6
Back and Forth
By mid-August 1971, as the temperatures hovered around 90 degrees in the day and never dipped below 68 at night, a sense of futility and frustration hung in the stale air of Attica’s five sweltering cell blocks.1 The optimism that the men had allowed themselves to feel only a month earlier, when there was a belief that the commissioner of the Department of Correctional Services might do something for them, now seemed naive. The stench of nearly 2,300 sweaty men hovering like a poisonous cloud over the cell blocks could persuade even the most patient prisoner that Oswald had played them.
There was, however, at least one very tangible and ultimately significant product of the prisoners having put on paper the concrete things they needed to humanize Attica. For the first time in this institution’s history, the desire for change had prompted usually antagonistic prisoner factions to talk with one another, and soon a number of shaky, but nevertheless potentially powerful, alliances had been forged across ethnic, racial, and political lines. The CO staff saw this happening and it worried them. As one correction officer noted anxiously, “the particular make up of these groups changed….A group would have three or four of the different factions involved…which, you know, wasn’t normal.”2
That an unusual unity had developed between various prisoner groups became particularly obvious the morning of August 22, 1971. As Attica’s various companies were marched in their neat lines to the mess hall in silence, the COs immediately noticed that most of the prisoners were wearing a strip of black cloth as an armband. As notably, rather than lining up behind the two tallest men, as was customary, each company followed two stony-faced black prisoners of varying height. Then, even more unnerving to the officers, no one ate a thing once they sat down in the mess hall. As the COs looked across that cavernous room for some clue as to what was going on, a prisoner finally explained to one of them that the men were staging a “spiritual sit in” to protest the murder the previous day of a fellow prisoner, George Jackson, out in California’s San Quentin State Prison.3
George Jackson had become famous in prison systems across the United States for his extensive writings from the inside—expositions on just how racist and brutal America’s penal institutions were, particularly for prisoners of color.4 His killing touched a nerve among the incarcerated everywhere. The story put out by prison officials in California was that Jackson had been trying to escape and had “pulled a 9mm automatic pistol about five inches long out of a wig that he snatched off his head when a guard reached to examine it.”5 He then ran across the yard and was shot.
To Attica’s prisoners this story rang false, even absurd.6 How in the world could the most closely monitored man in the entire California prison system have had a wig on in the first place, let alone hidden a heavy, bulky gun in it? As one of Attica’s prisoners put it, there was simply no way that “anybody hid it in their hair…then got back to the box without being searched.”7 Prisoners everywhere were convinced that whatever had happened at San Quentin must have involved trigger-happy guards, and now George Jackson was dead. Former Auburn, now Attica, prisoner Jomo Joka Omowale was particularly dismayed to learn of Jackson’s death because he had recently been corresponding with Jackson about the prison life in New York. Jomo was alarmed that CO aggression—itself quite common—could lead to the outright murder of such a famous prisoner.8 As another prisoner put it, the men at Attica “had always generally been aware that in the past, [guards] could get away with killing inmates…but nobody ever really expected it to happen [now]…until it happened to Jackson.”9 That so many prisoners, black, white, and Puerto Rican, stood together on August 22, 1971, and refused to eat, indicated that Jackson’s death had not only shaken them, but had rallied them as well.
Riding the wave of this new unity, the men in A Block decided then to engage in a mass “sick-in” on August 30. Specifically they hoped to call attention to the dire state of the prison’s medical facilities that day because it was rumored that Commissioner Oswald would be making a visit to Attica.
As it turned out, the commissioner canceled his visit, so he never saw the crowd of protesting prisoners crammed into Attica’s antiquated infirmary. But he did hear about their action and sent word to Governor Rockefeller and Superintendent Mancusi that he would visit Attica the very next week. He was worried. As he explained it to Rockefeller, “While it is not characteristic of me to ‘cry wolf,’ the recent tragedy at San Quentin has made it all too apparent that anything can happen when dealing with the kinds of idealists and fanatics housed in our facilities.”10
By August’s end Attica’s correction officers had also grown increasingly concerned. They began expressing to their wives and co-workers a reluctance to go to work. Some had even started leaving their wallets at home in case anything “jumped off” at the prison. CO William Quinn also felt compelled to make sure that his financial affairs were in good order. One night, after putting his daughters, Deanne and Christine, to bed, Quinn showed his wife, Nancy, where all the insurance papers were and how to deal with the household bills.11 He worried that an explosion at Attica was inevitable and perhaps even imminent.
Like Commissioner Russell Oswald, many of the COs at Attica blamed the new level of tension they were experiencing on the courts—feeling in particular that Judge Curtin had weakened their authority when he ordered the release of the Auburn detainees into Attica’s general population.12 Most also believed, however, that the DOCS had made the situation worse. Officials in Albany had left them too understaffed and undertrained to meet the challenges posed by the angry and newly empowered prisoners. Oswald agreed to discuss the issue of guard security in his upcoming visit.
Although the commissioner and the officers feared that prisoners might be planning an insurrection, they were not. While prisoners remained deeply skeptical that state officials could be counted on to help them, Oswald’s willingness to correspond with the Attica Liberation Faction had been encouraging. As one prisoner summed it up, in the summer of 1971 many men genuinely felt that Oswald might do something positive for them, and even the more cynical were at least willing to “wait and see.”13
7
End of the Line
In some ways the men at Attica couldn’t believe that the head of the entire New York State Department of Correctional Services was coming to talk with them. They hoped that the recent rebellions at Auburn and in New York City jails had taught officials like Oswald a lesson—that prisoners would never stop demanding to be treated as human beings. They wanted him to see the wisdom of really listening to prisoners rather than ignoring their needs. As inspiring as it was to read the broader critiques of injustice found in George Jackson’s Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson, Eldridge Cleaver’s Soul on Ice, or in Mao’s Little Red Book—which Attica’s prisoners read and discussed passionately—they also prayed that having Oswald’s ear might net them needed changes now.
All waited with great anticipation for September 2, the day when the commissioner was to arrive. Once there, he was to meet with staff, meet with representatives from the Attica Liberation Faction, and then speak to all of the other prisoners in the facility via the prison address system. That evening, men sat in their cells and placed headphones over their ears, the ones they usually listened to static-filled radio songs on, waiting to hear what Oswald would say. Word had it that he had met, face-to-face, with some reps from the Attica Liberation Faction earlier that day, which was a good sign, but everyone really wanted to hear what reforms would be coming to Attica from the commissioner himself. First the men in A, B, and C Blocks were to hear Oswald speak through their headphones from 7:00 to 7:09, and then, from 9:18 to 9:27, he would speak to the men in E Block. Finally, from 9:44 to 9:53 the commissioner would once again take to the microphone and talk with the metal shop’s prisoners in D Block.
Instead of talking with the prisoners in person, though, Oswald had left them a taped message. The recording began with the commissioner
explaining why he was not addressing them live as he had said he would. “I had originally planned to spend two days here,” he intoned, “but unfortunately an emergent situation in the office, plus the fact that my wife had been taken to the hospital, dictates my early return to Albany.”1
As a low rumble of disbelief began to spread through the cell blocks, Oswald’s voice played on. He told the prisoners that he had already taken key steps to bring reforms to Attica and that he had done this, despite “facing the worst fiscal crisis in remembered state history.”2 As important, he continued, the DOCS was planning to “implement several new programs and projects,” such as adding a law library, and a new “program for training in meaningful rehabilitative methods for all personnel…[as well as] extending our programming into the community.”3
Not until the tail end of his message did Oswald address any of the issues that the men had raised in the letter sent to him back in July. Oswald said only that he and his staff “are reviewing, and will continue to review, the numerous aspects of each single item” and that his office would make changes that were “reasonably possible.”4
As Oswald’s message ended, a few of Attica’s men were still able to muster some measure of optimism about the possibilities of reform. One twenty-one-year-old even felt compelled the next week to write to the commissioner that he had “listened intently to the recorded speech,” and believed that there was “sincerity” in his words.5 He went on, “I have a strong faith in you Sir, for you want to give us back our pride and self-respect in as many ways as you can find, and I know that eventually you will succeed.”6 Another man also wrote to Oswald expressing not only gratitude for his efforts, but also hope for his wife’s speedy recovery. However, most of Attica’s men felt betrayed by Oswald. Although he was not there to hear it, no sooner did his taped speech end than the sound of “earphones hitting the wall and men shouting, ‘That’s a cop out, that’s a cop out!’ ” began echoing through Attica’s cell blocks.7 He also never saw those men who could only sit despondently with their heads in their hands in the wake of his recorded message, nor those who found themselves pacing their cells in despair. In the words of one man: “He didn’t do nothing….He didn’t so much as make one concession, such as giving a man soap or giving a man an extra shower.”8
Over the coming days, Attica’s prisoners engaged in intense debates about what the commissioner’s taped response signified and what they might do next to get him to act. To most, it seemed clear that their foray into the democratic process and their patience as well as pledge of nonviolence had produced not a single improvement in their living conditions. If anything, it had resulted in more censorship, more cell shakedowns, fewer minutes outside the dismal blocks, and an administration even more suspicious and watchful of their every move. As Sam Melville wrote to his lawyers on September 4, “All rules are now strictly enforced. Attire, haircuts, lining up, not talking, no wearing hats—everything.”9
And yet, even those prisoners who had some experience with direct action, including some veterans of Auburn and the New York City jail riots, still very much hoped that something so dramatic might be avoided at Attica. On September 8, 1971, Herb Blyden wrote one more letter—this time to John Dunne, a Republican state senator who had been involved in negotiating a peaceful end to the uprising at the Tombs in New York City, where Blyden had been, and who also chaired the Standing Committee on Crime and Correction in Albany. In some ways, Blyden saw Dunne as their last hope. “We need more visits from your Committee on the immediate future as the situation at prisons is rather fluid,” Blyden wrote.10 “All we received were promises of change….I thank you in advance—Respectfully, Herbert X Blyden.”11
Others expressed the need for immediate outside intervention far more desperately and passionately. As Sam Melville put it in a frantic letter to his lawyer, “For Christ’s sake, do something!”12
PART II
Power and Politics Unleashed
MICHAEL SMITH
Michael Smith couldn’t quite figure how he had wound up working as a correction officer. The twenty-two-year-old wore sideburns, had a mustache, and looked a bit more like a scruffy college student than an employee of the New York Department of Correctional Services. But like so many other small town boys who had grown up in rural New York Mike needed to make a living, and prisons were the going industry in that part of the state.
Shortly after graduating from high school, Mike had enrolled in Genesee County Community College. There he met a girl named Sharon and was so smitten that he decided to leave school and get a job so that he could ask Sharon to marry him. Soon after they got engaged, Mike took a position in a local machine shop. It didn’t take long, though, before he began to think that he needed a better job. It dawned on him that he could take the civil service exam and start working for the prison system like several of his cousins. The pay was stable, the benefits were fine, the job was secure, and these were the things that mattered, since what Mike wanted most was to be able to provide for a family.
On September 3, 1970, two weeks after his wedding, Mike started his first guard job at the Eastern Correctional Facility in Napanoch, New York. Another young CO, John D’Arcangelo, offered to show him the ropes, for which Mike was grateful. He had been given no other training for the job. Mike and Sharon soon became close to John and his wife, Ann, a bond made closer because both women were expecting babies. When Mike then transferred to Attica in order to be near his extended family, he hoped John would also transfer there. To his delight, within a few months John joined him.
Mike thought that he could be happy at Attica. Archaic as it was, it was more modern than Napanoch and seemed more secure.1 Also, he thought he might actually have a knack for prison work. As far as he was concerned, it was all about mutual respect. Whereas most of his fellow guards called prisoners by their number or, maybe, by their last name, Mike addressed every prisoner as “Mr.” To be sure, this irritated several of his colleagues, who saw him as too soft and easygoing. To Mike, though, there were many decent men in prison who had simply made bad choices or had some tough luck. He had been quite touched when two Napanoch prisoners wrote him a letter thanking him for the way he had treated them. Mike was so proud of this letter that he held on to it.
Mike had not been at Attica long, however, before he became troubled by the way the other COs treated the prisoners, and this weighed on him. It bothered Mike that every time a Puerto Rican prisoner got a letter, his fellow guards threw it into the trash simply because they couldn’t read it.2 The practice of strip-searching every new prisoner also struck Mike as unnecessary and demoralizing. He was fairly certain that he would have considered suicide had he been forced to undergo this ritual.3
So Mike Smith was not surprised that dissent was on the rise at Attica. When he was placed in charge of one of Attica’s metal shops, it became clear to him that the prisoners there had legitimate gripes and that they were growing more determined to voice them. He believed that it was important for prisoners to be allowed to speak up.
One day in July 1971, Mike was approached by Don Noble and two other prisoners at the end of their shift. They wanted his opinion on a letter they had drafted to the commissioner of corrections—this was the letter that they had signed as the Attica Liberation Faction. After reading it carefully, Mike thought they had expressed their concerns clearly and rationally, and told them he thought that writing it was the right thing to do.4
When the letter only elicited a taped message from Oswald, Mike was nearly as dismayed as the prisoners. He was also worried. Mike had been walking through one of Attica’s cell blocks when Oswald’s tape had been broadcast, and he could tell immediately that the administration’s decision to handle things this way was disastrous. Mike could feel the air around him begin to crackle with a new fury.
8
Talking Back
While the men at Attica hoped that powerful people such as State Senator John Dunne still might do something on their
behalf, there was little consensus regarding what to do if this effort also failed to bring some meaningful improvements to their facility. The disparate political factions in the yard had been talking about this very question for some time now—activists like Sam Melville from the Weather Underground (a revolutionary organization committed to fighting racism and imperialism), Black Panthers like Tommy Hicks, Black Muslims like Richard X Clark, and men like Mariano “Dalou” Gonzalez from the Young Lords Party (a grassroots activist organization working in cities like New York and Chicago to improve conditions for Puerto Ricans).1 Still, no new strategy had been agreed upon. By early September 1971, however, and after Oswald’s taped message, all of them could agree on one crucial point: most men at Attica were now at a breaking point. Just about anything might cause this place to explode.
Correction officer Mike Smith believed this as well. Although he had a good relationship with the men in his company, as he walked them to mess on the morning after the debacle of Oswald’s taped speech he could see that they were unusually on edge and he disliked the idea of so many prisoners all together in one room with tensions so high. Nothing happened that day. But a week later, on September 8, 1971, an incident confirmed his worst fears about how strained things had become at Attica.
At about 3:30 that afternoon Mike Smith was assigned to A Yard, where almost five hundred men from the A Block companies were on their rec break. In one corner of the yard near the handball court, Mike noticed two men sparring with each other. To Mike it seemed obvious that they were just playing, so he felt no need to intervene. Another CO came to a different conclusion, however, and went to get his superior, sixty-one-year-old Senior Lieutenant Richard Maroney. One of the men disappeared into the yard before he could be brought over to Maroney, leaving only the other, Leroy Dewer, to explain what had been happening.
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