Having faced firsthand the damage done by the United States’ prison industrial complex, criminal justice reform advocates Rob and Fox Richardson have truly stood the test of time. Their first documentary, Time (2020), chronicled the couple’s fight for Rob’s release after he was sentenced to 60 years in Angola State Prison for a crime the couple committed in the early 90s.
Freshly married, the Richardsons were ready to settle down and pursue the American Dream. Madly in love and excited for a future together, they decided to open a hip-hop clothing store in the Northwest region of Louisiana. Money was tight and the business wasn’t taking off like they hoped it would. Things were only made worse when a shady investor backed out on them and they were unable to procure a loan from the bank, friends or family. In a moment of desperation, the couple robbed a bank.
The consequences were life-altering. Fox took a plea bargain and ended up serving less than three years; Rob, though, was looking at a 60-year sentence. Angola Prison, named after the former slave plantation it is located on, is known for its brutal treatment of its prisoners, whose days are spent doing arduous labor out in the fields — some even work on the same soil that enslaved people once did over 150 years ago. If the prisoners don’t work enough to satisfy the guards, they could be brutally beaten, sent to solitary confinement, or even have their chances of parole jeopardized. After serving 21 years in Angola, Rob was granted clemency by then-Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards.
Love is the most divine chemical in the universe and it dissolves everything that is not in itself
Fox Richardson
The couple’s most recent documentary, Time II: Unfinished Business, recently premiered at the 2024 Essence Film Festival. It documents Rob and Fox’s life after Rob’s release and their continued advocacy to release other prisoners, including their unjustly convicted nephew Ontario. Empowered by love and community, they worked to pass a bill to change the geriatric parole law and expand eligibility for parole for almost 3,000 prisoners.
We had the privilege to speak with the Richardsons about their newest documentary, navigating married life after incarceration, and the brutal reality of our country’s prison system.
JNL: For people who are unfamiliar with the state of the prison system, what would you tell them from your perspective of being first-hand harmed? What sort of things did you see, and what needs more awareness?
ROB: Probably one of the first things that our audience needs to understand about the prison industrial complex is that it starts with the Thirteenth Amendment in our Constitution. The Thirteenth Amendment basically says that slavery has been abolished in our country, in the exception of being convicted of a crime. We were reduced to slavery. We worked in the fields when we first got to Angola State Penitentiary, picking cotton, picking peas, other vegetation, cutting down trees, planting, all the things you see that are part of the slave reality. We were paid two cents an hour to work, under those deplorable conditions we worked just as the slaves did in the days of the old. We worked until we can’t see in the morning, until we can’t see in the evening. We lived in some of the most deplorable conditions. The reality is that slavery still exists and is backed by the Thirteenth Amendment in the US Constitution.
JNL: Rob, you mentioned the feeling of survivor’s guilt. Can you talk more about that, and how you were able to manifest it into “survivor’s ambition”?
ROB: It would be easier for audience members to understand it if we talk about people who go off to war. When we go to war-ridden territories, oftentimes there are men and women who are afforded to come back home. Now they have to return to a sense of normalcy, and have a sense of guilt that other people weren’t afforded that same opportunity. But with that being said, I know that I couldn’t just wallow in my guilt. There was something that needed to be done about it, and one of the greatest takeaways from Fox and my experience is to be free to free others. We knew that that was our calling.
JNL: Fox, you have accomplished so much as an abolitionist. Your constant advocacy and support has made a real change in the world. It’s often easy to be cynical about these things. How were you able to mobilize and jump into action despite being up against a systematic force?
FOX: A thought came to me one day about man going to the moon. There was a time in this country where we just didn’t think it was possible, but once someone did. I have this quote that says ‘anything a man can do, a woman can do two times’ and it has been a driving force in my life. For me, it was just understanding that it was something that had to be done. As a society, we get so busy looking outside of ourselves for help. We get so caught up in lamenting that we do not tap into the power that we have as human beings. I strive to be solution based instead of wallowing in what the problem is.
JNL: Joy was portrayed often in the film: babies being born, family memories, the accomplishments of your son…there was so much love depicted. To quote the doc, “Creating moments of pleasure is an act of resistance.” What does it mean to you to claim joy and love as an act of power?
FOX: Love is the most divine chemical in the universe and it dissolves everything that is not in itself. One of my mentors gave me that quote when I was 32, fresh home from prison with four children and a daunting mission that lied ahead that was to reunite my family and reposition myself back into society as a formerly incarcerated woman. I understood through that quote that all things are possible through love. There is nothing in this universe that is more powerful that love. I just think that no matter what the circumstances are — our family circumstance is incarceration — but every family is going through something. When we allow unconditional love to be the guiding principle, there is absolutely no other energy that is more powerful than love. Love heals, love saves, love elevates, love increases, so I just want to see that as the forefront of the conversation around our documentary. This story is a story not just about incarceration, but is a story above all about love.
JNL: What was it like for both of you when Rob came home? The film mentions that you guys were only married for six months before Rob went to prison. How was it adjusting to “usual married life” after all that time apart? How did you take care of each other, and how did you take care of yourselves?
FOX: For me, it was a question asked me when we were probably two years in when I was struggling. I was going around telling people I’m a married woman, but everything it means to be married I feel like I don’t have. And Rob says to me, ‘We made a vow and a commitment when we got married. You said for better or for worse, did you think that the better would come first?’
ROB: To which she said…
FOX: I said, hell yeah! I thought we’d have 7-10 good years before shit would go haywire. But that was such a profound question. I thought automatically that the good would come first, but there’s no guarantee. That was a real revelation about the commitment I made. And that’s what I want people to take away form this sequel documentary: it is the commitment that drives us, the commitment to family, to love, it is all a choice. Most people can’t even commit to a diet plan, let alone to love over space and time.
JNL: That’s totally valid – most newlyweds expect that honeymoon phase, but you guys were stripped of that.
FOX: So even now — Rob has been home for six years — it has been a challenge. When he came home, I’m thinking he’s gonna want to hold me tight, sleep under me, but he had a different philosophy. He was like, ‘just let me breathe. I’ve lived with a hundred men in my room for 21 years, open toilets, open showers, no privacy for decades.’ We had to find that understanding about everything, even how many times a week we want to have sex. We’re really still just getting a rhythm down. Above all, we understand that the commitment was there so we would be okay.
ROB: When someone is gone as long as we were and stripped of our humanity, coming back it’s not necessarily a philosophy that you’re operating from as much as it is just trying to restore your own humanity.
FOX: Being touched, even just knowing that we can hold hands. You know, one time we were in visit together and Rob was rubbing my forearm and the guard comes over and says ‘I’m gonna need you to stop rubbing her arm like that.’
ROB: In her assessment of that, it was just too much love and energy that was being exchanged between the two of us. But you realize in that moment that the guard has probably been deprived of love for so long, that when she saw it it was offensive to her.
JNL: That actually hearkens back to an instance in the doc when Ontario finally got out, but they made you guys get off the prison property before you could even hug.
ROB: And that’s one of the designs of slavery. It’s the stripping of your family. It’s only when you’re disconnected from your humanity that people feel justified to treat you as if you’re less than human. We’ve seen that for eons. Even going back to the guard who told me to stop rubbing Fox’s arm, it was just reminiscent of the conditions that you’re reduced to. Even though that the first emotions that arise in those situations are to push back or be petty as you said, you have to really push them down because there’s so much riding on it. If I had said something, my visits could have been terminated indefinitely or been locked in a dungeon for undisclosed amounts of time. Those consequences are just like old slave tales and how people were treated for breaking eggs or not picking a certain amount of cotton. That’s what makes us have to be so vocal about our experiences, as someone reduced to the condition of slavery and lived to talk about it.
JNL: Before we let you go, what are you guys up to next? Are there any future projects we should be looking out for?
FOX: I think the biggest thing for us right now is to find a distributor and platform for this documentary. We are also in the midst of an Audible deal that will talk about our love letters from prison, so we are excited about that as well. We want people to walk away knowing that to be free is to free others. We have a duty and obligation to fight for our freedom.
ROB: Especially when you take light in the fact that this isn’t just a Black people’s problem, poor people’s problem, or uneducated people’s problem. This is a problem that is at epidemic proportions in this country. When you think about what that looks like more clearly, it’s happening all the way from the upper rows of our society. Incarceration is an American problem, and it’s far past time for us to create solutions to fix it. Slavery cannot be the motivation.
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