Attica Prison riot

Many of the prisoners in Attica participated in the riot because they desired better living conditions. Historian and left-wing activist Howard Zinn wrote the following about the conditions in Attica prior to the uprising, Prisoners spent 14 to 16 hours a day in their cells, their mail was read, their reading material restricted, their visits from families conducted through a mesh screen, their medical care disgraceful, their parole system inequitable, racism everywhere. Overcrowding contributed to the poor conditions, as in recent years the prison's population had increased from the 1,200 prisoners for which it was designed to 2,243. Additionally, as in many American prisons, racial disparities existed at Attica. Within the prison population, 54% of the incarcerated men were African American, 9% of them were Puerto Rican, and 37% of them were white. Sources disagree on whether every single prison guard was white, There were also geographic disparities – most of the incarcerated men were from urban areas, including metropolitan New York, while most of the guards were from the local region. Racist treatment by prison guards fueled prisoners' anger. Ongoing cultural movements of the time, such as the Black Power Movement and New Left, helped prisoners to understand and critique the conditions of their imprisonment. Anthropologist Orisanmi Burton has shown that while improving prison conditions and racial disparities were an important concern, many Attica prisoners were critical of prison reform and participated in the uprising because they understood prisons like Attica as sites of revolutionary warfare. Despite that promise, officials had the primary ringleaders shipped to various New York State Prisons and many were brutalized, held for months in solitary confinement These demands included improvements in multiple areas such as diet, the quality of guards, rehabilitation programs, and, in particular, education programs. The inmates also demanded increased religious freedom, the ability to engage in political activity, and an end to censorship, which they argued were all vital to a proper education within the prison. The commissioner did not take any actions on the list of demands. Attica warden Vincent Mancusi responded by adding additional restrictions to inmates' reading materials and personal belongings. Many incarcerated people in Attica had read Jackson's books and cited Jackson's death as a major catalyst for the riot. The day after Jackson's death, at least 700 Attica inmates participated in a hunger strike in his honor. ==The initial uprising==

On Wednesday, September 8, 1971, two inmates fought during their recreation break, and a correctional officer came up to intervene. One inmate had already left the area, but the officer demanded the remaining inmate return to his cell, and in the ensuing argument the inmate hit the officer. As inmates headed to breakfast, some managed to open Ortiz's cell door and he left with them to the mess hall. During this stage, several guards and inmates were injured. Officer William Quinn would die in the hospital two days later of injuries sustained during the initial riot. ==Negotiations==

Once inmates had secured their section of the prison, they began organizing. Inmates elected leaders to represent them in negotiations, appointed inmates to serve as medics and security, and began drafting a list of demands for officials to meet before they would surrender. Additionally, 21-year-old Elliott James "L.D." Barkley, an ardent orator, was a strong force during the negotiations. He spoke eloquently to the inmates, journalist camera crews, and viewers at home. Barkley, just days away from his scheduled release at the time of the uprising, was killed during the recapturing of the prison. {{Blockquote|quote= We are men! We are not beasts and we do not intend to be beaten or driven as such. The entire prison populace, that means every one of us here, has set forth to change forever the ruthless brutalization and disregard for the lives of the prisoners here and throughout the United States. What has happened here is but the sound before the fury of those who are oppressed. We will not compromise on any terms except those terms that are agreeable to us. We've called upon all the conscientious citizens of America to assist us in putting an end to this situation that threatens the lives of not only us but of every one of you, as well. As speakers such as Barkley raised morale, the elected group of negotiators drafted proposals to present to the commissioner. The Attica Liberation Faction Manifesto of Demands was a compilation of complaints written by the Attica prisoners, which speak directly to the "sincere people of society". It included 33 demands, including better medical treatment, fair visitation rights, improved food quality, religious freedom, higher wages for inmate jobs, "an end of physical abuse, for [access to] basic necessities like toothbrushes and showers every day, for professional training, and access to newspapers and books." The manifesto assigns the power to negotiate to five inmates elected to represent the others: Donald Noble, Peter Butler, Frank Lott, Carl Jones-El, and Herbert Blyden X. Inmates also requested representatives from the Black Panther Party; Bobby Seale addressed the inmates briefly on September 11 but did not stay long and some believed that he inflamed tensions. Because Rockefeller was unwilling to compromise, some analysts' later evaluations of the incident postulated that Rockefeller's absence prevented the situation from deteriorating. Negotiations broke down, as Oswald was unwilling or unable to make further concessions to the inmates. Oswald and members of the observers committee called Rockefeller and begged him to come to the prison to calm the situation, but he refused. ==Retaking of the prison and retaliation==

On the night of Sunday, September 12, 1971, plans were drawn up to retake the prison by force. Members of the team of observers argued for Oswald to deliver to inmates one final appeal for a settlement before the forcible retaking. At 8:25 a.m. on Monday, September 13, 1971, Oswald gave the inmates a statement directing them to release the hostages and accept the offered settlement within the hour. The inmates rejected his offer, and as it appeared to them as though Rockefeller remained opposed to their demands the mood among the inmates deteriorated. In preparation for prison authorities potentially taking the prison back by force, inmates had dug defensive trenches, electrified metal gates, fashioned crude battlements out of metal tables and dirt, and fortified the "Times Square" prison command center. After Oswald left following the inmates' rejection of his latest offer, the inmates decided to try to impress upon prison officials that they were serious about their demands, and to remind them that inmates had power over the hostages if the state was to come in by force. Shortly after inmates and hostages were positioned on the catwalk, Oswald gave the order to begin the retaking. Of the decision, he later said, "On a much smaller scale, I think I have some feeling now of how Truman must have felt when he decided to drop the A-bomb." Correctional officers from Attica were allowed to participate, a decision later called "inexcusable" by the commission established by Rockefeller to study the riot and the aftermath. The ninth hostage, Correctional Officer Harrison W. Whalen, died on October 9, 1971, of gunshot wounds received during the assault. Inmate survivors alleged that leaders were singled out and killed by troopers during and after the retaking. According to a doctor who treated survivors, "[m]any of the ringleaders were approached by guards and shot systematically. Some had their hands in the air surrendering. Some were lying on the ground." One of the leaders, Elliott James "L.D." Barkley, who was frequently featured in news coverage, was allegedly alive after the initial retaking. Assemblyman Arthur Eve testified that Barkley was alive after the prisoners had surrendered and the state regained control; another inmate stated that the officers searched Barkley out, yelling his name, and executed him with a shot to the back. Sam Melville, a member of the committee that helped organize and draft inmates' demands and who was known in the prison as a radical, was allegedly shot while he had his hands in the air trying to surrender. The final death toll from the rebellion also includes the officer fatally injured by inmates during the initial uprising and three inmates who were subjected to vigilante killings by fellow inmates before the retaking of the prison. Ten hostages died from gunfire by state troopers and soldiers. The New York State Special Commission on Attica wrote, "With the exception of Indian massacres in the late 19th century, the State Police assault which ended the four-day prison uprising was the bloodiest one-day encounter between Americans since the Civil War." State officials, including Oswald and Rockefeller, initially stated that inmates slit the throats of many of their hostages The false information was widely reported in the media. The Special Commission found that state officials failed to quickly refute the early rumors and false reports. Some inmates, including leaders such as Frank Smith, Several days after the uprising's end, doctors treating wounded inmates reported evidence of more beatings. As the repression was happening in Attica, incarcerated people in other New York State Prisons, especially Auburn Correctional Facility and Clinton Correctional Facility, were subjected to similar forms of violence. Many of these men had previously been incarcerated in Attica and had been involved in political organizations. ==Public response==

Following the uprising, protests and riots occurred in prisons across the United States, including in prisons in New York, Massachusetts, Indiana, Michigan, West Virginia, and Georgia. In addition, activists such as Angela Davis and artists such as John Lennon wrote works in support of the inmates and condemning the official response. In response to public criticism, in November 1971 Governor Rockefeller established the New York State Special Commission on Attica, appointing members and naming Dean of NYU Law School Robert B. McKay as chair. Known as the McKay Commission, the commission was directed to investigate the circumstances leading up to, during, and following the events at Attica. The commission's report, published in September 1972, was critical of Rockefeller, the Department of Corrections, and New York State Police for their handling of the prison retaking and for their negligence in protecting inmates from reprisals after the riot. ==Lawsuits and payments==

In October 1971, Robert Fischer was appointed as Special Deputy Attorney General to lead the Attica Task Force and was charged with investigating any criminal acts that may have been committed during the uprising or retaking (Fischer was later succeeded as the Attica Task Force leader by Anthony Simonetti). Charles Pernasilice, who was Catawba Indian, was sentenced to a term of up to two years for attempted assault, and John Hill, who was Mohawk, was convicted of murder and sentenced to 20 years to life. Supporters alleged that the trial was unfairly conducted and that the men's ethnicity contributed to their indictment and conviction, with Hill's lawyer William Kunstler saying at the sentencing, "I'm not going to give the impression to the outside world that there is justice here." After Bell's report was leaked to the public, Carey appointed Judge Bernard S. Meyer of the Supreme Court for Nassau County, New York to the post of Special Deputy Attorney General to investigate. Initially, only the first of the three-volume Meyer report was released to the public; in 1981 the State Supreme Court ordered that the other two be sealed permanently. The Forgotten Victims of Attica, a group made up of officers injured in the riot and families of killed officers, pushed for the State of New York to release state records of the uprising to the public. In 2013, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said he would seek release of the entirety of volumes 2 and 3, totaling 350 pages. In 2021, the 50th anniversary of the uprising, the Forgotten Victims of Attica, surviving inmates, families of killed inmates, historians, and lawyers continued to push for the release of all records related to Attica. In December 1976, Governor Carey announced he was "closing the book on Attica". He pardoned all inmates who had previously pleaded guilty to obtain reduced sentences, commuted the sentences of the two inmates convicted in court, and dismissed pending disciplinary actions against 20 law enforcement officers relating to the uprising. In 2005, the state separately settled with surviving prison employees and families of the slain prison employees for $12 million. Frank "Big Black" Smith advocated both for compensation for inmate survivors and the families of the deceased, and for their correctional officer counterparts who had been killed or injured and their bereaved as well. ==Effects on the New York State prison system==

Partially in response to the Attica uprising, the New York State Department of Corrections implemented changes including: • Providing more basics such as more showers, soap, medical care, and family visits • Introducing a grievance procedure in which inmates could report actions by a staff member that violated published policy • Creating liaison committees in which inmates elect representatives to speak for them in meetings with prison officials • Allocating funding to Prisoners Legal Services, a statewide network of lawyers to assist inmates • Providing access to higher education • Allowing more religious freedom for inmates While there were improvements in prison conditions in the years immediately following the uprising, during the "tough on crime" era of the 1980s and 1990s many of these improvements were reversed. For example, the 1994 Crime Bill eliminated all Pell Grants for prisoners, resulting in the defunding of higher education within prisons. As a result, all university-level education programs in prisons ended with no other educational options for inmates. Overcrowding worsened, with the prison population of New York increasing dramatically from 12,500 at the time of the Attica uprising to 72,600 in 1999. The guards pleaded guilty in 2015 to a misdemeanor charge of misconduct in order to avoid prison time. In news stories regarding the incident, current and former inmates of Attica reported that the prison maintained a reputation as "a facility where a small group of correction officers dole out harsh punishment largely with impunity" and inmates conveyed numerous stories of poor conditions and severe treatment by guards. Interpreting the post-Attica reforms through the lens of counterinsurgency theory and practice, anthropologist Orisanmi Burton has argued that these temporary "improvements" to prison conditions were designed to fracture that organizing and activism taking place within prisons and to create a cleavage between the prison population's reformist and revolutionary/abolitionist elements. == Books ==

Published in 1972, the first historical account of the Attica Prison Uprising was written by The New York State Special Commission on Attica and was entitled Attica: The Official Report. Published in 1974, The Brothers of Attica is a first hand account written by a former Attica prisoner and Nation of Islam member named Richard X. Clark. In 1975, Tom Wicker, a New York Times editor, who was present at the prison as an observer, published A Time to Die. Another Attica observer, Clarence Jones, released (with Stuart Connelly) his historical account Uprising: Understanding Attica, Revolution and the Incarceration State in 2011. In 1985, Malcolm Bell, a former prosecutor for the Attica Task Force and eventual whistleblower, released his account of the investigation and alleged coverup The Turkey Shoot: Tracking the Attica Cover-up. A detailed historical account of the uprising was published by historian Heather Ann Thompson in 2016. The book, entitled Blood in the Water, draws on interviews with former inmates, hostages, families of victims, law enforcement, lawyers, and state officials, as well as significant archives of previously unreleased materials. In 2022, Joshua Melville, the son of Sam Melville, one of the inmates killed in the retaking of the prison, released ''American Time Bomb: Attica, Sam Melville, and a Son's Search for Answers''. The memoir tells the story of the life of Sam Melville, the Attica Uprising, and the broader goals and controversies of the New Left movement. In 2020, a non-fiction graphic novel entitled Big Black: Stand at Attica was published. It was co-written by Frank "Big Black" Smith, The book was included on the 2020 list of Top Ten Best Graphic Novels for Adults compiled by the Graphic Novels and Comics Round Table of the American Library Association. In October 2023, Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt was published by the University of California Press. Drawing on previously untapped archival sources and oral history, anthropologist Orisanmi Burton focuses on the revolutionary, internationalist, and abolitionist dimensions of the Attica rebellion, which the author argues had been largely ignored by previous historical accounts. The book is especially critical of historian Heather Ann Thompson's account, arguing that because of its uncritical over-reliance on state-records and its failure to engage non-traditional sources produced and archived by the prisoners themselves, Blood in the Water produces a distorted image of Attica through the eyes of the state. Tip of the Spear also challenges the official chronology and geography of the Attica rebellion, arguing that the eruption that occurred in Attica on September 9, 1971, was the culmination of series of rebellions that had been erupting in various New York City jails and state prisons for a year prior to Attica. For this reason, Burton reframes the Attica riot as "The Long Attica Revolt." The book also shows that in response to the rebellion, prison management techniques began to incorporate elements of counterinsurgency theory and practice, as well as psychological warfare and behavior modification, and mind control experimentation. The Los Angeles Review of Books, Medical Anthropology Quarterly, and Current Anthropology. ==In popular culture==

Direct coverage of the Attica Prison rebellion: • On September 9, 2021, the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the uprising, the documentary Attica premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. In order for director Stanley Nelson "To tell the story of Attica, he conducts dozens of new interviews with prisoners, journalists, and other eyewitnesses. He makes powerful use of surveillance footage and the extensive news coverage that made Attica a national event." Produced by Firelight Films and Showtime Documentary Films, the film was released on Showtime in fall 2021. • In preparation for the 50th anniversary of the Attica prison massacre in 2021, HBO Max released a documentary titled Betrayal at Attica on August 1, 2021. The plot is described as: "On September 13, 1971, the State of New York shot and killed 39 of its citizens, injured hundreds more, and tortured the survivors. The plan to retake D Yard led to one of the bloodiest days in American history and set the stage for the worst aspects of modern policing. Radical lawyer Elizabeth Fink tells the story of the Attica prison rebellion, and how she exposed the cover-up that went on for decades." • In 2019 Icarus Films released Ghosts of Attica, a documentary directed by Brad Lichtenstein featuring extensive interviews with survivors of the uprising, including Frank "Big Black" Smith, • As part of a 40th-anniversary commemoration, filmmakers Chris Christopher and David Marshall, in association with Blue Sky Project, produced a 60-minute, Emmy-nominated documentary called Criminal Injustice: Death and Politics at Attica, first aired on PBS in 2012, which brings together a range of previously unavailable interviewees who deconstruct and expose many myths and misconceptions about the Attica Prison rebellion, its causes, and its coverup. • ScreenSlate describes Cinda Firestone's documentary, titled Attica (1974), as follows: "Firestone's 1974 film, restored in 2007, culls together primary footage from surveillance and news cameras along with prisoner, family, and guard interviews to create an account of the massacre that has been described as temperate, but undeniably damning concerning the state's actions. • At least three fictionalized TV movies of the rebellion have been produced: Attica (1980) directed by Marvin J. Chomsky, with George Grizzard and Morgan Freeman; John Frankenheimer's Against the Wall (1994), with Samuel L. Jackson, Kyle MacLachlan, and Clarence Williams III; and The Killing Yard (2001), directed by Euzhan Palcy, with Alan Alda and Morris Chestnut. Notable references to the Attica Prison rebellion: • In the 1975 Sidney Lumet-directed film Dog Day Afternoon, Al Pacino's character shouts "Attica! Attica!" to the reporters and policemen gathered outside during his hostage crisis. The line was placed at number eighty-six on 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes. Two years later in 1977, John Travolta's character of Tony Manero would quote Pacino's Attica chant in the movie Saturday Night Fever. Music The incident is directly referenced in several songs and the name of a band: • The album Attica Blues (1972) by Archie Shepp, and especially its title song, is dedicated to the riots. • The song "Rubber Bullets" (1973) by British band 10cc. • The song "Attica State" (1972) by English singer-songwriter John Lennon. • The song "Attica Part 1" (1972) By Caribbean Folk singer Exuma. • The song "The Hostage" (1972) by American folk musician Tom Paxton. • The song "Remember Rockefeller at Attica" (1975) by jazz musician Charles Mingus, included in his album Changes One. • The song "Hardcore Rap Act" (1995) by Brooklyn-based hip hop duo Das EFX. • The song "If I Ruled the World (Imagine That)" (1996) by rapper Nas. Poetry • Boxer Muhammad Ali recited a poem during an interview on RTÉ on a visit to Ireland in July 1972, imagining what Attica's prisoners would have said before their death. • In 1972, avant-garde composer and pianist Frederic Rzewski wrote two pieces connected to the Attica uprising, both for percussion ensemble and speaker. "Coming Together" sets a text by Sam Melville, a leader of the uprising and one of the people who lost their lives as a result of it, from a letter he wrote in 1971. The second and shorter piece, "Attica", is set to the statement made by inmate Richard X. Clark when he was released from the prison: "Attica is in front of me now." The two pieces were recorded in 1973 for the Opus One label by the Blackearth Percussion Group, with Steven ben Israel of the Living Theater as the speaker. Television • A TV movie named Attica dramatized the riot, airing on March 2, 1980. • In the season 1 finale of Oz "A Game of Checkers", Tim McManus reveals to Said that he grew up in Attica and was a child when the riots occurred days before his birthday, with McManus hoping to prevent the deaths of the inmates and correctional officers during the Emerald City riot. • In the final episode of Orange Is the New Black season 4, the prisoners rise and chant "Attica! Attica!". The entirety of season 5 is devoted to the rebellion itself, which contains significant parallels to the Attica uprising. • The Attica Prison uprising served as a source of inspiration for the Bell Riots in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Past Tense". ==See also==