Woody Overton and Jim Chapman open up season 3 of Bloody Angola: A Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman give you a ton of insight into Louisiana State penitentiary at Angola by reading you the actual diary of the founder of the "Angolite" magazine and editor Old Wooden Ears" from the 1930's!
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Transcript of episode
2023 Jim: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another edition of Bloody-
Woody: -Angola.
Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making.
Woody: A Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison. Jim: And I'm Jim Chapman.
Woody: And I'm Woody Overton.
Jim: First of all, Woody Overton, it's Season 3.
Woody: Yes, love, right? [chuckles]
Woody: I can't believe that. Thank you everyone for liking us and sharing us and helping us grow. It's been amazing. Chase Team members and now all our higher levels of Patreon.
Jim: Warden.
Woody: Warden and C.E.R.T. Team. Thank you so much. We appreciate you. But yeah, Season 3, it's amazing. We've sold out two live shows now. Y'all's Response has been phenomenal. We appreciate you. You're about to start getting Bloody Angola three days a week.
Jim: And as is our tradition, Woody Overton, we always start with a classic story from Angola.
Woody: This is a classic story. Not only about the person it's about, but we are going to bring it to you from what should be a story in its own.
Jim: Yes.
Woody: The Angolite.
Jim: The start of the Angolite, which for those of you that are not familiar, that's a magazine that is released by the prison for inmates to read.
Woody: Not only inmates. I had a subscription to it back in 1992 or 1993 and they used to mail it to my house.
Jim: All we're doing is telling people how old we are. Woody: [chuckles] Okay, sure. Yeah.
Jim: [crosstalk] -Pony Express back then. [laughs]
Woody: Yeah, right. That was definitely snail mail. It always fascinates the shit out of me what the criminal mind does. This is after I worked in the prison system too. But it's a phenomenal award-winning magazine.
Jim: It really is. The guy who started that magazine is who we're going to really be talking about today. The interesting deal with this gentleman is that he was the original editor and the guy who started the Angolite. But not only did he do that, he also, in addition, kept probably one of the best diaries of Angola. As a matter of fact, I'm going to go ahead and say the best diary of Angola you would ever come across. And he had a nickname. I'm going to tell you about that nickname first. They called him Old Wooden Ears.
Woody: Wooden Ears.
Jim: The reason they called this gentleman that is he was beat by a correctional officer at some point during his early years in Angola and actually went deaf in one ear. So, he was known by the prisoners as Old Wooden Ears. We're going to tell you about the diaries of William Sadler, and we're going to name this episode Old Wooden Ears.
Woody: Wooden Ears.
Jim: The interesting thing with this episode is that we're going to actually read you the diary because we can't do this justice without actually reading you the entry. We're just going to take these back and forth. Trust me, this is interesting, y'all. This is the real diary.
Woody: Think about it. You don't have a whole lot to do in prison. At least this guy was keeping himself busy by keeping a diary.
Jim: And didn't hold back.
Woody: Right. He told the truth according to him.
Jim: Mm-hmm. That's right. We're going to start with January 1st, 1936. This was New Year's Day on Angola, and it was celebrated by all hands out in the field with the exception of Camp E, most of whom are assigned to the refinery. Sugarcane cutting going on full blast with no Sundays or holidays off until grinding ends, which will be about the middle of the month. Red Hats out in the cane shed.
Woody: Red Hats.
Jim: If you listen to our Red Hats episode, you'll find out a little bit more about them. But he's
already mentioning the Red Hat.
Woody: Yeah. On January 3rd, 1936, he writes, "There was hail on the Gola this day. The refinery has been making 100% white sugar and shipping it to the brokers in Chicago under the Pelican Refinery, Baton Rouge label, so consumers wouldn't get onto the fact that it was made by convict labor. The last month, some of those dudes loading freight cars at Camp B siphoned off sugar out of several sacks and filled holes with striped convict clothes. When the sacks hit Chicago in the retail market and a howl went up, this was heard way down here. The result? About 16 men caught the bat, anywhere from 30 to 45 lashes each. But those who were beaten weren't the guilty ones, strange to say. It seems their clothing had been stolen and shoved into the sacks. And since the dudes bore their laundry numbers, it made them automatically guilty. The actual perpetrators of the switch got off scot-free, which is often the case on this An...