Nearly forty years in solitary confinement in a 6-foot by 9-foot cell for 23 hours a day for a crime he did not commit, Albert Woodfox survived and emerged with his humanity and sense of hope for the future intact.

Arrested often as a teenager in New Orleans, inspired behind bars in his early twenties to join the Black Panther Party because of its social commitment and code of living, Woodfox was serving a 50-year sentence in Angola for armed robbery when on April 17, 1972, a white guard was killed. Albert and another member of the Panthers were accused of the crime and put in solitary confinement without a shred of actual evidence against them. Released in February 2016, Woodfox turned his anger into activism and resistance. This is his chronicle of rare power and humanity that proves the better spirits of our nature can thrive against any odds. -- adapted from jacket