About it. Yeah, you’re institutionalized to, you don’t have senses, you can’t hear shit. You can’t smell fresh air. And when this happens to you, when the guards and the institution continually treat you like you’re trash, you can start internalizing that whether you realize it or not. You can start internalizing that maybe I am violent, maybe I am one of the worst. And you become institutionalized to isolation. It becomes hard to be around people. Then it becomes hard to accept senses and voices once you’re finally released and all that emotion that you have to keep inside, that has to come out eventually. You’re going to be hurt, you’re going to hurt people around you.

Mansa Musa:

And

Eric King:

So that’s how they institutionalize you by breaking down your sense of self.

Mansa Musa:

And in this regard, you talked about how you was able to, what you did to try to combat that conditioning. And so talk about what your plan was and how you was able to, because we leave, George Jackson talked about this in so there bro, he say that he was not going to leave If I leave here alively, nothing behind won’t count amongst the broken men and the broken men that he was talking about. It wasn’t so much as him being broke, it was that the spirit was broke. That the goal was, he said the goal is to just kill our individuality. So now I’m functioning on herd instinct. Talk about how because now we in an environment where no matter what I think I’m here. I know the first thing they take away from me is my sense of hope when I come in the environment, oh you here until we let you go.

So it’s not like you here and you go up every year and the prospect is getting out, we letting you know from the beginning that you are here until we let you go or until your time is up, whichever comes first. And in most cases your time being up. And in some cases you are not going to get out because your time is indefinite. So talk about how you was able to deal with it and come out of your sanity and enough sanity to be able to advocate for changes in these environments and the abolition of these environments.

Eric King:

So I had two advantages. The first one was I had just done five years straight in the shoe with constant, I didn’t have any communication with my family for five and a half years. So I already had that taken away. So I was kind of ready for that. But I also had an out date. I knew that no matter what, I’m going to be out here in two years. And that’s a blessing because a lot of the men there don’t have out dates, they’ll never get out. And I met people there that had been in for 25 years in that prison and they were never going to get released. I also saw and heard about men that were paralyzed by the tv. The TV became their new chain. They got stuck watching and they’d watch the fucking news and Big Bang Theory from 7:00 AM to 11:00 PM and that was their life now. And I read books like George Jackson, I read Ray Luke, I read Tom Manning. I read about Marian. So when I got there, I knew instantly that I have to be the one that determines my value and what my behavior works. And so I would give meaning to every day and I would give meaning to every object within that day. Cleaning my cell was a victory. Doing my burpees was a victory. Walking my laps was a victory. That was me winning over them. And that’s the way I framed is that I will create value to where they’ve tried to take it away. And that’s a form of resistance. When they say nothing means anything and now you say everything means something,

You’re not going to take shit away from me. And so I had to do that. I had to have a routine and that routine had to be tight because if it got taken away, if it got fucked up, it felt like my whole world was falling apart. If they come and shake down the cell in the morning, I don’t get to do my burpees or clean my cell, they struck a blow. But as long as I can maintain that sense that I have value, what I’m doing has value. It creates dopamine in your brain. It tells you that you are doing something rewarding and something productive and that you have meaning. And that’s a revolutionary act to have meaning in the face of hopelessness. And I took strength from people like George. I took strength from people that had been through this shit. I didn’t know you then, but I would’ve taken strength from you. These people that paved the way teach us how to resist and everyone’s experience is a little different, but we can all learn from each other. And I had to do that or I would’ve fallen apart.

Mansa Musa:

And I wrong that you talk about the routine because when I did a lot of time in segregation, so I was already accustomed being locked behind the door. So the lack of movement wasn’t a problem for me. But in doing and going the prep, it’s preparation like you say you had been in this shoe, the preparation that’s like as it might sound as insane as it might sound, but it did prepare us for the most extreme forms of sensory deprivation or the most senior forms of torture. When I was in Superman, I had a routine, I was there, I was an escape risk. So I was subjected to coming to my cell three times a day, three times on each shift, once on each shift to search my cell. And one shift they might come right away when the shift change they might come and just do it and get it out the way the four to 12 might come and do and get it out the way. But the 12 to eight would play games. They would wait till they see me in their sleep, wake me up and then have me into a state of mind where I’m agitated. But my routine was

Eric King:

They want that too.

Mansa Musa:

And my routine was I didn’t cut the TV on until five o’clock. I listened, I had the radio on, I listened to talk shows from one to something from seven to six. Me and another guy study Spanish outside. We told each other Spanish outside the door from six o’clock to seven we did that. But the pointment I’m making is that the routine kept me, kept my mind agile. And so I never got frustrated at the fact that like I told you early, the first thing they took away from you when you went into Maryland supermax was you only getting out here when we want to let you out here. So if we take you up every year for review, we just doing that because that’s what the procedure say. That’s what the courts say. Courts say you have to be reviewed. But in terms of what we going to decide what we going to do, we’re not going to do nothing. We’re going status quo. But talk about, you had a chapter here called Stolen Moments of Freedom. Talk about that, the stolen moments of freedom. How was you able to steal moments of freedom in this environment? Or what was freedom? What was this freedom that you’re talking about?

Eric King:

Freedom. I like what you say too. It is really interesting hearing how other people’s experiences were because we were in different states, we were in different institutions, we were in different custodies, federal state. But it’s all created the same. They all learn from each other about how to evolve and how to find new techniques to hurt us and cause us to hurt ourselves basically with playing into their hands. So my freedom was based off the moments where I didn’t let them hurt me.

It was based off looking outside and seeing the sunlight, that little inch that we had and knowing that there’s life out there. It was the brief moments of being able to write my family and feel like Eric not feel like political prisoner, not feel like seven. Oh it was being me. And just like I said with the routine, when I was able to do these small things and feel like myself, that’s when I knew I was free and I had a foot out the door. But it was also like when they would try to piss me off and I wouldn’t let ’em.

When they would do his bullshit like rip up the mail or drop it outside your door knowing you can’t get it and instead of losing my shit and having ’em bring the sort team, I laughed at, laughed in their face, you can’t break me. Your power is over. And when you have family, when you have hope, when you have ethics, you can claim bits of freedom from them and retain who you are. And that’s the opposite of what they want. And I wouldn’t give ’em what they wanted.

Mansa Musa:

I think, I’m trying to think of his name of the book. I think it was Eric Frankel wrote a book about the Nazi concentration camp. And in that he talked about that, talked that right there. What you talking about how in this most dire environment where the Germans are playing mind games on everybody get on this bus, you go on the detail and you going to get extra whatever, but they take you out and shoot you the next day they say everybody get on the bus and now you petrified about getting on the bus. Everybody get on the bus, they go into detail. Everybody left behind, they shoot them and each time they play a mind game. But like you say, in terms of the mind game, how important was it or how important was you for you to hold on to that sense? It might seem to people in society it might seem like little trivial, trite getting a letter, but how important was it and being able to say, yeah, I’m good, I’m free. Or being able to write something. Oh yeah, I I’m, I got my clarity of things. How important was that for you to hold onto in the face of what you was going through?

Eric King:

So the UN did a study and found that 14 days in segregation is the period to where people start breaking down mentally if they’re not prepared. And holding onto my ethics was what gave me strength. So I went a long time without letters where they wouldn’t allow me mail or they wouldn’t allow me phone calls wouldn’t allow me visits. So when I finally got just a pinch of those, I knew that I was ready. I had this, I’m loved, people care about me. I am worth someone putting in that effort because if someone writes you a letter, it’s not just here’s a punk ass letter, they have to sit down, they have to consciously do this. And that’s showing that you’re worth it. And that helps you reclaim your sense of self, reclaim your sense of, alright, I’m not alone. I don’t have to face this fight alone. I can lean into people, I can have hope, I can have love, I can have conversations. And just knowing that people care is enough to push you forward at least a little bit longer because you just need to survive that one day and then survive the next day. But if you take it one day at a time and that one day you were loved and that one day people wanted you around and that one day people saw a future for you, that helps you see it for yourself. And once you have that, you can’t be beaten.

Mansa Musa:

In terms of you spoke on right there. Let’s talk about the demographics because here we talked earlier about when they build these environments, they build them, they brand them that the people that’s coming in this ADX is Al-Qaeda, anti-American terrorists, Charles Manson, mass murderers, the Pete, the worst of the worst coming in this environment. Talk about is that what actually was that the population more importantly, how many people do ADX hold and what that the total amount of people that the demographics, when you say you spoke about the demographic, talk about the demographic, but more importantly, how many people did ADX supposed to hold?

Eric King:

So ADX can hold 450. When I was there it had 354. Cause they’re having a hard time finding people to fit that criteria. Eventually they just started putting, I was essentially a filler. They needed a white leftist in there basically. So they gave me a leadership status and that’s how they get most people in there. They make up this bullshit claim of leadership. But there were, by the way, and I have a terrorist charge, but there were the people that they say are the worst of the worst. And I met some of them like yelling from my dog kennel to their windows. I write about Richard Reed, the shoe bomber.

And I refuse what the government’s definition of people determine how I view them. I’m not going to judge you based off your actions against the US government. I’m not in Afghanistan or Pakistan or these areas getting bombed. So it’s not my place to judge you. And those people are in there, people that did bombings, people that it’s probably like 3%, there’s probably 40 of those cats. All of them are seemingly Muslim. And then the Oklahoma City bombers in there, some of the Eric Rudolph, the Olympic Bomber, people like that. There’s a couple. But most of the people I met were like black gang leaders or Mexican gang leaders. And when I say gang, that’s the prison’s definition.

Mansa Musa:

I know what you’re saying.

Eric King:

Yeah. And so I met so many cats from DC that they just called too powerful. One of the people I was closest with, I met him in the pre-release unit, his name was Shaheed and he was a DC black Muslim and he’d been in there for 19 years and his whole thing was leadership. You’re too influential. He was too influential as a 20-year-old. And so Wayne Perry’s there silk and you probably know who that is, but he’d been in there for gosh damn like 30 years, something like that in lockdown ADX for 20. And it’s not because you’re still killing cops or being violent, it’s because they know you can inject consciousness into people. And even if you’re a white gang leader, if you can get people to think you can have a lot of control and they shut that shit down. And so I’d say the vast majority of the people I met were either murderers, murder happens in prison, it’s the nature of the game. Or people that just were able to connect with people on a deeper level. And cats like Larry Hoover, he’d been there for 20 years. His whole thing was you’re too powerful. But that power is getting people to think and act on their own outside of the prison’s guidelines. And I’d say that’s a vast majority of people there.

Mansa Musa:

And the goal is, the goal is ultimately for these environments is to control your thinking. Oh yeah. And like you say, give up hope once you give up hope. My whole goal when I was locked up in prison was, and I had multiple temped escapes, I probably go down the world book of Guinness for most failed attempted escapes. My goal was I could down the other side of that fence, I just ain’t going down on the side of the fence that where I was held captive,

I could get on the other side of the fence and fall out as long as I know that I was free. That’s the only thing. And that’s what drove me. What drove me was that I’m not going, I’m not going to let them beat me down to the point where I just give up. I’m not Claude McKay said Back against the wall dying but fighting back. As we get ready to wrap this up, talk about the two things when the fascists control the keys and anti-fascists political prisoner. Talk about those two things. When the fascist control the keys, and this is, I think you was going into the mentality of the guard, talk about that and then talk about you being the only anti-fascist political prison in ADX. Because according to them, ADX supposed be all your comrads supposed to be there, everybody from whoever to whatever to hire was supposed to be in there based on the design of this and the intent behind it.

Eric King:

Yeah. So you were talking about your hope, by the way. Your whole thing that gave you hope was get on the other side. My hole hope was my wife and kids.

Mansa Musa:

I

Eric King:

Had a wife,

Mansa Musa:

We had hope or something.

Eric King:

Yeah, she wanted me home and so I have to get home for her. And so that was my hope. And so when the fascists have the keys, I’m sure you experienced this, but these dudes are Nazis. They have Nazi badges on their vest. They took these guards to fight the George Floyd’s protestors in DC and other cities. And they had badges commemorating that. They had that stupid punisher skull. They had the tattoos. And these cats are the ones that control your mail. They control your access to the phone, your access to visits. And when the people that control you are the people that hate you the most, you are in a dangerous spot. We have their social media accounts, I put that in the book. They’re talking about how much they hate Muslims, how much they hate Blacks, how much they hate Antifa. But then you’re supposed to guard us and there’s no oversight when I’m getting pubic hair in my food, who’s holding them accountable, the fascist government. And they want this to happen. And so that’s a dangerous game. You got to learn to play. And I’ve got the scars on my head from my guards cracking my head open. And that’s not an accident. They hate us. I’m an anti-racist prisoner. I roll, I stand up for against Nazis, against white power. And they hate that shit. And as far as being the only anti-fascist, when Trump called Antifa, Antifa a terrorist organization, what he was saying was, race traders are terrorists because what does anti-fascism stand for? Essentially were anti-racist, anti-trans folk, anti-government bigotry. And I think they needed someone and they chose me. If there was more in there, it could have probably been someone else. We all know that if it wasn’t me, it would’ve been somebody

Mansa Musa:

That’s right.

Eric King:

And I had to fight. I had to fight on that. I had to fight other Nazi prisoners. I had to fight guards. And when you get an ADX, you’re vulnerable. They control everything. You have no control over anything in your life except for up there. Except for in your head. So it is scary. They still hate anti-fascists. They’re still raiding our houses. They’re still arresting us in the streets, but they’re also doing that to black people every day and brown people every day. So we’re not victims here. We are combatants. We are allies. And that’s the way I saw myself was them putting me in. There was a vindication of my movement.

Mansa Musa:

That’s right.

Eric King:

They were vindicating my resistance. And I forget who said that it was an elder black revolutionary, but that’s what they said. And I kept that in my heart that them putting me in here is showing why I was right. What they’re doing to shahied is proving to me why I have this fight going because I see your hatred and I’ll call it out and not everyone will, but I will call that shit out. I will put you on blast. I will fight you. Yeah,

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Eric King:

Because you’re wrong and right is right. And so I think that’s the difference. And I think that’s why they hate anti-fascists. That’s why they hate conscious or hip to it black prisoners. That’s why they hate Muslim prisoners because we will not bow down. We will fight back however we have it either with the pen, with the fist, with the mind. And that’s what anti-fascism in prison, it’s all about being an ally in this struggle and they hate that shit so much.

Mansa Musa:

Alright. And thank Eric and what you want to tell people about the book and how they can get it and more importantly, how they can stay connected with you as we wrap this up.

Eric King:

So the book comes out and we pushed it forward. It was going to be January now, it’s going to be late September, early October. And I want people to understand that this book isn’t just about me. This book is highlighting how these men are treated because they don’t have a voice. A lot of men in there will never get their stories out. They won’t hear how commissary is used as a weapon. They won’t hear how your family is used as a weapon. They won’t hear how the guards treat us and how this mentally affects us. But I do have that ability and because I have that blessing, I have to use it. And so I encourage people to read the book, not to hear about poor Eric, but to inspire them to fight for these men that they’ll never know because there’s 350 people in there and I guarantee most people that read that book will have maybe heard of two of them. Chapo and the Boston Bomber, Boston Marathon Bomber. But there are people in there that still have hope that are refusing to give up. And there’s people in there that have given up and they need love too. People need to hear how this breaks us. And I also talk about winning at trial in there because no one in the feds goes to trial. So I talk about that, what it’s like to go to trial and win. And these things are things that there’s no books about ADX.

Mansa Musa:

That’s right.

Eric King:

Not one. And so I’ve got the market cornered, so that’s important to me that people understand because there can be more of us as they crack down. Luigi is going to go to ADX, A lot of these Palestine protestors and ICE protestors, they might end up there. And it’s on us to be prepared and have the infrastructure ready to support people when they are there. And that’s crucial to me. It’s crucial to me not to just talk about myself, but to lift up the other men and hopefully make a positive change in their lives. Also, the books on PM Press, you can buy it there or anywhere else.

Mansa Musa:

And for the benefit of our audience, I just want to put in context about who Eric is because we have examples of someone or people that stormed the Capitol, beat the police fire bomb. We got examples of an insurrection, what they call an insurrection, but it was a riot. So you would think that Eric committed a crime or was involved with something to the same caliber or beyond the way he’s being treated because those people that stormed the Capitol, they were sent to DC City jail, they cried and they piss on and groan about their conditions and had the federal judge order them to clean up the jail. Eric was put in this situation. He’s in there because he had the heart, the consciousness and the soul to stand up for poor and oppressed people and not allow himself to be put into a class system where it was him, his race against our races, but put in a system where it’s us against them and them is the fascist capitalist imperialist people that runs this country.

There you have it. The Real News and Rattling the Bars. Eric, you rattled the bars today, Eric, and we appreciate that. We appreciate you taking time out to educate our audience. We asking our audience to look into what Eric is saying, but more importantly, look into what he just said as he closed out. It’s human beings in these places that we’re talking about. You have Florida Alligator Alcatraz, you have ain’t no telling what other black sites they’ve got people in that people don’t have no way of getting the information out. But at least we have someone who took it upon themself to say, I’m going to make sure everybody know what this ADX is really about and how your money, the taxpayers money, y’all paying for this and y’all, if y’all, that’s what y’all want y’all money to go to, then say that. But if y’all know y’all money going somewhere it ain’t supposed to go, then you need to stand up and say, enough is enough. Thank you. We ask that you continue to support The Real News and Rattling the Bars. We ask that you send your common sense. Tell us what you think. It’s important that we hear your voice because we don’t give you a voice. We just apt turn the volume up on your voice. And with the state that we are in now in this country, it’s important that the volume of our voices, the voices of resistance, be loud and clear.