In the prologue to Solitary, Albert Woodfox situates the reader in the final day of his imprisonment, on February 19, 2016. Woodfox describes how he woke on the day of his release reflecting on his plans to go visit his mother’s grave.

From here, Woodfox describes his childhood. Born in 1947 in New Orleans to a teenage mother, Woodfox developed a headstrong and principled personality from an early age. As a child, Woodfox spent much of his time, along his half-siblings, stepfather and mother, with his grandparents in North Carolina, where he learned to farm. But after his father was forced to retire from the Navy and became abusive towards Woodfox’s mother, Woodfox, his mother and two brothers moved back to New Orleans. Back in New Orleans, the family settled into a poor section of the Sixth Ward, also known as the Tremé, where their mother always ensured they had well-fitting clothes and a new outfit for the first day of school despite being poor. Woodfox’s mother couldn’t fully protect him from poverty, or from racism, which he describes observing from a young age, noticing the disrespectful behavior white people directed towards Black adults.