On this day, 13 September 1971, the Attica prison uprising, which had begun on September 9, was crushed (content note: physical and sexual violence). Imprisoned people in appalling conditions had united across racial lines and taken control of the prison, demanding better treatment.
Negotiations had broken down after authorities refused to agree to prisoners’ demand for amnesty for acts committed during the rebellion. Governor Nelson Rockefeller (of the wealthy Rockefeller family) ordered that the prison be retaken.
The New York State Police launched tear gas into the yard and fired nonstop into the smoke for two minutes, firing around 4500 rounds using weapons that included shotguns and personal firearms loaded with ammunition outlawed under the Geneva Convention.
Prisoners were unable to resist, as they stumbled and choked in the smoke, and dozens of them were shot and wounded, as were many of the guards they had taken hostage. 29 inmates and 10 guards were killed by the police.
The surviving prisoners were all stripped naked, tortured, forced to run a gauntlet and beaten by state troopers and sheriff’s deputies, and many were sexually assaulted. Black prisoners were also racially abused and police troopers were heard cheering “white power.”
Afterwards, officials falsely claimed that the guards had been killed by the prisoners, until the medical examiner revealed they had all been shot to death by police.
One Black prisoner, a Korean war veteran and substance misuse advisor named Frank Smith, later recounted in court: “When you explain to your kids and your grandkids what the whole essence of Attica was, you’ll be able to tell them that it was to be treated as human beings.”
Despite the massacre, a wave of rebellion swept prisons across the US in the aftermath. https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1807162676135541/?type=3