Examining the legacy of the Attica riots, 45 years later
Historian Heather Ann Thompson finds both horrors and hope in the epic saga of the Attica Prison uprising.
University of Michigan history professor Heather Ann Thompson is the author of 'Blood in the Water,' a stunning new book about the Attica prison uprising
Graham MacIndoe
In 1971, officers retook the upstate New York prison known as the Attica Correctional Facility from prisoners who鈥檇 taken over in a sudden, unplanned uprising. Nine hostages and 33 prisoners died, and dozens more were seriously injured.
The initial Attica news stories, the ones flashed around the nation, blamed the deaths on inhuman inmates. But the truth was much different. In fact, officers had killed many of the dead in a spree of uncontrolled mayhem. Out-of-control law enforcement and inept political leaders, not prisoners, deserve much of the blame for the disaster. Forty-five years later, the most catastrophic prison revolt in American history has largely faded into the obscurity of half-remembered history. If Americans remember it at all, it鈥檚 often because they recall hearing the Al Pacino character chant 鈥淎ttica! Attica! Attica!鈥� at a crowd in the 1975 bank hostage drama 鈥淒og Day Afternoon.鈥�
But many miss the point of the movie reference, says University of Michigan history professor Heather Ann Thompson, author of a stunning new book about the Attica prison uprising. The Pacino character isn鈥檛 sounding the alarm about an impending uprising. Instead, he alerts a crowd to the prospect of lawless violence by the police in an Attica-style takeover.
Only now, thanks to Thompson鈥檚 remarkable book Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy, are we getting the full story.
Thompson transports readers to the Attica prison of 1971, where inmates chose violence as their only way to fight back against abuse that may seem almost quaint amid the reports of prison horrors today. She chronicles the riot in nail-biting detail, then uses public records 鈥� some long-hidden 鈥� to expose the craven cover-up and an endless quest for justice. In an interview with the Monitor, Thompson talks about truth, lies, and Attica鈥檚 not-entirely-negative legacy. 鈥淲e were sold a false bill of goods as to what happened,鈥� Thompson says. 鈥淏ut this isn鈥檛 just about rescuing a story. It鈥檚 bigger than that. It鈥檚 about how prisons are public institutions, and we all have an obligation to know what goes behind those bars.鈥�
Q: What drew you to this story?
I鈥檓 a civil rights and labor historian by training, and my first book was about the civil rights activism that shook Detroit in 1967. I was very intrigued by Attica, a civil rights event that takes place in prison.
My 13-year journey to write the book made me understand that this is indeed an extraordinary justice story.
It鈥檚 about probably the nation鈥檚 most marginalized citizens 鈥� overwhelmingly African American and Puerto Rican, poor and locked up 鈥� who had this irrepressible demand to be treated like human beings. It鈥檚 also a story how the nation changes its entire criminal justice ethos and apparatus, how we become the world鈥檚 biggest incarcerator.
Q: In your book, just about everyone in charge is terrible. It鈥檚 a stunning display of inept leadership. But few people know about Attica today. Is that why it鈥檚 forgotten, because many people wanted this debacle to vanish from history?
From the minute that the gas clears over D Yard, there is a very concerted effort by state officials to spin what was clearly a disaster into something altogether different.
They tell the nation that the prisoners had killed the hostages, and America sickens on the idea of Attica, which came to mean the worst of the worst. Any sympathy for prisoners was being dissuaded. To the extent that anyone thought about Attica, they were comfortable that this was a horrible prison with horrible people in it who committed horrible acts.
And then the perpetrators of the most violence are never brought to justice.
Q: One of the unresolved questions of Attica is how those in charge 鈥� from New York prison officials to the state police to Governor Nelson Rockefeller 鈥� should have responded after the prisoners took over Attica and killed a guard. The prisoners want blanket amnesty, a promise that they wouldn鈥檛 be prosecuted. There鈥檚 no way a Republican law-and-order governor like Rockefeller would have allowed that, and this sticking point helped to prevent a peaceful resolution. Was there another way?
There no question that this was resolvable.
Everybody, including Republican advisers, tells Rockefeller that he needs to come to Attica. He doesn鈥檛 need to meet with prisoners, but he needs to give his word as the governor that these inmates will not be beaten up, that he will protect their civil rights, that there will not be wholesale prosecutions.
He refuses.
Instead, he opts to send in men who鈥檇 been there four days, who were furious, sleep-deprived, and armed to the teeth. The retaking is a disastrous decision. They know they will kill hostages, and they do it anyway.
Q: How much blame do you put on Rockefeller, who cozies up to President Nixon, wants to rise in the GOP and eventually becomes vice president under Gerald Ford?
It鈥檚 very tempting in the Attica story to put this all on Rockefeller, and his role in this is really shameful from a historical point of view.
But the overall story I try to tell in this book is so much bigger than Rockefeller at every level. From the low-level workers compensation clerk to the state senators to the governor鈥檚 office to the president to the Supreme Court to the Justice Department 鈥� that鈥檚 how many places Attica touched 鈥�- people with power did nothing to help both the prisoners and the hostages who鈥檇 been so brutally treated by the state of New York.
Everybody who could have jumped in did nothing until the end of the book when a judge steps in. But boy, is there a long line of people until we get to the judge in the year 2000.
Q: How can we do more than simply be horrified and depressed by this saga?
Here鈥檚 the positive: No matter what the odds, no matter who has the money and the power and clout, some of the poorest and most marginalized people in our society 鈥� white correction officers and the overwhelmingly black prisoners from Attica 鈥� stick to it. For 35 years, they fight to be heard. It鈥檚 an irrepressible story of justice.
Q. We鈥檙e hearing more and more about the abusive conditions in American prisons and jails. Has anything changed since Attica, and could an uprising like this happen again?
Attica鈥檚 legacy is complicated.
There were key reforms in New York prisons for a while. But there was also incredible repression that led to the building of one of the most repressive prison systems we鈥檝e ever seen.
It鈥檚 actually gotten much worse. People serve more time in solitary confinement, we have more children locked up for life, we have longer sentences.
But it鈥檚 a pendulum. Attica is about how that can鈥檛 last. People speak out, and people fight back. Prisoners and guards will reform prison once again.
Randy Dotinga, a Monitor contributor, is immediate past president of the American Society of Journalists and Authors.