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Attica Lives : on this 45th anniversary of Attica the rebellion there should be
used to challenge the continued injustices of mass incarceration!
Featuring:
Cinda Firestone’s, Attica(DVD)
Ken Burns, Central Park Five(DVD)
Heather Ann Thompson, author Blood In The Water with Michael Eric Dyson(DVD)
Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Critical Resistance(DVD)
Bryan Stevenson, Equal Justice Initiative(DVD)
Slavery to Mass Incarceration, animation and
Jay Z: The War on Drugs Is an ‘Epic Fail’, animation(DVD)
Riverside Church extraordinary commemoration of Attica, with the Attica Brothers, Angela Davis, Cornel West, Michelle Alexander, Marc Lamont Hill (2 CDs)
Rally to Shut Rikers Island Down, with former inmates and their family members,and leading advocate/activists to Shut It Down!(CD)
Although much has been written about the take over and ensuing assault on the
Attica prison by state police and national guard troops some four days later
which resulted in the murder of forty three individuals, including ten hostages,
one statement by a 21 year old spokesperson for the inmates, himself later
executed by police after they retook the prison, rings no less true or powerful
today, some 45 years later:
We are men! We are not beasts and we do not intend to be beaten or driven as
such. The entire prison populace, that means each and every one of us here, have
set forth to change forever the ruthless brutalization and disregard for the
lives of the prisoners here and throughout the
United States. What has happened here is but the sound before the fury of those
who are oppressed. We will not compromise on any terms except those terms that
are agreeable to us. We’ve called upon all the conscientious
citizens of America to assist us in putting an end to this situation that
threatens the lives of not only us, but of each and every one of you, as well.
— Elliott James “L.D.” Barkley, 1971
Forty-five years after the rebellion at Attica, one of the greatest civil rights
uprisings of that century stunned the nation, millions of Americans mostly men
and women of color are locked away in prisons often for decades. But, Attica
continues to serve as the inspiration, most recently for the largest prison
strike in the history of this country and as Eddie Ellis, WBAI radio
journalist, prisoner reform advocate and former Attica prisoner who was locked
in one of the secured areas of the prison during the uprising said “the
bloodshed at Attica did something important it exposed what was being done to
people and it also showed what men were able to do in a few short days when we
work together. That history will serve us, one way or another. The choice, as it
has always been, is up to us to dismantle the system of mass incarceration.
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