Tag Archives: Heather Ann Thompson

An irrepressible demand for justice

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Last Tuesday, I attended a talk about the Attica Prison Uprising given by Dr. Heather Ann Thompson. I had no previous knowledge about the specific incident, and learned quickly that I really didn’t know much about the prison system in general. Dr. Thompson started by giving a background, which was much needed in my case, about mass incarceration. According to her, mass incarceration is the civil rights crisis of the late 20th and 21st century, something that I had never really thought about. My exposure to the inside of prisons is limited to what is portrayed on TV and through the news, which is clearly not an accurate representation. Dr. Thompson mentioned that prisons have gotten worse for both corrections officers and people inside in each decade since the 1960s. One thing that really surprised me was the idea of the war on crime, and how it started with Johnson at a point in time when the murder was very low and crime wasn’t that big of a problem. Additionally, prison rates didn’t see as much of an increase until 1972.

She then talked more about the Attica Prison Uprising, which is the focus of her book Blood in the Water. One important thing to note was the lack of available information, as the governor shut down records to the story for 45 years and she had to fight for the freedom of that information. She spent a good amount of time going into the background of Attica and the people involved and told the story of what happened. What was really shocking were the amount and quality images available, despite the record being concealed. Not only was there a chaotic riot and a clear lack of empathy for the prisoners, but the aftermath inside the prison and the actions of those outside to lie about what happened is disturbing. I had no idea that modern prisons in the US could be so bad on the inside, and that was something Dr. Thompson really touched on at the end of her talk. Most of the prisons in the US are public institutions, but their doors are kept closed. The false media message following Attica led to huge consequences, and Dr. Thompson emphasized the importance of getting history right. While there are certain pieces of news that can be easily seen as biased and contradictory to known facts, when there is an overwhelming push to hide the truth and fabricate a story because no one has access to the facts, it’s scary. I am definitely interested in reading up more about Attica and those other state-power events in the time period she mentioned and being open to correcting my own knowledge of recent events that may be exposed to be cover-ups later on.

Attica

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I had the distinct fortune of attending Professor Heather Ann Thompson’s talk about the Attica Uprising in 1970. I was stunned to learn that I, as someone who always thought of myself as well-versed in U.S. history, had never heard of this event, which resulted in the death of forty-three people amidst a bloody massacre. But what was most stunning was the cover-up story which Thompson described. The New York State government had falsely negotiated with the prisoners holding correctional officers hostage, when it had intended to use force the entire time. After the state police stormed the facility, gunning down forty-two individuals, the state had then proceeded to destroy evidence of its actions, pinning all blame on the prisoners. In the spin devised by the New York Justice Department after the conflict, and in the press conferences in the days after, the authorities even went so far as to claim one prisoner had castrated a correctional officer. In addition, the state give minimal settlements to the families of correctional officers without telling them that this precluded future action on their part. Not to mention that many prisoners were wrongly convicted of and incarcerated for homicide decades afterward. And perhaps most tragically, this event sharply turned the public against prison reform, leading to the incarceration nation that has risen up in this country in the last fifty years.

But what inspired me about the talk was the story of perseverance; Thompson worked tirelessly thirteen years to uncover the truth, while the victims and their families never stopped speaking out despite against all odds. And in the end, their efforts paid off. I remember looking at Attica survivors in the auditorium, fighting back tears near the end of the talk.  I think this is a valuable lesson, reminding us never to stop fighting for what we believe in, because if you are in the moral right, chances are that eventually the odds will turn in your favor. And slowly but surely, I think the tide is shifting in favor of humane conditions in our prisons.