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In a ruling that is notably silent on Louisiana’s history of slavery and white supremacy, a federal judge sided with the Louisiana State Penitentiary on May 26, rejecting a request to end the prison’s notorious practice of forcing groups of predominately Black prisoners to perform grueling farm labor on the grounds of a former slave plantation.

Commonly known as Angola, named after a plantation which itself was named after the homeland of the enslaved people who labored there in the 19th century, the prison and its farm are infamous for their brutal conditions. The prison has long forced incarcerated people to spend long hours picking vegetables by hand as a disciplinary measure that civil rights groups argue is cruel. With its “farm line” of predominately Black men laboring under the hot sun and white gaze of gun-toting guards on horseback, the Angola prison farm has long served as a potent symbol of slavery living on in modern prison systems.

Ever since current and former prisoners filed a lawsuit against the prison farm in 2023, the court has issued multiple orders requiring that prison officials take steps to protect incarcerated laborers from dehydration and injury from picking crops in temperatures that regularly exceed 100 degrees. Medical emergencies in the fields of Angola are common during summer, with incarcerated workers suffering from heat stroke and other serious harms, according to the plaintiffs.

However, District Court Judge Brian A. Jackson wrote in his 60-page ruling that he was constrained from forcing the Louisiana State Penitentiary to make lasting changes to its infamous farm due to a recent decision by a higher court in a separate case over alleged medical neglect at the prison.

Donald Arbuthnot, an organizer who was formerly incarcerated at Angola, said his time on the so-called farm line gave him a glimpse of what Black people experienced before emancipation from chattel slavery.

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“The system isn’t really going to go against the system, so they see that you got injured or harmed, but knowing one of their own did it, they overlook it.”

“The system isn’t really going to go against the system, so they see that you got injured or harmed, but knowing one of their own did it, they overlook it.”

“I saw the images on the TV during the civil rights movement, but........

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