“In 1962, I learned to make candy from a fellow prisoner named ‘Cap Pistol,’” reads the label. And that is how the story of Robert King’s pralines, named Freelines, begins.
Incarcerated at the “bloodiest prison in the U.S.” alongside fellow members of the Angola Three, King eventually packaged each sweet treat with the Black Panther logo and a label describing their story.
He first gave them to men on death row. When he started selling them, he used proceeds for the campaign to help free the other Angola Three members. Down the line, he passed them to rescue workers during Hurricane Katrina.
But King also needed the money. He couldn’t find employment after his release in 2001.
That’s not uncommon. In 2010, out of 50,000 people released from federal prisons, “a staggering 33% found no employment at all over four years post-release.”
Both survival and protest, Robert King fights against incarceration and its aftermath, which forces too many into poverty and houselessness.
King’s work remains part of the radical Black tradition of using food as a tool for justice and economic independence. And his liberatory candies remind us that resistance can bloom on any terrain.
You can try his freelines for yourself at: https://www.kingsfreelines.com/buy-some-candy.html.