I should have written about this yesterday while it was fresh in my mind, but my scholarly obligations...all that jazz...

Wilbert Rideau is one of the country's leading experts on the United States criminal justice system. He is an award winning journalist with several books, documentaries and an Academy Award nomination under his belt.

And after 44 years, he has finally been released from prison in Louisiana.

The greatest regret of his life, he told us yesterday at the Crain Lecture, is that as a nineteen year old kid, he thought robbing a bank would solve all of the difficulties in his life. He took the life of an innocent woman and robbed her family of a loved one. He paid that price with his own life--he was convicted of murder and put on death row in 1961.

In Angola, known in the later part of the twentieth century to be the bloodiest prison in America, Rideau educated himself on books considered contraband--anything that was not the Bible. He started to write fiction, but he found himself inspired too much by the violence and unspeakable that pervaded his existence. He began to write about what he saw, what he felt, what happened to him.

Louisiana could be an intolerant place in the last half of the previous century, especially if you were a black man on death row. But Rideau, a strong believer in the "power of one," got a jumpstart and began his career as America's most accomplished inmate journalist from the white warden of Angola. The warden was motivated to change the prison system in Louisiana, disheartened by its state. He found corroboration and inspiration in Rideau's work, and made him editor of the prison magazine without any catches...Rideau had complete freedom, no censorship. Later, the magazine would win national awards...

Rideau's sentence was reduced to life in prison (a term of 10.5 years) in the early seventies when the Supreme Court dismissed the constitutionality of capital punishment. Thirty-six white male jurors, three trials and almost 40 years later, Rideau was still at Angola, denied a chance at a life that he was fully qualified to live--indeed the prison system deemed him the "most rehabilitated prisoner" in its history.

Rideau spoke to us at the MTC forum yesterday as a sixty-three year-old man three months out of prison. A man whose entire youth was spent behind the walls of the bloodiest prison in the nation. A man who has no savings, no social security, no driver's license. But he told us that he was happy to be there in front of us...more happy than we could ever imagine, having lived our entire lives up to this point with unquestionable, undisputed freedom. We were raised on freedom, he said.

He now has owns that same freedom. And he says he owes it to the "power of one."

He told us about a Massachusetts newspaperman who was so taken by Rideau's work that he literally put his life on the line--almost sacrificing his career, his family, his relationship and his reputation--to fight for Rideau's freedom from Angola in 1989. This man ultimately did not succeed in convincing the Louisiana government to liberate Rideau...however he somehow got the governor to agree to let Rideau fly to Washington D.C. by himself to speak to criminal justice specialists two years in a row, all on trust that he would return to the prison.

That man, Rideau said, sits before you all today. He is our very own Dean Gighlione.

[The entire room gasped and I am fairly certain everyone had goosebumps.]

Rideau continued on to tell us that Northwestern English Professor Linda LaBranch and a Medill MSJ graduate put their lives on hold for Rideau as well, spending years researching the facts of his case and ultimately assembling the legal team (that included Johnny Cochran) that successfully and rightfully reduced Rideau's conviction to manslaughter. And because Rideau had already served twice the amount of time prescribed for a manslaughter conviction, the effort resulted in his freedom.

I was riveted by Rideau's story (and his captivating cockneyed southern accent). And I was fascinated by this man's future...Recalling Red's sentiments in the Shawshank Redemption, I couldn't help but wonder what this man's life must be like right now trying to adjust to a life he simply does not know. He had ten times the protection within the walls of that violent prison than he does out in the real world right now.

I asked him where he saw himself going. He looked at me and said simply, I don't know. He wants to make a living, pay his bills, just like me. I tell you one thing, I will be most interested to know what this man will write about, or film, next.

And as much as Rideau identifies the power of one in the people who went the extra thousand miles to help him, I could see it in him pretty darn clearly...the judge presiding over Rideau's last conviction-reversing trial slapped a $127,000 fine on Rideau for no discernable reason other than the judge did not "like" the outcome of the case. Rideau does not have the money to pay the court, and may suffer indentured servitude to this court for the rest of his natural life if something is not done about it...it is an injustice he is prepared to fight--even with all the odds against him.

I just hope the people in this world who have no fire under their asses can find the matches...cause the power of that spark is limitless...