Lifelong Black Panther Party member Shaykh Ali was first incarcerated in 1967. He re-entered Delaware’s prison system in 1977. While incarcerated, Ali spent the majority of his sentence in solitary confinement. After having served 46 years of a 67-year sentence, Ali was released on April 19, 2023, under Delaware’s compassionate release statute due to various health complications and a grassroots campaign for his freedom. 

Since his release, 75-year-old Ali has continued fighting for the men and women behind prison walls. His advocacy helped pass Delaware Senate Bill 10, which provides a pathway home for incarcerated elderly people, people with serious medical conditions, and people who are rehabilitated. Along with a network of other justice-impacted individuals, Ali now works towards an expansion of Senate Bill 10, specifically the inclusion of transitional programming for those released under the bill. Additionally, he founded the Village of the Elders, a Delaware non-profit that mobilizes elders to come together and be a force for change. Read more about Shaykh Ali and how you can support him and his work here. —Kilhah St. Fort

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I arrived in the Special Housing Unit (SHU) when it first opened, in December 2000, at James T. Vaughn Prison in Smyrna, Delaware. I came from Trenton State Prison’s Maximum Security Unit, where they say the most dangerous prisoners in the State of New Jersey are confined. It was sort of a homecoming, as the transfer gave me an opportunity to be closer to my family and children. Even so, I was prepared for the draconian and barbaric conditions that awaited me inside the SHU. 

Sleep deprivation was brutal. A powerful lightning system stayed on 24 hours a day. We had to sleep with a bath towel covering our eyes. We wore orange jumpsuits signifying that we had to be handcuffed and leg shackled whenever we came out of the cells to go anywhere in the prison. Three times a week we came out for a 45-minute walk inside a square cage. We could also take a 15-minute shower with the temperature set on steaming hot. In total, we were out for recreation 12 hours per month, which adds up to six days out of the year. 

In the SHU, we were deprived of all human contact. Even to go to non-contact visits behind a window, we had to get strip searched when we left the cell. We would hand them our clothes, one-by-one, through the slot in the door. The guard would shake them out, look at us through the slot, hand our clothes back, then shackle us behind our backs and around our legs. Even though we had no contact with anyone between the cell and the visiting area, they made us strip again before we went into the visit booth. After the visit, we had to go through the same intrusive procedure. We would strip when we left the visit booth, get shackled, walk back, and strip when we got back in our cells. All of that for a visit locked in a closet about the size of a telephone booth, where there is absolutely no contact with the other person.

While I was at Smyrna, the waterbugs mated with cockroaches, producing a hybrid bug that infested the SHU. The bugs would emerge from the long cracks that ran along the floors. These hybrid bugs couldn’t find the walls. They would play dead for long periods of time. Then, they would wake up and eat everything—shoes, books, flesh. I would wake up with holes eaten out of my legs from the bugs gnawing on me. 

At Trenton State Prison, some of the incarcerated men were strung out on psychotropic medications. The medication would send the men into a deep sleep. A lot of the us slept on the cell floors. That prison, however, was infested with mice, so the mice would eat us while we slept. But the people on medication were numb and couldn’t even feel the bites. So, we built barricades to keep the mice out, but the little creatures always found a way to climb into our cells. Then one day, the rats came and ate all the mice. Then the prison became infested with rats.

For two decades, I lived in the SHU. I witnessed suicides and the deterioration of young and old men alike. They couldn’t survive the inhumane treatment. They gave up their will to live, believing that death was a better option than a living death in the SHU. Although I had 67 years to serve, I believed that thinking about going home would be a betrayal to those whose lives were condemned by the letters of a life sentence. My mindset was to stay with them until death. 

Everyone who comes through the SHU has their own perspective. As a warrior, mine was to kill or be killed. I dreamt of martyrdom—dying a warrior’s death on the battlefield, and in my case, the battlefield was the yard in some prison. We fought hordes of storm troopers supported by K9 units. We fought with our bare hands while they swung big wooden batons, showered us with pepper spray, and protected themselves with shields. We fought until we were beaten unconscious. We did it all in honor of our fallen hero, George Jackson, who was shot and killed by San Quentin prison guards on August 21, 1971.

George Jackson’s words rang true in our souls: “If I leave here alive, I’ll leave nothing behind. They’ll never count me among the broken men, but I can’t say that I’m normal either.”

My release from prison at 73-years-old was a rude awakening. Nothing was the same in 2023 compared to 1977 when I went to prison at 27-years-old. 

Before I went to prison, chronic homelessness hadn’t yet plagued our cities and crack, methamphetamine, and fentanyl hadn’t flooded our neighborhoods. So, what I witnessed was shocking to say the least. 

Then, I had to process that the reentry program that promised me a job and support never followed through. Without the support of my eldest sister, I would have been homeless too. 

A week after I got out, I met with the ACLU and the Delaware Center of Justice. They discussed many things as I quietly sat in the room. When it was my turn to speak, I gave them a soldier’s story of coming home from war and suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I explained to them how being in the SHU affected my state of mind to the point where no one could touch me, not even my grandkids, let alone my family. I shared with them that the addiction I developed in the SHU was not to drugs, but to extreme violence. 

It takes time to unwind the effects of decades in the SHU. Fortunately, I found a therapist to help me come to terms with my past—a past that had led me to be separated from my children when the youngest was just three months old.

Since my release, I have gradually adjusted to a society that promotes a complete lack of honor, loyalty, or love in their hearts. Everyone seems so cold and hard-hearted. 

I haven’t even been to a barber shop since I’ve been out. It’s hard for me to sit with my hands covered by an apron amongst strangers. So, I cut my own hair or ask my daughter to come over and cut it. 

The SHU’s isolation and deprivation caused an emotional disconnect within me. I struggle with intimacy after missing human contact for so long. So, my wife is teaching me how to kiss again. 

The SHU is designed to destroy humans, but I never let it break me. I’ve always been free!

Banner photo: Disability Rights Oregon