In Memoriam -- While The Fight Goes On

 

On September 9th, 1971, the prisoners at the Attica "Correctional" Facility near Buffalo, New York, went down in history when they seized control of the institution and rode that bull to the end. Five days later, Governor Nelson Rockefeller, a representative of one of the oldest richest families in America, picked up the twin lightening bolts of his privilege and his power and crushed the prisoners to claim his position as the ogre he obviously was.

That was forty-five years ago. I had only been a part of the Prisoners' Digest International collective in Iowa City for about six months when it all went down. And I was sitting at a typewriter in the basement of our commune on South Lucas, dropping white crosses and neck-deep in the process of answering two huge cardboard boxes overflowing with unopened letters out of prisons and jails from coast to coast. Prisoners who had been waiting for months -- something they know well how to do -- were finally going to hear from the PDI and its umbrella entity, the National Prison Center. And I had found my niche in life.

Muhammad Ali Recites A Poem For The Ages

This was part of an interview with Muhammad Ali on Cathal O'Shannon's television show in Ireland back in the day. The poem he recites (which is about the uprising at Attica Prison in New York in 1971) is beautiful and moving and I've never even heard it mentioned before today.

Notice how, after his recitation, The Champ took the opportunity to make clear that, while we have our own particular nightmares, the struggle for freedom crosses all boundaries. As a leader in the army of Black resistance, he was one of the first in the world (on any side) to publicly acknowledge this, catching hell from some for it and confusing others.

Many are only just now beginning to embrace this truth. Our situations are not the same, but we will never win without supporting each other fully in our struggles. In order to offer full support, we have to respect each other. And respect -- then -- gets respect. Black people are much better at this than White people are, by the way.

What constitutes respect? Well, Black Americans are still waiting for White folks to see them as whole human beings and full citizens in the land of their birth. Once that happens, a lot of other stuff is going to take care of itself. What gets in the way? White folks thinking that nobody deserves that but them. Sigh.

Remembering Attica

The United States in 1971 was a powder keg of emotion in every direction. Protests against racial and gender inequality, against governmental corruption, and against an unpopular war filled the streets. Those with the power felt their backs against the wall and came out fighting over and over again, using law enforcement, overt and covert surveillance, and even brutal violence to hold onto the shreds of what they believed they were about to lose. The result was prisons filled beyond capacity with prisoners, a number of whom were intelligent, politically savvy, and committed to social change.

Attica State Penitentiary was no different from any other major joint in this concern. At 40% over maximum capacity with prisoners who were allowed only one shower per week and one roll of toilet paper per month, a long hot summer was just coming to a close when -- on Thursday, September 9th -- a thousand prisoners took over the prison, demanding better conditions.

Governor Nelson Rockefeller, whose get-tough policies on crime and political dissent were part of the reason the New York state system was popping at the seams, blamed the up-rising on what he believed to be "revolutionaries" who he saw as threatening order across the nation. Refusing to go to Attica, even to supervise the outcome, on this day thirty-six years ago, Rockefeller ordered that the prison be re-taken by force. More than 2000 rounds of ammunition were shot at close range, killing 29 prisoners and 10 of the guards being held hostage, in one of the bloodiest show-downs in U.S. history.

The prisoners were harrassed, beaten and tortured for months afterward, but an official investigation a year later faulted Rockefeller for his decision and his lack of presence, calling the attack ill-conceived, poorly executed, and probably unnecessary. In August, 2000, 1280 men who lived through the nightmare were awarded about $8 million among them. But according to award-winning journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal, on death row in Pennsylvania for the alleged killing of a police officer in 1981, prisons are today still being used just as they were in the 1970's, except that now, they play an even more intrinsic role in the U.S. economy. This is what he has to say about all this:

In 1971, I was a member of a collective that worked tirelessly to abolish prisons as a tool of oppression. We published a 90-page tabloid about what happened at Attica and forced the administration by court order to allow the issue into the institution. I post today in memory of those who died in Attica on this historic day and in memory of all those who have died anywhere in prison fighting for their rights and the rights of all people to be free.