Consumed by Hate, Redeemed by Love

by Thomas A. Tarrants

  Because I did not join the riot, the warden transferred me and two other men to the hospital unit, the second most secure place at the prison, where I was given a job as a laboratory technician trainee. In spite of my notoriety, he wanted to give me a chance to prove myself suitable for a less restrictive custody classification.

  9

  PRISON LIFE

  My transfer to the hospital unit was an unexpected boon. Although the security was tighter than any other unit of the prison except maximum security, the general living conditions were much better than elsewhere at Parchman.

  I was housed in a small dormitory with about a dozen other inmates who worked at the hospital. Our room had its own TV and bathroom and was fairly comfortable, although short on space. It was cleaner than any of the other camps, and the food was better. The man in charge of the hospital, Sergeant Paul Miller, could be intimidating at times but was a decent guy, which made things better still.

  During the six months I spent at the hospital unit, my parents drove from Mobile almost every visiting day (the first and third Sundays of the month) to spend two hours with me. Although their separation had by now turned into divorce, they had a civil relationship. My parents both worked, and the trip was quite a strain on them, getting up at 4:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning, driving the 325 miles to Parchman, then turning around after two hours and driving back, arriving home after midnight. Each time they came, they brought my favorite snack foods and magazines. Seeing my parents so often encouraged me and helped keep up my morale. We talked about how things were at home, how various family members were doing, and, of course, my situation. Their visits reminded me that there was hope and that the horrible prison environment did not have to define me.

  My girlfriend was not allowed to visit me, and I realized that there was no future for our relationship. I wrote her a letter explaining the realities of my situation, which of course she knew all too well, and encouraged her to forget about me and move on with her life. It was hard to do, but it was the right thing.

  * * *

  My work at the prison as a laboratory technician was completely foreign to me. I didn’t particularly like it, but it was a good job in terms of the fringe benefits (i.e., living at the hospital), so I learned quickly. My teacher was another inmate who had held the job for several years and was soon to be paroled. Although this journeyman-apprentice approach was rather crude in such a complicated field, I learned the basics fairly well in a short time, and basics were all that were required.

  My workday consisted of breakfast at 5:00 a.m., then routine laboratory procedures—urinalyses, white-cell counts, hemoglobin, hematocrit, glucose tolerance, and other testing. Each new inmate entering the prison was also blood-typed and tested for venereal disease. Occasionally I performed an EKG.

  My work brought me into daily contact with the prison’s physician, Dr. Luther McCaskill, who was an inmate himself. He had been convicted of performing an illegal abortion on a woman who later died from complications. Dr. McCaskill was black and in his early forties. His jovial personality and genuine compassion earned him the respect of the inmates and staff alike.

  Although he knew my background of racism and violence, it did not matter to him. He befriended me. My friendship with “Dr. Mac” began to alter my racial views. He was the first black person I knew as an adult. It was racist ideology meeting reality. I knew all the negative stereotypes about blacks, but in front of me was a real human being who broke those stereotypes. As we came to know each other better, my hard attitudes about blacks softened. I found myself liking him more and more. There was no denying that he was a smart, highly educated, and kindhearted man. He certainly didn’t fit the stereotypes in racist literature I had been fed. Although we never discussed my background or racial issues, I am sure such conversations would have helped my views change even faster.

  Dr. Mac provided me with the best medical treatment he could on a number of occasions, especially during the periodic episodes of acute pain in my arm from the gunshot wounds. When the pain was really intense, he would prescribe a non-narcotic painkilling drug to bring relief. He could have easily told me to take some aspirin (which would not have helped) and sent me on my way, leaving me to endure intense pain. But he didn’t. Goodwill and friendship like this began breaking down my prejudices and stereotypes just a little bit.

  In those days, Parchman prison operated under what was called the “trusty system.” This system, which was established in the early 1900s, allowed inmates selected by prison officials to serve either as armed guards and supervisors of other inmates, or as clerks, janitors, and so on. The armed trusties were called “shooters” because they carried guns and functioned as civilian guards. Unarmed trusties were simply called “trusties.” In return for their services, trusties were given special privileges and enjoyed considerable freedom. With special permission from the camp sergeant, trusties might come and go on prison grounds without an escort, could drive prison vehicles, and could fish or hunt on the grounds during off-duty hours. Trusties also had special living quarters, separate from the other inmates, and were never locked up. Each year at Christmas they were allowed to go home on a ten-day holiday leave. Another perk was that they were generally fed better than other prisoners and were permitted items that others were denied for security reasons. In short, being a trusty made prison life more bearable.

  Selected by the camp sergeant and approved by the superintendent or assistant superintendent, a trusty could be stripped of his rank at the discretion of the sergeant, with little recourse available. This served to make trusties dependent on the sergeant’s goodwill and produced an almost unquestioning obedience to his orders—right or wrong. This was doubly reinforced because when a trusty was stripped of his status, he was placed back into the regular prison population—with the very men he had guarded and sometimes mistreated.

  Life was not easy for the rank-and-file prisoners at Parchman prison, most of whom were black. Since it was a penal farm, most inmates were compelled to do farm work. This chiefly consisted of planting, hoeing, and harvesting cotton and various vegetable crops. Most of the work was done by hand. Only in the midsixties did tractors and mechanical cotton pickers begin to slowly replace manual labor. Often one could see a line of 100 to 150 men moving through a field side by side, picking or hoeing cotton. Arduous labor continued relentlessly year-round—from daylight to dark, five and a half days a week, often in a hundred-plus-degree temperatures in summer to twenty-degree temperatures in winter.

  The inmates, quite naturally, hated the system. Sometimes they refused to work, and other times they would work slowly. And some just could not keep up with the grueling pace and rigorous conditions. To speed up those who worked slowly—and to coerce those who stopped—trusties would sometimes fire rifle rounds in the prisoners’ vicinity. Occasionally men would be hit by this rifle fire, usually because of poor aim or a ricochet, but sometimes it was deliberate. Not until the late sixties, when I arrived, did these conditions change.

  The wounded were brought to the hospital for treatment and then sent back to work the field as soon as possible. Most of the serious injuries were the result of conflicts among the inmates themselves. This was primarily what I saw and helped treat. These incidents frequently originated from drunken arguments or same-sex relationships.

  Drinking was a periodic problem. There were prisoners in every camp devoted to the manufacture and sale of home brew. This was usually made by fermenting potatoes or apples or raisins in a solution of sugar and water. After three or four days, a potent beverage resulted. Yeast was used when available to speed the process and improve the product. It was a constant matching of wits for the inmates to find the containers, raw materials, and places to make their home brew, but somehow they succeeded. Often kitchen personnel made the home brew, or at least helped, because they had access to the needed supplies. Brew was found everywhere from footlockers to attics to holes carefully dug and camouflaged in the yard. Contain
ers ranged from cooking pots to wash pails and mop buckets. On one occasion, someone even used a high-topped rubber boot.

  Prison officials were always on the lookout for home brew because it caused so much trouble. In the tensely charged atmosphere of a prison, drinking was dangerous. It lowered inhibitions to the point where hostile impulses were more readily expressed. I remember one instance in which a man was stabbed in the chest and abdomen. Someone apparently had tried to steal the affections of his boyfriend. In the ensuing fight, the man was almost killed. In a similar situation, an inmate was attacked in his sleep and beaten on the head with a heavy iron bar. He miraculously survived but with permanent blindness.

  One day as I was working in the lab, two men from one of the camps were rushed to the emergency room, with Dr. Mac close at hand. As they were being wheeled down the corridor, blood was spurting everywhere. One was the camp’s cook and the other its baker. They had been drinking and got into a fight with long, sharp butcher knives. The cook’s arm was laid open like a ham that had been boned. His nerves and tendons had been severed, and his arm was just hanging. The baker, barely alive, had been stabbed in the chest and abdomen and was gushing blood. Fortunately, Dr. Mac’s medical skill helped both to survive, although each required several operations before becoming well again.

  Because any inmate (except those in maximum security) could come to the hospital for sick call, it was the central point for drug transactions. The drugs were obtained by theft from the pharmacy, by purchases or gifts from patients for whom they were prescribed, or from visitors of inmates.

  Because the hospital was my initial assignment, I was able to avoid some of the more difficult challenges of adjustment. Here I found a more intelligent, higher caliber of inmates and much less peer pressure than in the other camps, where conformity to the group was necessary not only for acceptance but also for personal security.

  Generally, new inmates adopted the attitudes (feigned or unfeigned) of the prison subculture toward society, staff, and other inmates. This was necessary for survival in such a hostile environment, but unfortunately it held dire consequences for readjustment after release from prison. Many of those who become acculturated to prison life are not aware that they have these attitudes and values when they return to the free world. Inevitably their ways of thinking and behaving produce conflict and difficulty in their dealings with others—family, friends, and employers. In addition, a person’s emotional development is substantially slowed while he is in prison. Thus, released inmates often have a hard time readjusting to normal society. This often leads to situations that assure their return to prison—where the behaviors are further reinforced. More than two-thirds commit another crime within three years and are returned to prison.1

  Fortunately, I did not fall into this trap, partly because of my being at the hospital but also because I never really adapted to the prison subculture. Terrible things can and do happen to people in prison. It is often a dehumanizing environment that makes people worse. But the hospital unit was safe, and it was one of the best places I could have been. Being there kept me from being exposed to the harsh and dangerous side of prison life.

  10

  BIDING MY TIME AND PREPARING

  In spite of appearances, I was not adjusting to prison life at the hospital unit. Although my friendship with Dr. Mac had broken through my stereotypes, that was just the first step of what would be a long journey. My racism was still intact, and my commitment to the Cause was as strong as ever. And I had no intention of remaining at Parchman. Just like a captured combatant in the military, I considered it my duty to escape, evade being recaptured, and rejoin the war. I was merely biding my time while analyzing the security system for weaknesses. Once I gained a thorough working knowledge of the prison’s general security operations and of the hospital in particular, I began planning my escape.

  One of the reasons prison officials, most of whom shared my racial and political views, trusted me was my attitude toward them. I respected them and readily accepted their authority. This contrasted with the majority of inmates, whose attitudes were resentful toward authority in general, and particularly toward prison authority. As a result of my attitude toward them, prison officials grew more confident in their attitude toward me.

  Although I was friendly to the officials and liked some of them, I refused to stay in prison. I believed that the United States was still being undermined by the Communist-Jewish conspiracy. I needed to break out and get back in the thick of the battle against it. Many people seemed to be content to study and speak out about it. I felt that the time had come for action, to press the terror campaign against America’s enemies until it caught on elsewhere.

  I concluded that a successful escape would require the assistance of one or two other inmates within the hospital. The first person was not hard to find. Louis Shadoan was a clerk in his midforties who worked the identification office and was very intelligent. He had worked as a journalist, but his real profession was robbing banks. He was quite good at it, having robbed several in the Midwest. Moreover, Louis was looking at a long time in prison—when he finished his sentence at Parchman, he was to be transferred to a federal prison for violating his parole on a separate bank robbery charge.

  Overall, Louis seemed like a solid potential recruit who could be trusted. He agreed to join me in an escape. We quietly began our planning in his office. We observed the day-to-day operation of the hospital unit, noting in detail the times and manner of garbage pickup, supply deliveries, changing of the guard, and so forth. The hospital closed at 5:00 p.m., and until five the next morning there was only one prison employee on duty in the compound. This particular guard was in his fifties and was slow, quiet, short, and slightly overweight. We determined the route of least resistance would be to overpower him late one evening and to bribe one or more of the trusties working as outside tower guards.

  Once we had formulated the basic plan, we moved into more intensive planning. The escape would have three distinct phases. First, we had to leave the hospital compound safely; second, we had to reach a secure hideout; finally, we would split up and go our separate ways to final destinations.

  Plans for implementing phase one went smoothly. Louis cultivated a rapport with the trusty on one of the two front guard towers with the intention of bribing him at the proper time. I contacted a reliable inmate I knew and secured a map of the terrain and roads around the eighteen-thousand-acre (twenty-eight-square-miles) prison farm. With this we could plan for our pickup. Louis and I then began compiling a list of supplies we would need once we were free. Arms, ammunition, hand grenades, food, clothing, camping gear, and other items, such as radio monitoring equipment and medical supplies, were all included.

  I established and maintained contact with a close Klan colleague by smuggling letters in and out through an inmate’s family. The Klan member and another friend began securing the supplies right away from sporting stores and surplus centers.

  The second phase, getting from the prison grounds to our hideout, presented no problems at all in my mind. My Klan friends made trips to the Parchman area to reconnoiter the prison grounds and the hospital unit. On one of these reconnaissance missions, one of them made his way through the fields to within a stone’s throw of the hospital compound. On another occasion, one of them had car trouble some forty miles from the prison. County sheriff’s deputies, the highway patrol, and the FBI investigated but apparently did not connect the incident with any planned escape from Parchman.

  Our prison break was going to be a tricky operation. Everything had to work as planned or we might well be killed. As Louis and I continued to plan our escape, we both recognized the need for a third person to assure adequate manpower in taking over the hospital. Anything less might increase the chance of resistance on the part of the guards and night watchman. After careful consideration, we decided that we could safely approach Malcolm Houston, a thirtysomething inmate orderly in one of the wards. Since he had attempted t
o escape before, we felt that he would be interested. Louis, who knew him better than I, made the initial approach and found Malcolm receptive. Then I talked with him. We both felt that he was the man we needed and included him in our plans.

  By this time, our accomplices in the free world had secured all needed supplies, carefully reconnoitered the prison area, and secured a safe place for our hideout—an old abandoned farm in a heavily wooded, rural area just outside Jackson, Mississippi.

  All we needed to do now was coordinate the time of our pickup. This was a crucial part of the plan. We had to know for sure that they would be at the rendezvous point before making our break. Because unforeseen developments might arise to keep them from being there, we had to confirm it on the day of the escape. Phone calls in or out of the prison were forbidden in those days. We had to devise an alternative means of communication. Smuggled letters were too slow, and walkie-talkies were too risky. A newspaper was the only other source of daily communication accessible to us. So, we decided that they would place a classified ad in the Jackson Daily News, an evening paper, on the day they would be at the rendezvous point. If placed early in the morning, the ad would appear in the afternoon edition, which was delivered to the hospital each day. The ad would be innocent to everyone but Louis and me; it would read: “Lost: German shepherd. Name Sam. Black and silver in color. Large size,” with a specific phone number. This would be our signal that they would be at the spot that night.

  Even if they were able to be at the rendezvous point, unforeseeable developments within the prison might still prevent us from attempting an escape. We needed some flexibility in the schedule, so we set three consecutive days for my friends to be waiting for us. If we did not make our break the first night, then we could fall back on the second or third. They would be there each night. But what if there were unforeseeable developments on their end that kept them from being there? There was no way for them to alert us. If that happened, we would be sitting ducks for the well-armed prison search teams and vulnerable to whatever they decided to do to us. This was a big risk, but we decided to take our chances. We were so far into our planning and our relishing of the idea of freedom that it was hard to turn back.