By Dawn and Shawn
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Attica Prison Uprising. On September 9th, 1971, 1,281 out of the approximately 2,200 men(in a facility made for 1600) incarcerated in the Attica Correctional Facility took control of the prison in one of the largest prison uprisings in history, demanding improved basic conditions before releasing the guards they took hostage. Instead they were the subject of a horrific massacre.
On Aug 21st 1971, George Jackson was murdered during what authorities called a prison escape attempt from San Quentin Correctional Facility. The following morning, about 700 Attica inmates showed up to breakfast hour wearing the color black (most had shoelaces tied around their biceps) and sat quietly without touching their food as their own silent show of support and mourning. This level of organization scared the prison staff, and on September 2nd, Russel G. Oswald, New York’s commissioner of corrections, came to Attica to meet with Frank Lott, an inmate and chairman of the Attica Liberation Faction (ALF). They met to discuss the failures in prison management and civil rights which the ALF had spent a year peacefully protesting to no avail.
The ALF Manifesto
1. We Demand the constitutional rights of legal representation at the time of all parole board hearings and the protection from the procedures of the parole authorities whereby they permit no procedural safeguards such as an attorney for cross-examination of witnesses, witnesses on behalf of the parolee, at parole revocation hearings.
2. We Demand a change in medical staff and medical policy and procedure. The Attica Prison hospital is totally inadequate, understaffed, and prejudiced in the treatment of inmates. There are numerous “mistakes” made many times; improper and erroneous medication is given by untrained personnel. We also demand periodical check-ups on all prisoners and sufficient licensed practitioners 24 hours a day instead of inmates’ help that is used now.
3. We Demand adequate visiting conditions and facilities for the inmate and families of Attica prisoners. The visiting facilities at the prison are such as to preclude adequate visiting for inmates and their families.
4. We Demand an end to the segregation of prisoners from the mainline population because of their political beliefs. Some of the men in segregation units are confined there solely for political reasons and their segregation from other inmates is indefinite.
5. We Demand an end to the persecution and punishment of prisoners who practice the Constitutional Right of peaceful dissent. Prisoners at Attica and other New York prisons cannot be compelled to work as these prisons were built for the purpose of housing prisoners and there is no mention as to the prisoners being required to work on prison jobs in order to remain in the mainline population and/or be considered for release. Many prisoners believe their labor power is being exploited in order for the state to increase its economic power and to continue to expand its correctional industries (which are million-dollar complexes), yet do not develop working skills acceptable for employment in the outside society, and which do not pay the prisoner more than an average of forty cents a day. Most prisoners never make more than fifty cents a day. Prisoners who refuse to work for the outrageous scale, or who strike, are punished and segregated without the access to the privileges shared by those who work; this is class legislation, class division, and creates hostilities within the prison.
6. We Demand an end to political persecution, racial persecution, and the denial of prisoner’s rights to subscribe to political papers, books, or any other educational and current media chronicles that are forwarded through the U.S. Mail.
7. We Demand that industries be allowed to enter the institutions and employ inmates to work eight hours a day and fit into the category of workers for scale wages. The working conditions in prisons do not develop working incentives parallel to the many jobs in the outside society, and a paroled prisoner faces many contradictions of the job that add to his difficulty in adjusting. Those industries outside who desire to enter prisons should be allowed to enter for the purpose of employment placement.
8. We Demand that inmates be granted the right to join or form labor unions.
9. We Demand that inmates be granted the right to support their own families; at present, thousands of welfare recipients have to divide their checks to support their imprisoned relatives, who without outside support, cannot even buy toilet articles or food. Men working on scale wages could support themselves and families while in prison.
10. We Demand that correctional officers be prosecuted as a matter of law for any act of cruel and unusual punishment where it is not a matter of life and death.
11. We Demand that all institutions using inmate labor be made to conform with the state and federal minimum wage laws.
12. We Demand an end to the escalating practice of physical brutality being perpetrated upon the inmates of New York State prisons.
13. We Demand the appointment of three lawyers from the New York State Bar Association to full-time positions for the provision of legal assistance to inmates seeking post-conviction relief, and to act as a liaison between the administration and inmates for bringing inmates’ complaints to the attention of the administration.
14. We Demand the updating of industry working conditions to the standards provided for under New York State law.
15. We Demand the establishment of inmate-worker’s insurance plans to provide compensation for work-related accidents.
16. We Demand the establishment of unionized vocational training programs comparable to that of the Federal Prison System which provides for union instructions, union pay scales, and union membership upon completion of the vocational training course.
17. We Demand annual accounting of the inmates Recreational Fund and formulation of an inmate committee to give inmates a voice as to how such funds are used.
18. We Demand that the present Parole Board appointed by the Governor be eradicated and replaced by the parole board elected by popular vote of the people. In a world where many crimes are punished by indeterminate sentences and where authority acts within secrecy and within vast discretion and given heavy weight to accusations by prison employees against inmates, inmates feel trapped unless they are willing to abandon their desire to be independent men.
19. We Demand that the state legislature create a full-time salaried board of overseers for the State Prisons. The board would be responsible for evaluating allegations made by inmates, their families, friends and lawyers against employers charged with acting inhumanely, illegally or unreasonably. The board should include people nominated by a psychological or psychiatric association, by the State Bar Association or by the Civil Liberties Union and by groups of concerned involved laymen.
20. We Demand an immediate end to the agitation of race relations by the prison administration of this State.
21. We Demand that the Dept. of Corrections furnish all prisoners with the services of ethnic counselors for the needed special services of the Brown and Black population of this prison.
22. We Demand an end to the discrimination in the judgment and quota of parole for Black and Brown people.
23. We Demand that all prisoners be present at the time their cells and property are being searched by the correctional officers of state prisons.
24. We Demand an end to the discrimination against prisoners when they appear before the Parole Board. Most prisoners are denied parole solely because of their prior records. Life sentences should not confine a man longer than 10 years as 7 years is the considered statute for a lifetime out of circulation, and if a man cannot be rehabilitated after a maximum of ten years of constructive programs, etc., then he belongs in a mental hygiene center, not a prison.
25. We Demand that better food be served to the inmates. The food is a gastronomical disaster. We also demand that drinking water be put on each table and that each inmate be allowed to take as much food as he wants and as much bread as he wants, instead of the severely limited portions and limited (4) slices of bread. Inmates wishing a pork-free diet should have one, since 85% of our diet is pork meat or pork-saturated food.
26. We Demand an end to the unsanitary conditions that exist in the mess hall: i.e., dirty trays, dirty utensils, stained drinking cups and an end to the practice of putting food on the table’s hours before eating time without any protective covering over it.
27. We Demand that there be one set of rules governing all prisons in this state instead of the present system where each warden makes rules for his institution as he sees fit.
IN CONCLUSION
We are firm in our resolve and we demand, as human beings, the dignity and justice that is due to us by our right of birth. We do not know how the present system of brutality and dehumanization and injustice has been allowed to be perpetrated in this day of enlightenment, but we are the living proof of its existence and we cannot allow it to continue
The taxpayers who just happen to be our mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, daughters and sons should be made aware of how their tax dollars are being spent to deny their sons, brothers, fathers and uncles of justice, equality and dignity
Their demands were not far fetched by any means. Oswald claimed he was working on implementing these demands, but repeated that he “needed more time” over the voice message he had left for the inmates to hear. Many inmates felt disrespected at his unwillingness to speak to them all face to face, and claimed his ask for more time was unreasonable. Despite the ALF’s consistent organizing, the coming revolt was entirely spontaneous, unexpected by every party.
On September 8th, a group of inmates intervened and protected two prisoners after guards escalated a minor scuffle. Afterwards, the 2 were sent into “the box,” or solitary confinement, to be tortured. Inmates were furious and one yelled “We’ll get you in the morning motherfuckers!” The revolt began early the next day. A group of about 20 inmates were locked inside one of the tunnels used to travel between blocks when a scuffle broke out due to a Lieutenant trying to separate one of the inmates. This escalated into a brawl where they managed to overpower the guard and obtain their keys. The inmates were able to open the door and roam the prison letting people out of their cages. Some inmates began to take their anger out on prison staff, other inmates took up positions of protecting staff they had good relationships with. Once they realized hostages were their best chance at bargaining, the violence ceased. By this time only one guard had sustained life threatening injuries, and two days later he died.
As the dust settled, Russel G. Oswald agreed to go inside the prison to negotiate. According to the inmates, Oswald “Started off being sincere” but ultimately did not agree to their most important demand: amnesty for the participants in the uprising.
Upon exiting the prison, Oswald, unaware that the inmates had radios and TVs inside the prison, reported to the media that the people inside “wanted the world” and spoke negatively of them, losing their trust. He requested governor Rockefeller visit Attica to continue negotiating in the hopes that it would show the inmates that the Governor cared. Instead, Rockefeller ordered the attack on the morning of September 13th, 1971. This event became known as Bloody Monday.
Bloody Monday
On September 13th, 1971, a helicopter flew over D-yard and covered the ground in tear gas. State troopers surrounded the yard with other pigs on moved into the grounds. A steady chorus of gunshots erupted for six minutes.
Inmates expected some kind of reaction after the rejection of their demands, but not the mass execution they experienced. Snipers from the rooftops shot indiscriminately, while men inside followed instructions to “surrender to the nearest officer”, which blared over loudspeakers. From the chaos, individuals shot down regardless of whether or not they showed signs of resistance – a clear example of brutal, indiscriminate, and deadly racist police bias. The prison guards were ordered not to join the attack due to their emotional ties, but there was no resistance when they entered the prison and started coordinating the transfer of inmates to a different block. The prison guards had been told stories about hostages being emasculated and having their genitalia placed in their mouths (all proved to be false as all the hostages were accounted for in tact) and this was their justification for how brutally they treated the men inside Attica on that day. Many of the inmates reported hearing gunshots late into the evening of September 13th, and reported that many of the deaths happened well after the revolt was put down.
One of the biggest reasons people supported the violent retaking of the prison was Oswald’s report that 7 hostages had their throats slit by the inmates and one was emasculated. When questioned about why he came out saying things that had been proved false he said “I didn’t say seven, I said several.” Oswald kept his position as New York’s commissioner of corrections (and published a book justifying his actions in 1972, called Attica-My Story) before leaving to the Crime Victims Compensation Board in 1973, from which he retired in 1978. Oswald died in 1991, and if you would like to make a bathroom run, he is currently buried at the Gerald B.H. Solomon Saratoga National Cemetery, located in Schuylerville, Saratoga County, New York.
The Washington Revolutionary 