50 Years After the Attica Prison Rebellion, the Struggle for Prison Reform Continues

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KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 9 September 2021

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Fifty years ago this week, people incarcerated at Attica Correctional Facility in New York rebelled, taking hostages after their requests for reform were denied by prison administrators. Attica State Prison was overpopulated at the time and the majority Black and Latino prisoners lived in dehumanizing conditions, including physical and mental abuse and allowances of only one shower a week. In taking over the prison, one of the voices of the rebellion, Elliot “L.D.” Barkley declared: “We are men! We are not beasts and we do not intend to be driven or beaten as such!” When New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller ordered state police to retake the prison after four days of failed negotiations, 39 people were killed in what the subsequent McKay Commission called “the bloodiest one-day encounter between Americans since the Civil War.” On this anniversary, we’ll reflect on the Attica Prison Rebellion of 1971, its legacy and ties to numerous prison rebellions at the time — including in California — and what it has meant for today’s reform efforts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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1:03.7	Fifty years ago today, incarcerated men at the Attica Correctional Facility in western New York took over the prison.
1:05.2	21-year-old Elliot Barkley spoke for them.
1:07.4	We are men.
1:08.8	We are not beast and we do not intend to be driven or beaten as such.
1:13.5	The entire prison populace has set forth to change forever the ruthless brutalization and
1:19.4	disregard for the lives of the prisoners here and throughout the United States.
1:24.2	Before the next week was over, the world had changed.
1:26.5	We look back at the Attica Prison Rebellion,
1:29.2	a milestone in both the creation of mass incarceration and radical organizing inside prisons.
	...

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