The Rising of the Oppressed at Attica
The night of September 8, 1971, was a sleepless one for the men of Cell Block A. Hours before, a fight had broken out between guards and two popular inmates, who were later dragged off to solitary confinement - “the box” - as punishment. One man yelled a final promise to the guards: “We’ll get you in the morning, motherfuckers!” And so they did.
The next morning a fight broke out, a strategically placed heavy metal bolt broke, tear-gas launchers and baseball helmets seized, and 40 guards taken hostage. It was September 9, 1971, and the Attica uprising had begun.
Given the horrendous conditions in Attica, and the larger social and political context of the time, the uprising was less than a surprise for all involved. A year earlier, inmates at Auburn prison went on strike, and then took fifty hostages, to protest a number of abuses. All prisoners involved were mercilessly beaten by guards after Auburn was recaptured.
In July, New York Correctional Service Commissioner Russell Oswald received a letter from the Attica Liberation Faction, demanding 27 changes to “brutal” and “dehumanizing” conditions inside Attica. The guards - all white, except one - were “vile and vicious slave masters” towards the mostly black prisoners. Torture, whether through solitary confinement or more traditional methods, was rampant. The plumbing was broken and cells routinely flooded with feces. Showers were allowed once a week, and there was not enough food and water. The prison itself - designed for 1,600 - was bursting with some 2,250 bodies. The guards were poorly trained and underpaid, and many worked a second job. In response, Oswald made promises that everyone, most of all the prisoners, knew were empty.
Conditions outside the prison, especially for African-Americans, were not much better. The 1970’s dawned on a society rippling with tension many assumed could only be resolved through some type of revolution, and black America seemed to be the prime mover. In the short span of seven years, four towering figures of the Black freedom struggle - Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr. and Fred Hampton - had been assassinated. In October 1966, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. That same year, Stokely Carmichael coined the slogan "Black Power" during a civil rights march in Mississippi.
On August 21, 1971, twenty-nine year old Black Panther George Jackson was shot and killed during an alleged breakout attempt at San Quentin Prison. Jackson, who was serving a possible life sentence after a third-strike for alleged petty theft, was targeted for murder because of his political activity and uncompromising spirit. The killing sent ripples across the country and easily penetrated prison walls, including Attica’s. There, it found the ears of young men - many Black Panthers, Black Muslims, or Young Lords - reading Mao and Marx.
The morning after Jackson’s murder saw a scene of incredible solidarity: over 800 prisoners gathered in the cafeteria and sat silently, not touching breakfast. Each one had a black shoelace tied around his bicep. The guards were scared, knowing that a demonstration took organization and leadership.
Jackson’s murder became one of many sparks. The fuel - made of intolerable living conditions, Black Power and revolution, and dreams of freedom and liberation - had been pooling for a long time. No walls, not even the 30-foot concrete slabs that surrounded Attica, could suppress the fire.
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After taking D-yard and a crucial connection point in the prison known as “Times Square,” the men began to organize. A security force was created to watch the yard and protect the hostages from retaliation from revenge-minded inmates. From the start, Black Muslims had kept the guards - save for one - safe from mortal injury. Lookouts were posted to watch for counter-attacks.
The public address system was used for radical speeches and denunciations of inhumane prison conditions: “You hear but the sound before the fury of those who are oppressed,” boomed Brother Herbert Blyden across the yard: “When you are the anvil you bend - when you are the hammer you strike!” Fellow prisoner Jerry Rosenberg chimed in: “We’re all oppressed in this Attica Concentration Camp, whether you’re white, Black, or Puerto Rican. But we are all united!”
Tables were pushed together for a negotiating team, with space for a secretary and typewriter. Demands included complete amnesty for the takeover, transportation to “non-imperialist” countries for anyone who wanted to leave, the freedom to be “politically active” and receive outside literature, the federal takeover of Attica, a minimum wage, funding for rehabilitation and education programs, and healthy food and medical care.
These demands, stated the list’s preamble, “will bring closer to reality the demise of these institutions that serve no useful purpose to the people of America, but to those who would enslave and exploit the people of America.”
Over the next four days a select group of prisoners met with outsiders - Correctional Service Commissioner Russell Oswald, radical lawyer William Kunstler, Democratic assemblyman Arthur Eve, and others - to negotiate a peaceful resolution. Community members - including members of the Young Lords, New York Times journalist Tom Wickers, and for a moment Bobby Seale - served as observers. Meanwhile, the FBI kept detailed notes on who showed interest in the uprising.
But the state was unwilling to move on a number of important demands, including complete amnesty for the revolt. When the negotiating team presented a list of compromises that did not include amnesty, many prisoners laughed derisively, and the paper was torn in half. Why end the takeover, only to be punishment?
A violent conclusion appeared inevitable. The Mai Lai Massacre was referenced more than once. Meanwhile, Representative Herman Badillo predicted riots in every Black and Puerto Rican ghetto in the state.
Still, moments of beauty could be found despite increasingly dire circumstances. During first night of freedom, writes Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy author Heather Ann Thompson, music could be heard - "drums, a guitar, vibes, flute, sax":
This was the lightest many of the men had felt since being processed into the maximum security facility. That night was in fact a deeply emotional time for all of them. Richard Clark watched in amazement as men embraced each other, and he saw one man break down in tears because it had been so long since he had been ‘allowed to get close to someone.’ Carlos Roche watched as tears of elation ran down the withered face of his friend 'Owl,' an old man who had been locked up for decades. "You know," Owl said in wonderment, "I haven't seen the stars in twenty-two years." As Clark later described this first night of the rebellion…"no matter what happens later on, they couldn't take this night away from us."
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On September 13, state troopers and guards retook the prison using state issued and personal guns, including hunting rifles. Tear gas was dropped from a helicopter, and for six minutes uniformed men shot blindly, eventually killing twenty-eight prisoners and nine hostages.
"With the exception of Indian massacres in the late 19th century,” wrote the New York State Special Commission on Attica, “the State Police assault which ended the four-day prison uprising was the bloodiest one-day encounter between Americans since the Civil War." The final body count was 43.
As at Auburn, any survivors were subjected to various forms of torture, including genital mutilation and sexual abuse. Torture was quickly followed by a massive coverup of any state culpability, as Rockefeller, the media, and the police department converged to place blame on the prisoners.
“I can’t tell you what a change has come over t[he] brothers in Attica,” wrote one inmate, Sam Melville, just weeks before the uprising: “So much more awareness & growing, consciousness of themselves as potential revolutionaries, reading, questioning, rapping all the time. Still bigotry & racism...but one can feel it beginning to crumble in the knowledge so many are gaining that we must build solidarity amongst our common oppressor - the system of exploitation of each other & alienation from each other.” Solidarity across racial and national lines made the Attica uprising possible.
Today’s carceral state is far more expansive and brutal than in 1970, with conditions in Attica the same, if not worse. Yet twice in my lifetime - during the Pelican Bay hunger strikes of 2011 and 2013, and the nationwide labor strikes in 2016 - it has been prisoners who put aside differences (always intentionally amplified by the authorities) in order to reach a common goal. Such unity in action must be amplified a thousand fold, inside and outside prison walls, to destroy class society and the “incarceration nation” it necessitates. Prisoners are a hyper-exploited part of the working class, and their struggle is our struggle.
Further Reading
George Jackson, “Blood in My Eye”
Heather Ann Thompson, “Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy”
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