Hear our full conversation on my podcast “Beyond the Fame.”
You heard Al Pacino shout its name in Sidney Lumet’s masterpiece “Dog Day Afternoon” (1975) as a reminder that 43 people lost their lives during the prison uprising and subsequent massacre at Attica Correctional Facility in New York from Sept. 9-13, 1971.
Now, you can learn the disturbing true story in the new Oscar-shortlisted documentary “Attica,” streaming free on Showtime and YouTube until the end of Black History Month.
“What allowed us to make a film [was that] the rebellion at Attica was documented,” Filmmaker Stanley Nelson Jr. told WTOP. “It was a roller-coaster ride, one of exuberance at first, then doubt, and then fear set in because there was a realization that the worst might happen, that law enforcement might come in with guns blazing, killing people.”
“Attica” cements Nelson as one of our best documentary filmmakers, having directed “The Murder of Emmett Till” (2003), “Jonestown: The Life and Death of the Peoples Temple” (2006), “Freedom Riders” (2011), “Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution” (2015), “Miles Davis: The Birth of Cool” (2019) and the ESPN 30:30 documentary “Vick” (2020).
“I was 19 or 20 when Attica happened in 1971, so I remember it,” Nelson said. “The story had never been told. We never knew why the prisoners rebelled, why law enforcement came in with guns blazing and killed so many people. I felt the former prisoners’ story had never really been told. It says so much about the criminal justice system.”
Nelson sets the stage by showing the conditions in the prison prior to the uprising.
“What everyone was seeking was humane treatment and justice, because we are human,” Survivor James Asbury told WTOP. “I was 20 years old, a parole violator because I was a drug addict. … The state of New York sent a 20 year old to a maximum security facility. I was a youthful offender. … Not only was I in that category, there was a whole lot of guys.”
He says the prison atmosphere was intentionally designed to intimidate.
“Walking into that facility, you felt the eeriest feeling,” Asbury said. “It was smothered in racism that no one tried to hide. … They’d wait until late at night and ‘roll on you’ in the cell. A ‘goon squad’ would beat you down. … You were eligible for 40-pound packages monthly, but a lot of guys didn’t get it. If there was something they wanted, they took it.”
His fellow inmate and survivor, Arthur “Bob” Harrison, echoes those sentiments.
“Hell on earth — that’s what Attica was to me,” Harrison told WTOP. “I don’t think any human being should have to endure something like that, especially here in the United States of America, the so-called most modern civilization. … It reminded me of the old days when we talk about plantations. … Brothers got tired of being treated like animals.”
The pressure cooker exploded into a riot on Sept. 9, killing four people, including prison guard William Quinn and three inmates killed by other prisoners as the riot broke out.
“The riot itself occurred because they had beat some brothers up over in A-block,” Harrison said. “During that same time, there was a brother out in California killed by the name of George Jackson. … He was the heartbeat of the prison movement at that time and when they killed George … it was just the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
For four days, the inmates organized a makeshift community out in the prison yard.
“There was a uniting of prisoners,” Nelson said. “Prisoners in Attica were purposely set against each other: Black, White and Puerto Rican. Once out there in the yard after the prison was taken, the prisoners realized they had to be united and organized. They organized themselves, elected leaders and made lists of demands. It’s an incredible thing.”
One leader was LD Barkley, who negotiated with police through a megaphone.
“The prisoners seized about 40 guards and civilian workers,” Nelson said. “That’s why [police] didn’t storm the prison right away. They had to negotiate with the prisoners because they had hostages. The prisoners invited the media and cameras in, because they felt it would be protection if the whole thing was filmed and the world could see it.”
Outside the prison walls, the largely Caucasian community of Attica began to panic.
“We were in a country town in upstate New York and the primary thing was the prison industry,” Asbury said. “That’s where a whole lot of people made money, sent their children to college, etc. Nobody bothered to scrutinize what was going on. People were riding rich. It seemed like a conspiracy. This was a concern in all of the prisons across the state.”
Gov. Nelson Rockefeller made concerned phone calls to then-President Richard Nixon.
“Those calls with Nixon are recorded, so you can hear Nixon tell Rockefeller, ‘Don’t go,'” Nelson said. “The negotiators said, ‘You don’t have to go inside, just come up here and see what’s going on, the tension. … You’ll know something terrible is about to happen.”
Rockefeller chose not to go, worried about the political implications if he ran for president. Instead, 500 white authorities launched a bloody raid to retake the prison, first dropping tear gas from helicopters, then storming the yard, killing 39 prisoners and hostages alike.
“All the hostages were killed,” Asbury said. “That’s pretty much what happened with them not wanting to come in and find a peaceful or humane solution: 39 people were killed on that day [plus four in the initial riot]. … There’s a whole lot of us that are not here right now. There were like 1,300 men involved in that murder. That’s what you call it: mass murder.”
Thanks to this documentary, we can all witness that horror and vow “never again.”
“I highly recommend this film,” Nelson said. “The footage and pictures have got to be seen to be believed. It’s just unbelievable. They actually were filming when they went in to take it over with guns blazing. It’s on film! How the prisoners were tortured afterward, made to crawl through latrines and crap and mud and beaten and tortured. It’s all on film.”
Hear our full conversation on my podcast “Beyond the Fame.”
