Attica Prison Uprising | A Plea for Surrender | 3
American Scandal
Audible
4.5 • 19.6K Ratings
🗓️ 24 August 2021
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
An unexpected death upends the negotiations. As both sides dig in their heels, the hope for a peaceful resolution begins to fade.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, prime members, you can listen to American Scandal add-free on Amazon music, download the app today. |
| 0:20.0 | It's the morning of September 11, 1971, and Tom Wicker is driving along a rural highway outside the small town of Warsaw, New York. |
| 0:28.0 | He turns past a tall cornfield and slows down as he pulls up to a street sign. |
| 0:33.0 | Wicker groans. This isn't the road he's looking for. He's gonna have to keep going, driving endlessly through this labyrinth of rural highways, |
| 0:42.0 | even though he's running on almost no sleep, still wearing his rumpled clothes from yesterday. |
| 0:47.0 | More than anything, Wicker wishes he could just park the car and take a quick nap, but he can't do that. |
| 0:53.0 | He and the other men in his car have somewhere to be, and if they don't get there soon, they could miss out on a massive opportunity. |
| 1:00.0 | Wicker is a political columnist for the New York Times. He cares deeply about racial justice and the abuses that are rampant in America's prisons. |
| 1:08.0 | So when he was asked to get involved in the Attica Prison Uprising, he knew he had to say yes. |
| 1:13.0 | Originally, Wicker and some 30 other people were supposed to arrive at Attica and serve as neutral observers. |
| 1:19.0 | They'd watched the negotiations between the inmates and the state to make sure that everything remained fair, but after the initial talks fell through, |
| 1:27.0 | Wicker and the other observers were asked to become negotiators themselves. |
| 1:31.0 | Now, as he drives along a rural highway, Wicker and his fellow observers are on their way to a meeting, |
| 1:37.0 | one that could help secure the prisoners' top demand. |
| 1:41.0 | Finally, Wicker spots the house he's looking for. He pulls over the car and kills the engine. |
| 1:48.0 | Then he and the other observers step out and approach the home of Lewis James, the county prosecutor, with jurisdiction over Attica. |
| 1:57.0 | Wicker steps up to and then knocks on the door. |
| 2:01.0 | It opens to reveal a middle-aged man who's holding three mugs of steaming hot coffee. |
| 2:06.0 | Well, good morning, Attica observers. Your boys need to pick me up? Oh, God yes. |
| 2:12.0 | Alright, come on in. |
| 2:14.0 | We've got more coffee in the pot and breakfast in the dining room. |
| 2:18.0 | The group enters the house. They step into the dining room where they find plates of hot bacon and eggs. |
... |
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