The Attica Prison Uprising 50 Years Later

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Brian Lehrer: It’s The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again everyone. 50 years ago this month, 1,300 incarcerated individuals at the Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York staged an uprising in protest against years of living in deplorable conditions. They took over the prison and held guards and other prison employees hostage. As a result of the uprising and the retaking of the prison, 32 inmates and 11 correctional officers died. We’ll talk this morning about the legacy of this revolt on its 50th anniversary, and about how five decades later, many of these prisoners’ demands remain unmet.

With me now are WNYCs Joseph Gedeon and Emily Lang. They both worked on the new series from WNYCs Race and Justice Unit called Storming the Gates: Fifty Years After the Attica Prison Uprising. Good morning, Joseph. Good morning, Emily. Thanks for doing this.

Joseph Gedeon: Good morning.

Emily Lang: Thanks for having us.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we invite your calls on the Attica Prison Uprising, five decades later. Do you remember Attica? Anyone listening who was at Attica then incarcerated or worked there at the time? If so, what is your memory of it? What do you think the legacy has been? 646-435-7280.

If we happen to have anyone who was incarcerated or worked at Attica Prison back then, 646-435-7280, or we’ll broaden it. If you’ve been incarcerated at Attica or worked there at any point since, and you would like to tell us about the conditions in the years after the uprising, give us a call 646-435-7280 or you can always send a tweet if you prefer a tweet @BrianLehrer, and we will see it go by.

Emily, do you want to start us off and set things up for us? How did the events of that day unfold? For people who don’t know this history. How did things go from altercation to political uprising?

Emily Lang: Sure. Leading up to September 13th, 50 years ago today, negotiations had been going on for four days between prisoners and Department of Corrections, state leaders.

On the morning of the fifth day, then Governor Rockefeller who had his eyes on loftier political pursuits, he ordered more than 300 armed state troopers and National Guard members to squash this takeover. “Forget the negotiations. We need to crack down on this to send a message nationwide.” After tear gas had been released on prisoners and hostages, they went in with state-issued weapons but they also had weapons from home. Many removed their badges or hid identifying information. They gave no warning, and they opened fire on prisoners and state employees.

To your question of how this retaking became a political uprising rather than just an altercation, that’s a question to hone in on because, five days earlier, there was not a planned moment. It was spontaneous. There had been a rumor circulating the night before about an altercation between correction officers and two inmates ending badly, so people were on edge the next morning. They went to breakfast, very quiet breakfast. People were scared of what could happen. They were getting up to leave.

For safety measures, things that had not been communicated to inmates, a tunnel was locked, and they didn’t know that this was going to be locked, and panic and chaos ensued. They ended up beating a corrections officer who was in the tunnel with them. They saw that a full riot was about to begin. Inmates went to arm themselves just with whatever was available to them. Not guns but they looked for shivs, or butter knives, or anything that they could really get their hands on.

In this initial moment, then you had leaders, political organizers who were inmates within Attica that wanted to seize on this moment to create an organized unit. They had the Attica Liberation Faction that had formed earlier that summer, and they used this moment to really leverage themselves to ask for demands in terms of reforming the situation inside of Attica, so that’s how it became more organized.

Brian Lehrer: Joseph, I know you spoke with three people who were incarcerated at the prison joining the uprising. Here’s a clip of one of those survivors with whom you spoke, Tyrone Larkins. Here’s 15 seconds of what he had to say.

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Tyrone Larkins: You want to know what? Was I scared? You’re damn right I was scared. Picture a barrel, a big barrel with a whole bunch of fish in it, and a guy standing over the barrel with a shotgun and pulling the trigger. That’s what happened. That’s what happened, man.

Brian Lehrer: There’s not much scarier than that, Joseph. Put that clip into context for us, how did inmates you spoke with remember the events of that day?

Joseph Gedeon: Right, Brian. I spoke with three inmates and at the time, as Emily mentioned, they did not plan this to happen. They were not planning this event. Now, they had taken over some sections of the Attica Prison. Days go by with the negotiations, and all of a sudden, tear gas is being thrown at them from the top of the walls, these are 30-feet tall walls.

Once the tear gas is thrown, they start getting shot at, so you’re seeing blood everywhere, inmates falling over each other. It’s a frenzy, it’s a complete frenzy. As a result, that day 29 inmates died and 10 correctional officers died. Just to put it into perspective, this is the bloodiest moment in a prison since I believe the Civil War, right Emily?

Emily Lang: Yes, the experience between state and even just citizens in the country, it was one of the bloodiest moments in US history.

Brian Lehrer: Overall, 32 inmates died in that immediate period, as did 11 correctional officers. Emily, can you give us some of the underlying conditions under which people were incarcerated at Attica before the 1971 uprising took place that have them seething in the first place?

Emily Lang: Yes, horrible overcrowding in Attica. Overcrowding that, in part, occurred because earlier that summer, there had been several other rebellions in New York City facilities, so one response to that was, “Let’s send them to Attica.” You had more than 2,000 incarcerated folks inside of Attica.

On top of it being overcrowded, they also were being fed on $0.63 a day. They were given one roll of toilet paper and one bar of soap a month. They had to fight to get other types of toiletries, things that they had to pay for. They were making cents every day, in terms of what they were making on prison wages. They had minimal yard time. They had no books to read, nothing in Spanish. A big portion of the population was also Puerto Rican.

The biggest issue that they were also focusing on was, “We need better health care. We need to overhaul this parole process, and we need to fix issues of racial segregation in the prison.” Those are things that they were also hoping to hone in on, and really what had become a part of their demands over the summer and moving forward when it came down to negotiations.

Brian Lehrer: Were the dynamics between the guards and the inmates especially harsh?

Emily Lang: It’s hard to say especially harsh when you have this dynamic that is on its face, already extremely horrible for a lot of people to try to understand what happens. Many of the correction officers were able to recognize issues at hand that they saw incarcerated men experiencing. Especially, when it came to parole, a lot of the correction officers thought that the people should have better educational training and weren’t more vocational training.

Some officers argued for more money to feed people, but while that was there in spurts, you did have correction officers regularly abusing the authority that they had to place people in solitary confinement for two weeks on end, using racial slurs against people. The correction officers were also in a position in terms of, they had a lot of labor demands, as well, that weren’t being met, and that’s where there was a common ground, to a certain extent, in terms of solidarity.

The state leaders weren’t listening to corrections officers in terms of reforms that they wanted, and they also weren’t listening to the incarcerated men. That was some common ground that was found there.

Brian Lehrer: Interestingly, they’re talking about common ground between correctional officers and people who were incarcerated Rikers Island, these days around the horrible condition stair, we’re not going to digress into that right now. Poignant and really sad probably indicates lessons not learned that once again people on both sides of that are suffering as a result of conditions that could be addressed.

Now, Joseph, you took a trip, I see up to the town of Attica to help you report this story for WNYC and to talk to locals who were there back in 1971 when the surprising took place. Here’s a clip of one of those people, Sherry Garrigan recounting her experience that day.

Sherry Garigan: My father comes home and says, “What’s going on?” Because I met him at the door with a 22, and I told him, and he says, “Okay.” He went and got his shotgun out and he said to me, “Would you shoot?” I said, “Well, I wouldn’t know until it happened.”

Brian Lehrer: Wow, Joseph put that clip into context for us, because that sounds like people were getting ready to fire guns in self-defense who were at home not even at the prison. Did I hear that right?

Joseph Gedeon: That’s right, Brian. To better understand Attica it’s a town with about 7,000 people and the village where the prison is just outside of it has about 2,500. That’s about the same number of people in both the prison and the town and the village.

People in the village are immensely proud of this prison. They know everyone that they know works there, tons of people that they know work there. When the guards finished their shifts, they come to eat at the restaurants, go drink at the bars. When this happened, it completely flipped the script on how they saw the prison, and for that one week the village, the town, the surrounding area went into lockdown. People they know we’re now trapped inside. When you’re from a small town, it seems like it’s your whole world. As we know, some people they got killed in there.

That’s not lost on the locals. The locals they remember that they were betrayed by the state. These people, their family, their brothers, their fathers, their sons we’re trapped and attacked. We have these locals who are traumatized, are scarred. Even though they love the prison, they love what the prison does for the economy, you can’t separate the two it’s left them scarred for their whole lives.

Brian Lehrer: We’re talking about the 50th anniversary this month of the Attica prison uprising at the Attica correctional facility and upstate New York with WNYCs Joseph Gedeon and Emily Lang. They both worked on the new series from WNYCs Race and Justice Unit called Storming the Gates: Fifty Years After the Attica Prison Uprising. I want to take a call from Ron in Rochester, who says he grew up in Attica. Ron, I’m sorry. It’s Ran, right? You’re on WNYC.

Ron: That’s correct. Thank you for having me. Brian thanks for getting us through the pandemic with our sanity. Yes, definitely grew up in Attica, New York. I didn’t realize it was the 50th anniversary either, and I’m looking forward to checking out the series. It definitely lingers over the whole town as a vibe, this haunting, “This is what happened. This is what can always happen.”

I don’t know. I was lucky enough to have a family of boring accountants and didn’t have any type of immediate link to it, but all of my friends have most of their parents are either prison guards or farmers, and that is the main industry of the town. It is very much a love-hate relationship where it is the source of a lot of people’s livelihoods and just to get by and they struggle with it. It’s a huge mental health issue overall.

In fact, I have one of my good friends who still works there as a teacher and did a TED Talk about the mental health issue and how it needs to be talked more about to figure out how to do healthy incarceration. It’s fascinating, but I’m happy to have gotten out.

Brian Lehrer: People talk about the prison industrial complex, and Joseph was just referring to how it was the main industry in the town, and you just said that too. From your experience, when you were growing up there, do you think there was resistance or would be resistance today to the decarceration movement that is there’s a financial and segment incentive to keep Attica residents employed to be for mass incarceration?

Ron: Yes, that’s very tricky. I actually take back what I said about not having an immediate family because I forgot my stepmom was a public defender for years there in Attica dealing with prisons in and out.

From what I can tell, and even just having just recently talked to my friend who works there and I don’t want to throw anyone under the bus or name anything. Basically, he said what’s happening is with the consolidation of the industrial prison complex, what’s going to end up happening is they’re just going to continue to get overcrowded or something. I don’t know.

I don’t want to misquote him, but it is something that’s looming as I think that industry is shifting and becoming, I guess, more Uber corporate, I would imagine. I’m sure that the people that did the docu-series have more to say about that for sure.

Brian Lehrer: Ron, thank you very much. Joseph, do you have anything more to say about that? I realized you could have reported on every single aspect of this, but you also brought up the financial imperative of Attica being Attica for the people who live around there.

Joseph Gedeon: Right. As Ron mentioned the two industries of the town are farming and the prison, and everyone seems to know someone at the prison and farming. Even the mayor of the village of Attica he works at a prison in Wyoming County, which is in the county.

It will be interesting to see the whole decarceration movement and how that would take place. Because one thing we noticed was when we went to the town, some of the locals were telling us, “Oh, there used to be so many more bars around here, but as soon as the guards stopped being mandated to live in the facilities and they had to leave the area, the bar shut down.”

I think they told me it went from around 13 to 3. I’m not exactly sure, but I didn’t see too many bars other than that. It’s curious to see what it will look like in the future for towns and villages across New York.

Brian Lehrer: Quentin in the Bronx. You’re on WNYC. Hi, Quentin.

Courtney: Hey, how are you doing? It’s Courtney. I meant, she said, Quentin, I kept saying Courtney. No problem. One of the things I wanted to add, which is basically what everyone has been saying. I’m an attorney. I defend a lot of folks who are being deported. I remember the first time going to Attica. There’s another medium-security prison close by. I believe its Wyoming.

When you get to Attica, I’ve been to maximum security prisons all over New York, but coming to Attica, which is the most scariest feeling I’ve ever had to go into a prison. It’s just a scary-looking place even from the outside. One of the things you notice when you go to prisons, upstate New York, as an attorney, I get to park in the attorneys’ parking lot and the employees’ parking lot. One of the things you notice that just comes right at you, how many, $60,000 $70,000 SUVs a parked in the employees’ parking lot.

You realize these prisons have replaced the factory, the warehouses. Upstate New York is dependent on seven communities in New York City feed in these prisons with inmates. That’s something that has to be corrected. Education kills crime. We all know this, 80% of the prison population are functionally illiterate. If we want to stop feeding these prisons with humans, we have to make sure they better educate. In New York City, public schools, 70% of the kids can’t read on their grade level. The chances are these kids will end up in places like Attica.

Brian Lehrer: Some of them will disproportionately. Courtney, let me ask you, as an attorney working these days and who has visited Attica in the course of your work. Would you say without necessarily being a student of the history of 1971, or maybe you are that anything meaningful changed as a result of the uprising and the horror of so many people getting killed?

Courtney: One of the things I’ve learned from my clients is that in prison, before, the older guys would tell you the guards used to beat you up themselves. Now, they have other inmates beat you up. You understand?

Brian Lehrer: I do, but how do they got them into it do you have anything on that?

Courtney: Incentives, going outside, if you have 10 people under your control, you can easily get one to say, “I’ll give you extra privileges and manipulate that person into being your enforcer.” That’s the gist of what I got. The guards don’t beat you up themselves anymore and if they do, it’s a technical process. They find you violating a rule, they try to arrest you, take you into custody in the prison, then they say you resisted arrest and that’s how you get a beating.

Brian Lehrer: Courtney, wow and thank you very much for your call. Call us again. Emily, to start to wrap this up, same question I asked Courtney, but based on your reporting, what changes came about after the riot? Did physical conditions at the prison improve? Were any of the correctional officers or anyone else held accountable for the deaths of so many inmates having worked on this project?

I want to play one clip to help set up this question. The historian Heather Ann Thompson wrote probably the most comprehensive scholarly account of the uprising Blood in the Water. I know you had a chance to speak with her, and here’s a 15-second clip part of what she had to say.

Heather Ann Thompson: They soured a generation of American voters on the idea that prisoners were human beings. For that, the state of New York and for a generation of Americans misunderstanding what had happened at Attica, they are responsible.

Brian Lehrer: Who’s she talking about there? How would you describe accountability and anything that improved or didn’t improve?

Emily Lang: When she’s talking about a generation of American voters, she’s speaking to people coming out of the civil rights movement and really publicly the first time and really more than ever seeing a lot of public sympathies lie with prisoners’ rights and prison reform. You saw a lot of activists pushing the needle and after Attica and entering in the era of war on crime it really took a very different turn.

Immediately after the Attica uprising within the prison you saw people who were part of the uprising being retaliated against, being held in solitary confinement for weeks. You saw people being even more racially segregated than they had been before because even Richard Nixon was at the time blaming this just on Black prisoners and saying that this is Black lack business, and we need to crack down on Black inmates within the prison. It got so much worse inside of Attica immediately after because they were fully cracking down on the uprising.

There is a line that we can draw in terms of some reforms from Attica. For instance, Muslim inmates, the same incarcerated men who were protecting the hostages during the uprising, they had often been denied the right to practice the religion. This is something that my colleague Arun Venugopal will focus on in the series in his piece coming up this week.

Now today, in prisons, there are Muslim chaplains in most of the state’s prisons. There’s slightly more education, people can take high school equivalency tests in Spanish and there’s access to law libraries. More people are entitled to regular showers, but again, these are just very, very basic human rights that seems for a lot of people and a lot of organizers and activists agree have taken way too long to get to in terms of 50 years later.

Brian Lehrer: 32 inmates died, did anyone ever get charged with the murder?

Emily Lang: No. That’s what a lot of people is hoping for. [laughs] Right now just asking for an apology and then they want to see some type of accountability because there’s still so many documents from the McKay Commission that Rockefeller had had put in place to figure out what happened, but then none of the documents or most of those documents weren’t released. We still don’t have a full picture of what fully happened inside. There’s a lot more to move towards in terms of accountability for this really horrible moment 50 years ago.

Brian Lehrer: WNYCs Emily Lang and Joseph Gedeon, and they both worked on the new series from WNYCs Race and Justice Unit, so listen to it, if you want to hear this in much greater detail, it’s called Storming the Gates: Fifty Years After the Attica Prison Uprising. Joseph and Emily, thank you so much for sharing it with us.

Emily Lang: Thank you.

Joseph Gedeon: Thank you, Brian Lehrer.

 

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