- Discuss the transition between the Whitney Plantation and Angola Prison chapters. Why do you think the Whitney Plantation chapter needed to precede the Angola and Blandford chapters?
- Compare and contrast Smith's arrival at Whitney (p. 52) with his arrival at Angola (pp. 89-90).
- What is the significance of gift shops in experiencing places of memory? For Smith (pp. 90-91)? For you?
- Compare and contrast Roger, the tour guide at Angola, with David, the tour guide at Monticello. How might David have led a tour at Angola? How might Roger have led a tour at Monticello?
- What is the greatest reminder of Angola's history as a plantation?
- For Smith, what is the significance of Roger's "I can't change that"? Have you ever heard (or expressed) similar sentiments? How do you react to pp. 100-2?
- How do Smith's "two identities" (p. 102) influence his experiences of Angola, and his questions of the tour guide?
- What does Smith "want" from Angola? Is Angola "redeemable"?
- What is the purpose of preserving the Red Hat cell block? or the replica of Gruesome Gertie?
- What happens when a place of memory becomes "real" and when "time bends in on itself" (pp. 115-17)?
Angola Prison
Discussion Questions
Resources
Available in Meriam Library
- Forret, Jeff. “Before Angola: Enslaved Prisoners in the Louisiana State Penitentiary.” Louisiana history 54, no. 2 (2013): 133–171.
- Kennedy, Liam. “‘Today They Kill with the Chair Instead of the Tree’: Forgetting and Remembering Slavery at a Plantation Prison.” Theoretical criminology 21, no. 2 (2017): 133–150.
- Rech, Nathalie. “Black Women’s Domestic Labor at Angola (Louisiana State Penitentiary) During Jim Crow.” International labor and working class history 101 (2022): 44–63.
Additional recommendations? Email bic@csuchico.edu
