Storming the Gates: Fifty Years After the Attica Prison Uprising

Fifty years ago this month, nearly 1,300 prisoners seized control of a large part of Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York, holding guards and staff members hostage for five days in an attempt to gain basic civil and human rights.

The Attica uprising that began on September 9, 1971, remains one of the most well-known prison rebellions in U.S. history—infamous for how violently the state regained control of the prison but also how it ultimately led to some reforms that benefited inmates.

After the inmates took 42 guards and staff members hostage, they issued a manifesto with more than two dozen demands, including requests for responsible medical treatment, legal representation at parole hearings, better food and visitors’ facilities, living wages for work done behind bars, and an end to the brutalization of prisoners by prison guards.

While the state eventually agreed to some of the demands, it didn’t come without a cost: Despite efforts at negotiating a resolution, Governor Nelson Rockefeller ultimately sent in law enforcement officers to retake the prison. They first dropped tear gas onto the prison yard and then blindly shot  through the clouds of smoke, killing both guards and inmates. By the time the state regained control of the facility, 43 people had died.

The uprising at Attica didn’t happen in a vacuum. The country was well into the Civil Rights and Black power movements, which were also deeply affecting those inside the nation’s prisons. In 1970, there were two prisoner uprisings at the Manhattan Detention Complex—”the Tombs”—and some of those participants were sent to Attica.

Then Black Panther activist George Jackson was fatally shot in August 1971 during an attempted escape at San Quentin State Prison in Northern California. After learning of Jackson’s death, hundreds of Attica inmates wore black armbands and took part in a hunger strike.

The tensions within Attica the prison continued to mount even as news of Jackson’s death reached prisoners there. Attica was emblematic of the poor prison conditions common across the United States in the 1970s. Attica’s 2,243 prisoners were overwhelmingly young, Black and brown. The guards were all white. Like prisoners across the country, the men at Attica were growing in their political awareness. They were also desperately unhappy about conditions at the prison.

Most who remember agree that the precipitating incident was a fight in the prison’s D-Yard. Two inmates had a scuffle and, after several men were punished for the incident, outraged prisoners overpowered a guard, instigating the uprising. Three inmates and one guard were killed that first day.

Once they secured control of the prison, inmates not only issued their Manifesto of Demands, but also drafted medics and security members from their numbers and requested outside negotiators .help settle the dispute T On the second day of the siege, three dozen civilian observers were flown  to nearby Buffalo and then transported by caravant about 30 miles, and then ushered into the prison. to Attica.

Negotiations cut short

One of those negotiators was David Rothenberg, the founder of The Fortune Society, an organization that helped formerly incarcerated people adjust to life after prison. He was only 37 and one of the youngest of the group.

“I had no expectations. Iit was a learning process for me. And learn I did. So at best, my role in going there was to listen,” he said.

“We were ushered down this long pathway where, and we went from, I guess a demilitarized zone, from the outside zone, to the area in this runway where inmates with towels over their faces, were frisking us, asking us who we were, and letting us go in. It was rather ominous.”

Among the negotiators were prominent men such as New York Congressman Herman Badillo; Clarence Jones, the publisher of the Amsterdam News; reporter Tom Wicker of The New York Times; and noted civil rights attorney and activist William Kuntsler.

Ron Kuby was just a teenager at the time. For that reason he rarely speaks publicly about Attica, despite frequent requests to do so. But he grew up to become Kunstler’s protégé in his civil rights law firm—a colleague and friend to the activist attorney, who died in 1995.

“Bill Kunstler repeatedly stated that as far as he was concerned—looking back on what happened at Attica—the issue always was time,” Kuby said. “The issue never was one specific demand or another specific demand. The issue always was time. Continue to talk, let the governor show a personal interest in resolving this peacefully by coming to the prison, and things could be worked out.”

Almost immediately the role of the civilian “observers” morphed into one of “negotiators,” desperately working to facilitate a peaceful resolution.

“The last thing the prisoners would have wanted to do was to harm citizens that they’d recruited into the enterprise in a way that would make them blameworthy and untrustworthy,” Franklin Zimring said. Zimring, a professor of law and the director of the criminal justice research program at the University of California at Berkeley, has written several books and scholarly articles about the prison reform movement and the carceral system.

“What you had to worry about was … overreaction by the authorities,” Zimring  said.

Which is what happened. Rothenberg held out hope, until the end that, working with  thofficials, they could avoid a bloodbath.

“When we came in, the first person we met was Russell Oswald, who was the commissioner of correction. Ironically, he had been a very progressive commissioner.”

But Oswald had few political allies. Rockefeller—eyeing a run for the White House and sensing his political future in jeopardy—decided not to appear and instead sent armed state troopers and other law enforcement to stomp out the uprising.

Kuby said that Kunstler, until his last days, laid the blame on the governor.

“Bill Kunstler always maintained that, had Rockefeller just shown up, the issues could have been worked through. People were still talking. And he always blamed Rockefeller for that. And no subsequent governors in the state of New York—none of them—have ever taken responsibility for that.”

On the morning of September 13, 1971, the state troopers, police officers and others that Rockefeller sent to retake Attica dropped tear gas before entering the prison yard, firing more than 2000 rounds indiscriminately. Less than 20 minutes later, the state reported that it was once again in control of the Attica Correctional facility.

State officials initially blamed prisoners for the bloodshed inside prison, statements later disproved. By most accounts, state law enforcement had fired more than 2000 rounds, shooting more than 120 people. By the time it was all over, 43 people were dead, including 32 inmates and 11 correction officers.

Three survivors Tyrone Larkins, Alhajji Sharif, and Akil Shakur were in the yard that morning, as tear gas rained down and bullets ripped through the smokey air.

They call themselves the “Attica Brothers.” Larkins, now 73, lives in Brooklyn. He was 23 at the time of the uprising. Sharif, who was 22 during the uprising, is now 72 years old and lives in Harlem. Shakur, who grew up around New York City, arrived at Attica just before his 22nd birthday.  He turns 72 later this month.

They met with WNYC’s Race and Justice reporter Joseph Gedeon in Harlem to reflect upon the day “Attica blew up.”

Shakur was shot four times during the storming of D-Yard; Alajji was also shot during the retaking of the facility. In the years since their release, the men have formed the Attica Improvement and Memorial Project which aims to help ex-offenders earn money upon release.

Legacy of the Attica Prison Uprising

Zimring said that while the Attica prisoners’ ultimately received some of their demands, there have been few concerted efforts at truly reforming America’s incarceration industry.

“The real question is the scale of imprisonment,” he said “And looking back at the age of Attica and comparing it with current circumstances, incarceration is a larger part of American life in 2021 than it was in 1970. And I think that its scale is neither deeply understood nor a public concern. It’s just kind of a business as usual.”

Jami Floyd is the Senior Editor for Race and Justice at WNYC/Gothamist. If you have a tip for her, she’s on Signal and WhatsApp. Or you can message her on Twitter @jamifloyd.

This article has been updated to clarify that 32 inmates and 11 correctional officers died during the uprising (not 33 inmates and 10 correctional officers) and to clarify details on the Manhattan Detention Center uprisings and the hunger strike after George Jackson’s death.