Download or read book Blood in the Water written by Heather Ann Thompson and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2017-08-22 with total page 754 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • The definitive history of the infamous 1971 Attica Prison uprising, the state's violent response, and the victim's decades-long quest for justice. • Thompson served as the Historical Consultant on the Academy Award-nominated documentary feature ATTICA “Gripping ... deals with racial conflict, mass incarceration, police brutality and dissembling politicians ... Makes us understand why this one group of prisoners [rebelled], and how many others shared the cost.” —The New York Times On September 9, 1971, nearly 1,300 prisoners took over the Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York to protest years of mistreatment. Holding guards and civilian employees hostage, the prisoners negotiated with officials for improved conditions during the four long days and nights that followed. On September 13, the state abruptly sent hundreds of heavily armed troopers and correction officers to retake the prison by force. Their gunfire killed thirty-nine men—hostages as well as prisoners—and severely wounded more than one hundred others. In the ensuing hours, weeks, and months, troopers and officers brutally retaliated against the prisoners. And, ultimately, New York State authorities prosecuted only the prisoners, never once bringing charges against the officials involved in the retaking and its aftermath and neglecting to provide support to the survivors and the families of the men who had been killed. Drawing from more than a decade of extensive research, historian Heather Ann Thompson sheds new light on every aspect of the uprising and its legacy, giving voice to all those who took part in this forty-five-year fight for justice: prisoners, former hostages, families of the victims, lawyers and judges, and state officials and members of law enforcement. Blood in the Water is the searing and indelible account of one of the most important civil rights stories of the last century. (With black-and-white photos throughout)
Download or read book The Attica Prison Riot written by Charles River Editors and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2015-11-30 with total page 38 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures *Includes accounts of the riot by inmates, hostages, and state officials *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading *Includes a table of contents "If we can't live as men, we sure as hell can die as men." - A prisoner in Attica In 1971, America was still undergoing plenty of social turmoil, much of it the result of sweeping changes made via the Civil Rights Movement of the previous decade and the Vietnam War, which helped spark the counterculture. Students had been shot at Kent State by the National Guard the year before, and protests were still prominent across the country. One of the movements galvanized during this time was on behalf of the nation's prisoners, who were often subjected to shoddy treatment in state penitentiaries and subjected to racist treatment, but that was naturally on the backburner for most Americans who remained free until the notorious Attica State Prison riot from September 9-13, 1971. The unfolding drama, during which over 2,000 prison inmates began an uprising inside the well-fortified facility and held dozens of staff hostage, transfixed America until the insurrection was violently put down and over 40 were dead. In the wake of the riot, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, who had ordered the rebellion put down, accused the prisoners of committing "the cold-blood killings they had threatened from the outset," but others saw it from a far different perspective. While the New York Times characterized it in a more evenhanded fashion and bemoaned the "mass deaths that four days of taut negotiations had sought to avert," the prisoners were often portrayed as taking a heroic and righteous stand against the system. Perhaps the most famous representation of the riot was its commemoration in John Lennon's "Attica State," during which he sang, "We're all mates with Attica State." To this day, nearly 45 years later, the riot continues to be controversial. The Attica Prison Riot: The History and Legacy of America's Most Famous Prison Uprising chronicles the fateful chain of events that led to the most notorious prison insurrection in American history. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about Attica like never before, in no time at all.
Download or read book A Time to Die written by Tom Wicker and published by Crown Business. This book was released on 1975 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: IN 1971, the inmates of Attica revolted, took hostages, and forced the authorities into four days of desperate negotiation. The rebels demanded -- and were granted -- the presence of a group of observers to act as unofficial mediators. Tom Wicker, then the Associate Editor of the New York Times, was one of those summoned. This is his account.
Download or read book The Prison Guard s Daughter written by Deanne Quinn Miller and published by Diversion Books. This book was released on 2021-09-07 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this moving memoir, a woman recounts her search for truth and justice regarding her father’s murder during America’s deadliest prison riot. Deanne Quinn Miller was five years old when her father—William “Billy” Quinn—was murdered in the first minutes of the Attica Prison Riot, the only corrections officer to die at the hands of inmates. But how did he die? Who were the killers? Those questions haunted Dee and wreaked havoc on her psyche for thirty years. Finally, when she joined the Forgotten Victims of Attica, she began to find answers. This began the process of bringing closure not only for herself but for the other victims’ families, the former prisoners she met, and all of those who perished on September 13, 1971—the day of the “retaking,” when New York State troopers and corrections officers at the Attica Correctional facility slaughtered twenty-nine rioting prisoners and ten hostages in a hail of gunfire. In The Prison Guard’s Daughter, Dee brings readers in on her lifelong mission for the truth and justice for the Attica survivors and the families of the men who lost their lives. But the real win was the journey that crossed racial and criminal-justice divides: befriending infamous Attica prisoner Frank “Big Black” Smith, meeting Richard Clark and other inmates who tried to carry her father to safety after his beating, and learning what life was like for all the people—prisoners and prison employees alike—inside Attica. As Miller lays bare the truth about her father’s death, the world inside Attica, and the state’s reckless raid and coverup, she conveys a narrative of compassionate humanity and a call for prison reform. Praise for The Prison Guard’s Daughter “A remarkable tale of healing and reconciliation, born from the tragedy of the nation’s deadliest prison uprising . . . . The Prison Guard’s Daughter reminds us that we can reach across divides—racial, social, economic—and learn lessons about others that inevitably teach us about ourselves. In a world in which the chasms among people seem to swell wider every day, this book tells us that our true angels can prevail, as long as we are ready to engage them.” —Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking: The Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty That Sparked a National Debate “In the wake of the unimaginable trauma caused by the State of New York, there were the courageous few who had to endure even more pain to make sure that there was some reckoning with this horrific event, and some measure of justice for its victims. This is the extraordinarily beautiful story of one of the most courageous of those few, Dee Quinn Miller, who, quite literally, changed history.” —Heather Ann Thompson, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and its Legacy “A personal, affecting, and eye-opening account of a pivotal tragedy on the seemingly endless road to prison reform.” —Booklist
Download or read book Big Black Stand at Attica written by Frank "Big Black" Smith and published by Boom! Studios. This book was released on 2020-02-26 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The uprising at Attica Prison remains one of the bloodiest civil rights confrontations in American history... but without Frank “Big Black” Smith it could have been even worse. Now for the first time, the late Frank “Big Black” Smith shares his experience at the center of this uprising, struggling to protect hostages, prisoners and negotiators alike. Before his death, Frank “Big Black” Smith worked with writer and long time friend, Jared Reinmuth, to share the true story of his time in Attica State Prison. Adapted to a graphic novel by Améziane (Dark Horse’s Muhammad Ali), this is an unflinching look at the price of standing up to injustice.
Download or read book Lucasville written by Staughton Lynd and published by PM Press. This book was released on 2011-03-07 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lucasville tells the story of one of the longest prison uprisings in U.S. history. At the maximum-security Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, Ohio, prisoners seized a major area of the prison on Easter Sunday, 1993. More than 400 prisoners held L block for eleven days. Nine prisoners alleged to have been informants, or “snitches,” and one hostage correctional officer, were murdered. There was a negotiated surrender. Thereafter, almost wholly on the basis of testimony by prisoner informants who received deals in exchange, five spokespersons or leaders were tried and sentenced to death, and more than a dozen others received long sentences. Lucasville examines the causes of the disturbance, what happened during the eleven days, and the fairness of the trials. Particular emphasis is placed on the interracial character of the action, as evidenced in the slogans that were found painted on walls after the surrender: “Black and White Together,” “Convict Unity,” and “Convict Race.” An eloquent Foreword by Mumia Abu-Jamal underlines these themes. He states, as does the book, that the men later sentenced to death “sought to minimize violence, and indeed, according to substantial evidence, saved the lives of several men, prisoner and guard alike.” Of the five men, three black and two white, who were sentenced to death, Mumia declares, “They rose above their status as prisoners, and became, for a few days in April 1993, what rebels in Attica had demanded a generation before them: men. As such, they did not betray each other; they did not dishonor each other; they reached beyond their prison ‘tribes’ to reach commonality.”
Download or read book Race to Incarcerate written by Marc Mauer and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2013-04-02 with total page 127 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Do not underestimate the power of the book you are holding in your hands." —Michelle Alexander More than 2 million people are now imprisoned in the United States, producing the highest rate of incarceration in the world. How did this happen? As the director of The Sentencing Project, Marc Mauer has long been one of the country's foremost experts on sentencing policy, race, and the criminal justice system. His book Race to Incarcerate has become the essential text for understanding the exponential growth of the U.S. prison system; Michelle Alexander, author of the bestselling The New Jim Crow, calls it "utterly indispensable." Now, Sabrina Jones, a member of the World War 3 Illustrated collective and an acclaimed author of politically engaged comics, has collaborated with Mauer to adapt and update the original book into a vivid and compelling comics narrative. Jones's dramatic artwork adds passion and compassion to the complex story of the penal system's shift from rehabilitation to punishment and the ensuing four decades of prison expansion, its interplay with the devastating "War on Drugs," and its corrosive effect on generations of Americans. With a preface by Mauer and a foreword by Alexander, Race to Incarcerate: A Graphic Retelling presents a compelling argument about mass incarceration's tragic impact on communities of color—if current trends continue, one of every three black males and one of every six Latino males born today can expect to do time in prison. The race to incarcerate is not only a failed social policy, but also one that prevents a just, diverse society from flourishing.
Download or read book Murder on the Inside written by Catherine Fogarty and published by Biblioasis. This book was released on 2021-04-13 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shortlisted for the Speaker's Book Award • Shortlisted for The Brass Knuckles Award for Best Nonfiction Crime Book “You have taken our civil rights—we want our human rights.” On April 14, 1971, a handful of prisoners attacked the guards at Kingston Penitentiary and seized control, making headlines around the world. For four intense days, the prisoners held the guards hostage while their leaders negotiated with a citizens’ committee of journalists and lawyers, drawing attention to the dehumanizing realities of their incarceration, including overcrowding, harsh punishment and extreme isolation. But when another group of convicts turned their pent-up rage towards some of the weakest prisoners, tensions inside the old stone walls erupted, with tragic consequences. As heavily armed soldiers prepared to regain control of the prison through a full military assault, the inmates were finally forced to surrender. Murder on the Inside tells the harrowing story of a prison in crisis against the backdrop of a pivotal moment in the history of human rights. Occurring just months before the uprising at Attica Prison, the Kingston riot has remained largely undocumented, and few have known the details—yet the tense drama chronicled here is more relevant today than ever. A gripping account of the standoff and the efforts for justice and reform it inspired, Murder on the Inside is essential reading for our times. Includes 24 pages of photographs.
Download or read book American Time Bomb written by Chicago Review Press, Incorporated and published by Chicago Review Press. This book was released on 2021-09-07 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "American Time Bomb is a vital read for this moment. " —Heather Ann Thompson, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy Few stories are more central to understanding our history of racially biased incarceration and violent social activism than the life of Sam Melville. Melville was both reviled and admired as one of the most feared radicals in post–World War II history. His importance in the 1960s is widely recognized by historians and scholars as epitomizing the controversies, the promise, and the problems of the New Left. This memoir by Melville's son opens a window into the personal life of a legend, revealing the universal and all-too-human foibles motivating those driven to make change through violence. In the current political climate, at the fiftieth anniversary of the Attica Uprising, this nation grows increasingly interested in the racially biased incarceration and violent social activism that has shaped our nation. There are few stories more central to both subjects than the life of Sam Melville, who was often called "the Mad Bomber." American Time Bomb is a son's personal portrait based on years of investigation of Melville's story and the history he helped to create. Joshua Melville's personal connection to the story gives a gut-wrenching multigenerational tale of childhood abandonment but also adds a compelling historical study of politics, history, and issues of social justice.
Download or read book The Scale of Imprisonment written by Franklin E. Zimring and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1993-09 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two of the nation's foremost criminal justice scholars present a comprehensive assessment of the factors behind the growth and subsequent overcrowding of American prisons. By critiquing the existing scholarship on prison scale from sociology and history to correctional forecasting and economics, they both reveal that explicit policy changes have had little influence on the increases in imprisonment in recent years and analyze whether it is possible to place limits effectively on prison population. "The Scale of Imprisonment has an exceptionally well designed literature review of interest to public policy, criminal justice, and public law scholars. Its careful review, analysis, and critique of research is stimulating and inventive."—American Political Science Review "The authors fram our thoughts about the soaring use of imprisonment and stimulate our thinking about the best way we as criminologists can conduct rational analysis and provide meaningful advice."—Susan Guarino-Ghezzi, Journal of Quantitative Criminology "Zimring and Hawkins bring a long tradition of excellent criminological scholarship to the seemingly intractable problems of prisons, prison overcrowding, and the need for alternative forms of punishment."—J. C. Watkins, Jr., Choice
Download or read book Whose Detroit written by Heather Ann Thompson and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2017-05-15 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America's urbanites have engaged in many tumultuous struggles for civil and worker rights since the Second World War. Heather Ann Thompson focuses in detail on the struggles of Motor City residents during the 1960s and early 1970s and finds that conflict continued to plague the inner city and its workplaces even after Great Society liberals committed themselves to improving conditions. Using the contested urban center of Detroit as a model, Thompson assesses the role of such upheaval in shaping the future of America's cities. She argues that the glaring persistence of injustice and inequality led directly to explosions of unrest in this period. Thompson finds that unrest as dramatic as that witnessed during Detroit's infamous riot of 1967 by no means doomed the inner city, nor in any way sealed its fate. The politics of liberalism continued to serve as a catalyst for both polarization and radical new possibilities and Detroit remained a contested, and thus politically vibrant, urban center. Thompson's account of the post-World War II fate of Detroit casts new light on contemporary urban issues, including white flight, police brutality, civic and shop floor rebellion, labor decline, and the dramatic reshaping of the American political order. Throughout, the author tells the stories of real events and individuals, including James Johnson, Jr., who, after years of suffering racial discrimination in Detroit's auto industry, went on trial in 1971 for the shooting deaths of two foremen and another worker at a Chrysler plant. Whose Detroit? brings the labor movement into the context of the literature of Sixties radicalism and integrates the history of the 1960s into the broader political history of the postwar period. Urban, labor, political, and African-American history are blended into Thompson's comprehensive portrayal of Detroit's reaction to pressures felt throughout the nation. With deft attention to the historical background and preoccupations of Detroit's residents, Thompson has written a biography of an entire city at a time of crisis.
Download or read book Prison Writing in 20th Century America written by H. Bruce Franklin and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1998-06-01 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Harrowing in their frank detail and desperate tone, the selections in this anthology pack an emotional wallop...Should be required reading for anyone concerned about the violence in our society and the high rate of recidivism."—Publishers Weekly. Includes work by: Jack London, Nelson Algren, Chester Himes,Jack Henry Abbott, Robert Lowell, Malcolm X, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and Piri Thomas.
Download or read book The Turkey Shoot written by Malcolm Bell and published by Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 1985 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the time came for law officers to retake Attica Prison on Sept. 13, 1971, the head of the New York state police troop charged with that task told his men he did not want a "turkey shoot." That, however, is precisely what he got, asserts this powerful expose by a former chief assistant to the special Attica prosecutor. Police use of excessive force, charges Bell, set in motion a conspiracy on the part of the state to cover up for the lawmen involved. Loyal to his superior, Bell was reluctant to believe in official wrongdoing, but when he saw his efforts to prosecute the police undermined, he felt he had to resign. He suggests that the cover-up originated in the office of Attorney General Louis Lefkowitz who was eager to protect the reputation of Governor Nelson Rockefeller, named U.S. Vice-President just as the grand jury investigation of the case was climaxing. A major contribution to the Attica story.
Download or read book Resolution of Prison Riots written by Bert Useem and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1996-08-01 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book uses eight diverse case studies of prison riots to explore how the outcomes were affected by policies, procedures, management, communications, and strategy immediately before, during, and after the riot. Exploring the results achieved by negotiation, by force, and by simply waiting, the authors illuminate the factors most important in controlling the costs of damage and human suffering that can result from increasingly common prison disturbances.
Download or read book The Brothers of Attica written by Richard X. Clark and published by . This book was released on 1973 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Politics of a Prison Riot written by Adolph Saenz and published by . This book was released on 1986 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1980, the Santa Fe Penitentiary erupted into the bloodiest, most savage prison riot in U.S. history ... Horror still dominates the prison where brutal convicts continue a murderous rampage, killing witnesses to their earlier drug-induced atrocities. What caused the 1980 prison nightmare? Can nothing stop the inmates' savagery?
Download or read book The Butler s Child written by Lewis M. Steel and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2016-06-14 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Butler's Child is the personal story of a Warner Brothers family grandson who spent more than fifty years as a fighting, no holds barred civil rights lawyer. Lewis M. Steel explores why he, a privileged white man, devoted his life to seeking racial progress in often uncomprehending or hostile courts. In fact, after writing a feature for The New York Times Magazine entitled "Nine Men in Black Who Think White," Lewis was fired from the NAACP and the entire legal staff resigned in support of him. Lewis speaks about his family butler, an African American man named William Rutherford, who helped raise Lewis, and their deep but ultimately troubled relationship, as well as how Robert L. Carter, the NAACP's extraordinary general counsel, became Lewis' mentor, father figure and lifelong close friend. Lewis exposes the conflicts which arose from living and working in two very different worlds - that of the Warner Brothers family and that of a civil rights lawyer. He also explores his more than fifty year marriage that joined two very different Jewish and Irish American families. Lewis' work with the NAACP and in private practice created legal precedents still relevant today. The Butler's Child is also an insider's look into some of the most important civil rights cases from the turbulent 1960's to the present day by a man still working to advance the civil rights which should be available to all.
