To Donna Murch: you are my sister-scholar and co-editor and I thank you for your incredible support—for being a true ally—these last years. And thanks to you and Walter Murch, being in NYC has felt like being home.
To Elizabeth Hinton, Julilly Kohler-Hausmann, and Melanie Newport: you three are not only my heart, but you’re also the future of carceral state history. Thank you for pushing the boundaries.
And special thanks to Bryant Simon, whose get-togethers in West Philly kept me sane and motivated, and who connected our families in ways so wonderful. And to Jim Downs, who has always made me feel like a rock star, even when I felt like an exhausted bag of rocks. Peter Logan, thank you for creating the most intellectually engaged and supportive environments any historian could ask for up in the Center for the Humanities at Temple University, and for giving me refuge on the tenth floor.
Beyond the scholars, friends, advocates, and allies who helped me to write this history of Attica, I am also deeply indebted to a number of institutions and organizations: the American Historical Association; the National Endowment for the Humanities; the University of North Carolina at Charlotte; the Rockefeller Archive Center; the New York State Archives; and last but hardly least, the Open Society’s Soros Justice Fellowship, which was life-changing. Not only did it allow me a year of leave to conduct book research, but it also introduced me to countless advocates, activists, and fellow scholars working on criminal justice reform. These relationships changed me profoundly and bettered my book immeasurably. Thank you, Adam Cuthbert and Christina Voight, for running such an important program and for bringing us together year after year. Among my fellow Soros recipients whom I haven’t already named above, I want to specially acknowledge Neelum Arya, Sujatha Baliga, Michelle Deitch, Shaena Fazel, Mary Heinen, Pippa Holloway, Eric Lotke, Nancy Mullane, and Dee Ann Newell. Each of you is an inspiration.
When it comes to getting this book written, and more specifically written well, let me also thank the godsends who have read drafts of this book and who have helped me, page by page, word by word, to get at the heart of what makes Attica so important. Thank you Terry Bisson, Megan Ritchie Jooste, and particularly Beth Rashbaum for your tremendous patience and hard work with the drafts you waded through. And thank you to the 2014 committee of the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award for naming this manuscript as the finalist for this prestigious prize in 2015. I hope this is the book you all imagined it would be.
Thank you to E.M.W. Beste. Your voice brought this book to life.
In closing, I must somehow find the words to adequately convey to my family just how much it has meant to me that they have given me the time, the space, the love, the encouragement, and the faith that I needed to complete this tome.
To Tamara Smith, you have been there since the earliest days, and you gave so much of your time to help us settle back in Michigan. Love and thanks.
To my Kansas, Colorado, Chicago, California, and Zurich family members—from those who have followed my book-writing saga on Facebook and offered me so much support, to those who have distracted me over wonderful visits these last years, thank you all so much.
To Agnes Spitzer, you know how much I have bent your ear about this book and how much your counsel and presence in my life means to me. You are, and will always be, my soul sister.
To Dan and Betsey Wells, as well as Caroline Wells, Phil Hervey, and Brynne Hervey: You have offered me more love and support than any daughter-in-law/sister-in-law/auntie has a right to ask for. I love you all and thank you.
To my sister, Saskia Thompson, and my niece Isabel LaBarrie Thompson, you have both made these recent years of my life in Philadelphia some of my happiest. I miss living near you both terribly.
To Ann Curry Thompson and Frank Thompson…well, you know. You are why I see the world as I do. You are why I hope to help make it a better place. Full stop. I am so grateful that you are my parents.
To Dillon Thompson Erb, Wilder Thompson Erb, Ava Thompson Wells, Kimberly Brink, and Rahshawn (Shawn) Johnson: No mother could ask for more in life than to have it filled with you five incredible human beings. Dillon and Wilder, I am so deeply proud of you both—in fact I am awed by all that you have each accomplished in life. I love you both more than I will ever be able to convey. Ava, I still remember the day I heard I was having a daughter and I have been grateful for each day since. You are brilliant and I am in awe of the kind, generous, and courageous young woman you have become. Kim, you are one of the most extraordinary women I know. Your gentle spirit, fierce smarts, generosity, and ambition all humble me and make me so incredibly glad that you are a part of our family. And Shawn, you have moved mountains. You are one of the sweetest souls I have ever known and you have made our family, and me, complete.
And the last, most profound, thank-you is to Jonathan Daniel Wells. Jon, the support you have offered me to do this book—from the time you have made available to me by taking too much on yourself, to the unconditional love you have given me each and every second of every day, to the faith you had in me that I could actually pull this off—takes my breath away. You are my best friend and partner for life. And now that this book is finally done, I can’t wait to begin living that life again with you. I love you.
Notes
Abbreviations Used in the Notes
Attica Task Force Hearing Public Hearings Conducted by Governor George E. Pataki’s Attica Task Force, Rochester, New York, and Albany, New York, May to August 2002.
Erie County courthouse Document located in Office of the Clerk, Erie County courthouse, Buffalo, New York, visited by author October 2006.
McKay Report New York State Special Commission on Attica, Attica: The Official Report of the New York State Special Commission on Attica (New York: Bantam, 1972).
McKay Transcript New York State Special Commission on Attica Public Hearings Transcript, Rochester, New York, and New York, New York, April 1972.
Meyer Commission “Special Inquiry into the Attica Investigation, 1975”
Nixon Tapes Richard Nixon White House Recordings, Presidential Recordings Program, Miller Center for Public Affairs, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia.
Quigley Order Judge Robert M. Quigley, Final Order, Lynda Jones, Individually and as Administratrix of the Estate of Herbert W. Jones, Jr., Deceased v. State of New York, State of New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Fourth Department, 96 A.D.2d 105 (N.Y. App. Div. 1983), Rochester, New York, August 31, 1982, Archives of William Cunningham.
Tom Wicker Papers Southern Historical Collection, Manuscripts Department, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Walter Reuther Library Walter Reuther Library of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.
A Note About Attica Litigation
There were myriad iterations of the Attica civil case filed on behalf of prisoners, depending on the various named defendants and plaintiffs as well as on when the case was filed over the course of nearly thirty years. The first citation for the case, filed shortly after the rebellion, is Inmates of Attica et al. v. Rockefeller et al. By the time the case was finally settled, it was titled Akil Al-Jundi et al. v. Vincent Mancusi et al.
INTRODUCTION · STATE SECRETS
1. Heather Ann Thompson, “How Attica’s Ugly Past Is Still Protected,” Time, May 26, 2015, http://time.com/3896825/attica-1971-meyer-report-release/.
2. Letter. Deputy Attorney General Richard Rifkin to Dr. Heather Thompson. November 12, 2003. Letter in author’s possession.
3. Heather Ann Thompson, “The Lingering Injustice of Attica,” New York Times, September 8, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/09/opinion/the-lingering-injustice-of-attica.html?_r=0
4. In 2015, when a reporter tried to locate the myriad Attica documents that I had found at the Erie County courthouse, clerks told him that they had no Attica records and never did. Shortly thereafter they called him back and said that they were mistaken—they did in fact have some documents re
lated to Attica that he could see. When this reporter went to view them, though, he was handed one box filled only with prisoner indictments. I was stunned to learn this. All that I saw back in 2006 has apparently been removed. No one seems to know where an entire wall of Attica documents were taken and, in fact, claim no knowledge of their existence. With regard to the artifacts at the New York State Museum, perhaps realizing the controversial nature of the donation they had just received, officials there decided it best no longer to bring scholars such as myself to its warehouse to see them, or to exhibit them to the public in some fashion. Under pressure the museum did return some of these items to the surviving hostages, but the current whereabouts of the majority of its Attica artifacts is unclear. I can only hope that these vital materials that were in Buffalo and in Albany have not been destroyed, and I am deeply grateful that I made copies of some of the items that were most important to the writing of this book.
PART I · THE TINDERBOX
1. NOT SO GREENER PASTURES
1. Forty percent were under thirty, 77 percent came from cities, 80 percent had not graduated from high school, and 63 percent were African American or Puerto Rican.
2. John Thomas Schleich, Testimony, In the Matter of the Additional, Special and Trial Term of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, Designated Pursuant to the Order of the Appellate Division, Fourth Department. County of Wyoming, March 21, 1972, Office of the Clerk, document located in Erie County courthouse, Buffalo, New York, visited by author October 2006, 24. Hereafter referred to as Erie County courthouse.
3. Angel Martinez, Testimony, New York State Special Commission on Attica Public Hearings Transcript, Rochester, New York, April 13, 1972, 45. Hereafter referred to as McKay Transcript.
4. Ibid., 93.
5. Ralph Bottone, Testimony, McKay Transcript, April 14, 1972, 691.
6. The New York State Special Commission on Attica, Attica: The Official Report of the New York State Special Commission on Attica (New York: Bantam, 1972), 47. Hereafter referred to as McKay Report.
7. Martinez, Testimony, McKay Transcript, April 13, 1972, 476.
8. William Jackson, Testimony, McKay Transcript, April 12, 1972, 82.
9. McKay Report, 43–46.
10. David Addison, Testimony, McKay Transcript, April 17, 1972, 81.
11. Ibid., 72.
12. Ibid., 75.
13. Cornell Capa, Testimony, McKay Transcript, April 17, 1972, 134.
14. Addison, Testimony, McKay Transcript, April 17, 1972, 53.
15. Martinez, Testimony, McKay Transcript, April 13, 1972, 57. For more on Martinez, see: Jeremy Levenson, “Shreds of Humanity: The Attica Prison Uprising, the State of New York and ‘Politically Unaware’ Medicine,” Unpublished Undergraduate Honors Thesis, Department of Urban Studies, University of Pennsylvania, December 21, 2011, in author’s possession, 38.
16. Frank Smith, interview, “Attica Prison Riot,” American Experience: The Rockefellers, Public Broadcasting Service, 2007.
17. Martinez, Testimony, McKay Transcript, April 13, 1972, 66.
18. Jerry Rosenberg, interview, Voices from Inside: Seven Interviews with Attica Prisoners (New York: Attica Defense Committee, 1972), American Radicalism Collection, Michigan State University Library.
19. Handwritten note from correction officer B. J. Conway, June 20, 1969, and typed note from correction officer Charles Cunningham regarding staff meeting, June 16, 1969, Attica uprising–related documents kept at the Attica Correctional Facility, Attica, New York.
20. Letter. Rev. Johnnie Monroe to Mr. John R. Cain, Deputy Commissioner, Department of Corrections, March 31, 1969. Box 7b, Folder 29, Franklin Florence Papers, Manuscript and Special Collections, Rush Rhees Library, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY.
21. Letter. John R. Cain to Rev. Johnnie Monroe, FIGHT. April 7, 1969. Box 7b, Folder 29, Franklin Florence Papers, Manuscript and Special Collections, Rush Rhees Library, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY.
22. Dr. Michael Brandriss, Interview Transcript, August 18, 2012, Criminal Injustice: Death and Politics at Attica, Blue Sky Project (2012), transcribed by Diane Witzel, original in possession of Christine Christopher.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid.
25. Ibid.
26. Jackson, Testimony, McKay Transcript, April 12, 1972, 110.
27. Ibid., 108.
28. Harold Goeway, Testimony, McKay Transcript, April 13, 1972, 383.
29. Ibid., 385.
30. Ralph Bottone, Testimony, McKay Transcript, April 14, 1972, 685.
31. The State of New York Special Commission on Attica, “Appendix A: Attica Expenditures Fiscal Year 1971–1972,” McKay Report, 488.
32. McKay Report, 39.
33. Addison, Testimony, McKay Transcript, April 17, 1972, 57.
34. Ibid., 86; Manuel T. Murcia, Counsel, Memorandum to “all institutions,” Subject: “Religious Correspondence,” September 1, 1966, Attica uprising–related documents kept at the Attica Correctional Facility, Attica, New York.
35. Murcia to “all institutions,” September 1, 1966.
36. Addison, Testimony, McKay Transcript, April 17, 1972, 80.
37. Ibid., 85.
38. Ibid.
39. Jackson, Testimony, McKay Transcript, April 12, 1972, 40.
40. Goeway, Testimony, McKay Transcript, April 13, 1972, 399.
41. John Stockholm, Testimony, Public Hearing Conducted by Governor George E. Pataki’s Attica Task Force, Rochester, New York, May 9–10, 2002, 6. Hereafter referred to as Attica Task Force Hearing.
42. James E. Cochrane, Testimony, McKay Transcript, April 13, 1972, 236.
43. Henry Rossbacher, Supervisor, Testimony, McKay Transcript, April 17, 1972, 31.
44. Ibid.
45. Cochrane, Testimony, McKay Transcript, April 13, 1972, 293.
46. Ibid., 244.
47. McKay Report, 26.
48. Rossbacher, Testimony, McKay Transcript, April 17, 1972, 9.
49. Russell G. Oswald, Commissioner, Department of Correctional Services, Memorandum to Nelson A. Rockefeller, Governor, Subject: “Activities Report—February 8, 1973–March 7, 1973,” March 7, 1973, Nelson A. Rockefeller gubernatorial records, Departmental Reports, Series 28, New York (State), Governor (1959–1973: Rockefeller), Record Group 15, Box 2, Folder 32, Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow, New York.
50. Addison, Testimony, McKay Transcript, April 17, 1972, 62.
51. Samuel Melville, “Anatomy of the Laundry,” Attica uprising–related documents kept at the Attica Correctional Facility, Attica, New York. Also see: Samuel Melville, Letters from Attica (New York: William Morrow, 1972), 151–52; and Larry Boone, Testimony, McKay Transcript, April 17, 1972, 147.
52. Addison, Testimony, McKay Transcript, April 17, 1972, 93.
53. Ibid., 94. McGinnis would eventually go even further than this. By 1971 the Department of Corrections had implemented a uniform pay schedule in all correctional facilities and a 5 percent cap on commissary profits.
54. Stephen Merkle et al. v. Vincent R. Mancusi, Superintendent of Attica Correctional Facility, Federal Court, Western District of New York, C1970-490, Attica uprising–related documents kept at the Attica Correctional Facility, Attica, New York.
55. McKay Report, 129.
2. RESPONDING TO RESISTANCE
1. Michael Flamm, In the Heat of the Summer: From the Harlem Riot of 1964 to the War on Crime and America’s Prison Crisis (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, forthcoming); Matthew Countryman, Up South: Civil Rights and Black Power in Philadelphia (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007).
2. For more on the liberal origins of the war on crime, see: Elizabeth Kai Hinton, From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2016); Naomi Murakawa, The First Civil Right: How Liberals Built Prison America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014).
3. “Homicide Rate Trends, 1900–1926,”
Bureau of Justice Statistics, http//bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/glance/tables/hmrttab.cfm.
4. Russell Oswald, Attica—My Story (New York: Doubleday, 1972), 194.
5. Ibid., 194.
6. Notably the incarcerated and formerly incarcerated today very much dislike the word “inmate” and prefer to be referred to as “men,” “women,” or “people,” and, if their status as being imprisoned must be specified, most prefer “incarcerated people” or “prisoners.” As “incarcerated people” is too wordy, this book refers to Attica’s imprisoned as “men,” “people” and “prisoners.” For more on language, see: Eddie Ellis, “Words Matter: Another Look at the Question of Language,” Center for NuLeadership on Urban Solutions, January 2013.
7. Oswald, Attica—My Story, 196–97.
8. Ibid., 197.
9. Russell G. Oswald, Commissioner, Department of Correctional Services, Memorandum to Nelson A. Rockefeller, Governor, Subject: “Activity Report—April 8, 1971–May 5, 1971,” May 10, 1971, Nelson A. Rockefeller gubernatorial records, Departmental Reports, Series 28, New York (State), Governor (1959–1973: Rockefeller), Record Group 15, Box 2, Folder 32, Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow, New York.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12. “No. 2 State Aide: Walter Dunbar,” New York Times, September 16, 1971, 48.
13. Draft of speech to be given at the New York State Bar Center dedication, Albany, New York, September 24, 1971, Nelson A. Rockefeller gubernatorial records, Speeches, Series 33, New York (State), Governor (1959–1973: Rockefeller), Rockefeller, Nelson A. (Nelson Aldrich), Record Group 15, Box 85, Folder 3471, Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow, New York.
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