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Speaker 1: Hey, I'm Chuck and I'm Josh and we're the host

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Speaker 1: of Stuff You should know, the podcast that's right And

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Speaker 1: if you're into understanding cool and unusual and seemingly ordinary

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Speaker 1: and even boring things that are made interesting, you should

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Speaker 1: check us out. Please and thank you. We're on iTunes, Spotify,

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Speaker 1: Google Play Music, anywhere you get podcasts. Welcome to Stuff

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Speaker 1: you missed in History Class from how Stuff Works dot com. Hello,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and

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Speaker 1: I'm Holly Frying. Today we are picking up where we

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Speaker 1: would left off on our previous episode about the Attica

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Speaker 1: prison uprising. When Attica Correctional Facility opened, it was praised

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Speaker 1: as a model of security, and it had been designed

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Speaker 1: specifically to limit the possibility of an uprising within its walls.

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Speaker 1: But forty years later, a lot of the systems, tools

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Speaker 1: and procedures that it relied on for security we're temperamental

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Speaker 1: and an obsolete or in some cases absent. As we

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Speaker 1: discussed in the previous episode, conditions at the prison had

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Speaker 1: long been demoralizing and humanizing to the men who were

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Speaker 1: incarcerated there, and on September nine, nineteenty one, and uprising

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Speaker 1: began that would end four days later with horrific violence

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Speaker 1: and bloodshed. So while the events in this episode can

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Speaker 1: stand on their own, I mean they have a defined beginning, middle,

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Speaker 1: and end. Our prior installment does contain a lot of context,

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Speaker 1: so we do recommend listening to it. To it first

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Speaker 1: and again, this whole thing ends with just some extreme violence,

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Speaker 1: so be forewarned if if if you're listening with your kids.

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Speaker 1: The incident that ultimately sparked the Attica prison uprising happened

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Speaker 1: on September eight, less than three weeks after the prisons

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Speaker 1: protest of the death of George Jackson. At San Quentin Prison,

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Speaker 1: Leroy Doer, who was on his first day back in

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Speaker 1: the cell block a exercise yard after being keep locked

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Speaker 1: for a week, was play fighting with another man. An

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Speaker 1: officer on one of the catwalks above the yard yelled

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Speaker 1: at him to stop, but he mistook him for another

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Speaker 1: inmate and he called him the wrong name. Dor not

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Speaker 1: realizing he was the one being yelled at, kept on

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Speaker 1: with his horseplay and Lieutenant Richard Moroney came in to

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Speaker 1: break it up. Dower insisted that he had not done

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Speaker 1: anything wrong, and he said he was not going to

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Speaker 1: be keep locked again for nothing. When Moroney tried to

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Speaker 1: grab him, do Or hit him, not hard, but hit

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Speaker 1: him in the chest. Maroney was astonished that Doer had

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Speaker 1: struck him even lightly, and so were the other men

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Speaker 1: in the yard, and a crowd started together, mostly taking

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Speaker 1: Doer's side and telling the officers to leave him alone.

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Speaker 1: One of the particularly vocal people in the crowd may

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Speaker 1: have been Ray Lamourin, who had been playing football nearby

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Speaker 1: the time. Eye witnesses completely contradict one another about whether

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Speaker 1: Lamori was involved, though soon Lieutenant Robert Curtis walked by,

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Speaker 1: saw the situation in the crowd that had gathered and

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Speaker 1: started to intervene. He moved in to try to get

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Speaker 1: Dower to go inside, and do Er continued to refuse.

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Speaker 1: Tempers on all sides flared up until Lieutenant Curtis suggested

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Speaker 1: that Lieutenant Moroney just drop it and they would sort

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Speaker 1: it out later. The method of sorting it out later

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Speaker 1: was to remove both Doer and Lamoury from their cells

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Speaker 1: after lock up that night and take them to the

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Speaker 1: prisons solitary confinement wing known as Housing Block Z or

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Speaker 1: h b Z. The widespread belief among Attica's incarcerated men

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Speaker 1: was that anybody taken too HBZ, especially after lock up,

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Speaker 1: was in for a severe beating, and this perception was

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Speaker 1: heightened in this case by the fact that Dower, who

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Speaker 1: was taken to HBZ first, was physically carried from his

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Speaker 1: cell and You protested loudly the whole way, which most

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Speaker 1: of the men in the cell block could hear but

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Speaker 1: not see. When officers returned for ray La Mauri, he

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Speaker 1: went willingly, but from their cells meant through whatever they

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Speaker 1: had at hand at the officers escorting him as they

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Speaker 1: passed through the block, In particular, William Ortiz through a

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Speaker 1: full soup cam which struck an officer and caused him

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Speaker 1: to need stitches. Although Ortiz was not taken to HBZ,

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Speaker 1: the order came down that he was to be keep

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Speaker 1: blocked the next day. By morning, everyone was on edge,

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Speaker 1: with rumors flying around Cellblock A, assuming the worst about

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Speaker 1: the fate of Deer and Lamouri. Some of the officers

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Speaker 1: who came on duty that morning had also been called

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Speaker 1: at home ahead of their shift and told to expect trouble.

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Speaker 1: And trouble arrived, and it arrived quickly. When Company five

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Speaker 1: William Ortiz's cellblock company went to breakfast. He was supposed

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Speaker 1: to stay in his cell. However, someone took advantage of

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Speaker 1: an unattended lock box to throw the lever for teases cell,

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Speaker 1: freeing him in defiance of his keep block order. Of course,

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Speaker 1: officers quickly spotted Ortiz at breakfast where he was not

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Speaker 1: supposed to be and realized that someone in Company five

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Speaker 1: had freed him. They started scrambling to figure out how

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Speaker 1: to keep Company five contained without alerting them to what

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Speaker 1: was going on, with the hope that they would be

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Speaker 1: able to identify the culprit. Ultimately, the decision was made

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Speaker 1: to take Company five to the exercise yard after breakfast

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Speaker 1: as normal, but to lock the gate at one end

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Speaker 1: of that tunnel, the end that connected the cells to

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Speaker 1: the yard, so that basically the man would get to

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Speaker 1: the end and then be stuck there. However, this plan

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Speaker 1: was not communicated very well. Attica just did not have

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Speaker 1: a good way of relaying information from one officer to another,

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Speaker 1: and at about eight forty five in the morning, Company

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Speaker 1: five's escort officer, Gordon Kelsey, was completely surprised to find

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Speaker 1: the gate locked. Then Lieutenant Curtis, who had been part

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Speaker 1: of the altercation the previous day, came into the tunnel

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Speaker 1: to talk to the men who were now contained there.

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Speaker 1: By this point, many in Company five believed that it

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Speaker 1: was Curtis who had decided to send La Maurian doer

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Speaker 1: to HBZ, and they started to think that they had

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Speaker 1: been trapped in this tunnel on purpose, so that the

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Speaker 1: officers could take retribution for Ortiz having hit an officer

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Speaker 1: with a suit can, or maybe for some of the

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Speaker 1: you know, the the uproar the day before. So men

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Speaker 1: from Company five jumped Officer Kelsey and Lieutenant Curtis. This

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Speaker 1: quickly devolved into a complete melee that rapidly spread through

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Speaker 1: Cellblock A. In the initial riot, Officer Carl Murray was

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Speaker 1: relieved of his keys and baton, while Cellblock a's inmates

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Speaker 1: destroyed furniture and equipment and ripped out telephone lines. As

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Speaker 1: we mentioned in Part one, Attica had been specifically designed

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Speaker 1: to reduce the threat of uprisings within the prison, and

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Speaker 1: to that end, all of the tunnels that connected various

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Speaker 1: parts of the prison converged into one point known as

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Speaker 1: Times Square. Each tunnel had its own gate to the square,

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Speaker 1: which could be locked or unlocked depending on how the

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Speaker 1: traffic needed to flow through it, or all the gates

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Speaker 1: could be locked to keep the cellblocks isolated from one another.

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Speaker 1: By closing and locking all the gates and theory, officers

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Speaker 1: could contain an uprising to just one portion of the prison. However,

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Speaker 1: on September nine, a group of about twenty prisoners from

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Speaker 1: Cell Block A tried to break down the gate to

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Speaker 1: Times Square, and they succeeded. The likely failure point was

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Speaker 1: a weld that probably dated all the way back to

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Speaker 1: the prisons original construction. Once they had access to Times Square,

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Speaker 1: the men from Cell Block A, who had scavenged makeshift

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Speaker 1: weapons and football gear and blowtorches from elsewhere in the block,

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Speaker 1: stormed Times Square and attacked the three officers who were

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Speaker 1: stationed there, taking their keys and knocking at least two

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Speaker 1: of them unconscious. Then they started opening the gates to

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Speaker 1: the other blocks, and and they're opening all the cells

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Speaker 1: in the other blocks. While some of the men that

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Speaker 1: they freed joined the riot, others did not and basically

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Speaker 1: stayed out of it. Officers who tried to intervene in

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Speaker 1: this initial chaos were quickly overwhelmed by sheer numbers and

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Speaker 1: many were injured. Inmates forced several officers to remove their

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Speaker 1: clothing and march naked through the prison before being locked

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Speaker 1: in a cell. Attica really had no formal plan for

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Speaker 1: an event like this. The one thing that was supposed

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Speaker 1: to prevent a wide scale riot from spreading all through

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Speaker 1: the prison had failed to do that exact thing. The

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Speaker 1: prison was also seriously hampered by being incredibly short staffed

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Speaker 1: thanks to budget cuts and having a truly archaic system

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Speaker 1: of communication among the cell blocks. The blocks were connected

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Speaker 1: by a single line telephone, meaning that when officers first

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Speaker 1: tried to call the administration officers to report what was happening,

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Speaker 1: the line was busy. There was a dangerous chaos, and

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Speaker 1: the prison staff was really at a loss at first.

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Speaker 1: Stop it, and we're going to talk about how the

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Speaker 1: officers at Attica tried to regain control of this situation.

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Speaker 1: Because of Attica's archaic communication system, Sergeant Jack English had

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Speaker 1: to call the block captains of each individual cell block

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Speaker 1: by phone to try to give them instructions and figure

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Speaker 1: out what happened in Cell Block A. Some of his

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Speaker 1: calls were thwarted by busy signals, and to make things worse,

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Speaker 1: some of his first successful calls were to ask other

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Speaker 1: cell blocks to send officers to sell Block A to help.

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Speaker 1: But the riot quickly spread out of a block and

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Speaker 1: into the rest of the prison, leaving those areas without

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Speaker 1: anyone there to try to regat in control. So for

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Speaker 1: about half an hour the riot spread essentially unchecked. At

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Speaker 1: about nine fifteen in the morning, the prison sounded its

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Speaker 1: only alarm, which was the steam whistle from the powerhouse.

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Speaker 1: The whistle alerted officers living nearby that they needed to

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Speaker 1: report for duty because something was going on, and it

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Speaker 1: also alerted everyone in the prison, inmates and officers alike,

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Speaker 1: that something was going on. Officers and incarcerated men and

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Speaker 1: parts of the prison who weren't yet touched by this

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Speaker 1: chaos started to operate under the assumption incorrectly that someone

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Speaker 1: was trying to escape, when really what was going on

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Speaker 1: was way more dangerous. For about the first two hours,

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Speaker 1: as people in various parts of the prison labored under

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Speaker 1: that misinformation, the incident at Attica was brutal and destructive,

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Speaker 1: moving through all four main cell blocks, riding men open

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Speaker 1: cell doors and armed themselves with kitchen utensils, hot grease tools,

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Speaker 1: and handmade knives that were hidden around the workshop ups.

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Speaker 1: They set fires and triggered the sprinkler systems. They assaulted

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Speaker 1: the custodial staff and destroyed furniture and equipment. Vandalism was widespread,

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Speaker 1: as was looting of the kitchens. The officers messed medicine

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Speaker 1: chests and the commissary. Multiple officers and civilian employees were assaulted,

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Speaker 1: and at least two incarcerated men were raped. Yeah, this

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Speaker 1: whole thing definitely involves into something that has a much

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Speaker 1: more noble purpose, but the first couple of hours definitely

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Speaker 1: fit the criteria of calling it a riot. In that

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Speaker 1: brief period, rioting prisoners took more than forty hostages, including

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Speaker 1: both civilians and officers, and that number would eventually rise

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Speaker 1: to fifty, although eleven would be released over the course

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Speaker 1: of the day, many of those being who were released

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Speaker 1: being very seriously injured. Thirty two prison employees and many

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Speaker 1: more inmates were also injured in this first two hour

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Speaker 1: wave of violence. Not everyone released from his cell participated

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Speaker 1: in the violence and destruction, though, several of the prisons

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00:13:05,040 --> 00:13:08,960
Speaker 1: Muslim population rescued Officers Curtis and Murray from their attackers

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Speaker 1: in Cell Block A, and they continued to try to

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Speaker 1: seek peaceful solutions and prevent bloodshed for the duration of

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Speaker 1: the uprising. Barry Schwartz, who was also incarcerated in Cell

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Speaker 1: Block A, hid Lieutenant Curtis and officers Elmer Hewan and

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Speaker 1: Raymond Bogart, all of whom had been injured in the

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Speaker 1: initial melee in a cell, cleaned up a trail of

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Speaker 1: blood so they would be less easily spotted, and then

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00:13:32,240 --> 00:13:35,200
Speaker 1: tried to keep them updated about what was happening elsewhere

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Speaker 1: in the prison. Ernest Hobbs, who was seventy two years

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Speaker 1: old and serving a fifteen year sentence for grand larceny,

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Speaker 1: first tried to protect a civilian employee from the mob

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Speaker 1: and then devoted himself to guarding the prisons oil and

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Speaker 1: gas in the garage. Rioters were only able to get

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00:13:51,800 --> 00:13:55,160
Speaker 1: away with about five gallons of fuel, which were in

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Speaker 1: a container that was easy to grab. Throughout those first

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00:13:59,400 --> 00:14:03,079
Speaker 1: two hours of chaos, there were also multiple other individual

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Speaker 1: inmates who found and sheltered injured officers in their cells,

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00:14:07,160 --> 00:14:13,040
Speaker 1: sometimes dressing them in prison uniforms to camouflage them. Of course,

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00:14:13,120 --> 00:14:16,320
Speaker 1: acts of heroism were not limited to the incarcerated men.

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Speaker 1: Civilian employee Mark Eckhart, for example, wound up sheltering fifty

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Speaker 1: five inmates and nine civilians in a maintenance shed overnight.

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Speaker 1: After the initial wave of violence started to subside, two

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00:14:30,240 --> 00:14:36,440
Speaker 1: efforts simultaneously got underway. Attica's incarcerated men started to organize themselves,

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Speaker 1: moving inmates and hostages into the exercise yard of Cell

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Speaker 1: black d and law enforcement officials started planning to try

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Speaker 1: to retake the prison. On the law enforcement front, off

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00:14:48,200 --> 00:14:52,240
Speaker 1: duty officers reported to Attica they were issued weapons from

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Speaker 1: the prison's arsenal in the administration building, but they soon

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00:14:55,640 --> 00:14:58,440
Speaker 1: ran out of firearms and ammunition and began recommending that

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Speaker 1: people reporting for duty brea their personal firearms from home. However,

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00:15:03,920 --> 00:15:06,560
Speaker 1: it became clear really quickly that after the fall of

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Speaker 1: Times Square, the regular custodial staff was not going to

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00:15:10,320 --> 00:15:13,080
Speaker 1: be enough to restore order at the prison, not even

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Speaker 1: if every single officer off duty came in. New York

258
00:15:16,720 --> 00:15:20,840
Speaker 1: State Police were contacted to send in reinforcements. Major John

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Speaker 1: Monahan brought in two hundred from his own troop and

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00:15:23,200 --> 00:15:25,960
Speaker 1: then summoned three hundred and fifty more from elsewhere in

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Speaker 1: the state. A lack of communication, which had been such

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00:15:30,040 --> 00:15:33,320
Speaker 1: a limiting factor in the custodial staff's original response to

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00:15:33,360 --> 00:15:37,040
Speaker 1: the riot, continued to hamper the state police's effort to

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Speaker 1: take the prison. There was no overall strategy, and there

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00:15:40,640 --> 00:15:44,760
Speaker 1: was no centralized command. As the prison's population was moving

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Speaker 1: itself into D Block, the state police were slowly and

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00:15:48,000 --> 00:15:51,080
Speaker 1: carefully moving through the rest of the prison, one section

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Speaker 1: at a time, evacuating anyone they found, and trying to

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Speaker 1: re secure the facility piece by peace. As they cleared

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00:15:58,040 --> 00:16:02,000
Speaker 1: out and regained control of individual blocks, they relocated hundreds

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Speaker 1: of incarcerated men that they found in those cells. Although

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00:16:05,400 --> 00:16:08,560
Speaker 1: some shots were fired during this initial process, no one

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00:16:08,680 --> 00:16:14,280
Speaker 1: was injured. Meanwhile, about half of Attica's incarcerated population relocated

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Speaker 1: itself into D Block, with one thousand, two one incarcerated

275
00:16:18,560 --> 00:16:22,360
Speaker 1: men crowded into the yard, with about fifty hostages being

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Speaker 1: held in the corner. The hostages regarded once again by

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Speaker 1: many of Attica's Muslim population, who also found blankets for

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Speaker 1: naked officers to cover themselves and basically formed a human

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00:16:33,480 --> 00:16:37,680
Speaker 1: wall to protect them. Gradually, the tone in d Yard

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00:16:37,760 --> 00:16:41,120
Speaker 1: shifted from a riot to a disorderly party to a

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00:16:41,160 --> 00:16:44,760
Speaker 1: protest one that developed a clear set of goals and demands.

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Speaker 1: Organization efforts started when Roger Champon, who was known as

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00:16:48,880 --> 00:16:52,240
Speaker 1: champ took an officer's bullhorn and began trying to bring

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00:16:52,280 --> 00:16:56,080
Speaker 1: the group to order. Champon had been serving time for robbery,

285
00:16:56,160 --> 00:16:59,080
Speaker 1: and he had become what was known as an inmate lawyer.

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00:16:59,560 --> 00:17:02,200
Speaker 1: He had no formal law training, but he had become

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00:17:02,240 --> 00:17:05,359
Speaker 1: adept enough at law to inform and assist other people

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00:17:05,400 --> 00:17:10,560
Speaker 1: incarcerated at Attica. Champion had not participated in the initial destruction,

289
00:17:10,960 --> 00:17:13,560
Speaker 1: but he had come to d Yard after rioters were

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00:17:13,600 --> 00:17:17,639
Speaker 1: already gathering people there. During this initial period of organization,

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00:17:17,680 --> 00:17:20,040
Speaker 1: they moved the hostages to the center of the yard,

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00:17:20,080 --> 00:17:23,200
Speaker 1: where their guard resumed their watch and reformed their human

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00:17:23,280 --> 00:17:27,720
Speaker 1: chain around them. Once that was done, incarcerated men, especially

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00:17:27,720 --> 00:17:30,240
Speaker 1: the ones who were the most popular and looked up

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00:17:30,280 --> 00:17:33,960
Speaker 1: to within the prison, started passing around the bullhorn, taking

296
00:17:33,960 --> 00:17:36,800
Speaker 1: turns addressing one another about reforms that were needed in

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00:17:36,840 --> 00:17:40,359
Speaker 1: the justice system, rules that they should set and follow

298
00:17:40,440 --> 00:17:43,520
Speaker 1: for the duration of this uprising, how they could work

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00:17:43,560 --> 00:17:46,720
Speaker 1: together to bring about change, that sort of thing. Speakers

300
00:17:46,800 --> 00:17:50,160
Speaker 1: also stressed that this was not a race riot, which

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00:17:50,200 --> 00:17:53,360
Speaker 1: was something that the white men had really feared was happening,

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00:17:53,520 --> 00:17:56,600
Speaker 1: that they were all on the same side here. They

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00:17:56,640 --> 00:18:00,280
Speaker 1: also organized security patrols of force that they intent only

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00:18:00,280 --> 00:18:03,200
Speaker 1: integrated after realizing that almost all of the men who

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00:18:03,400 --> 00:18:08,600
Speaker 1: volunteered at first were black. Long before this uprising, multiple

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00:18:08,720 --> 00:18:12,400
Speaker 1: organizations with a range of social and political goals had

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00:18:12,400 --> 00:18:16,720
Speaker 1: had a presence within Attica's incarcerated population, and although the

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00:18:16,720 --> 00:18:19,600
Speaker 1: prisons leadership had feared that they might form some kind

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00:18:19,680 --> 00:18:23,000
Speaker 1: of coalition, many of these groups had never really seen

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Speaker 1: eye to eye, but that changed during the uprising. Members

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Speaker 1: of several organizations, including the Black Panthers, the Puerto Rican

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00:18:31,119 --> 00:18:35,120
Speaker 1: Nationalist group, the Young Lords, and multiple Muslim organizations including

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Speaker 1: the Nation of Islam and the Five per Centers, temporarily

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00:18:38,760 --> 00:18:42,000
Speaker 1: put aside their differences to try to organize and negotiate

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Speaker 1: in cell Block D. As all of this was going on,

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00:18:46,040 --> 00:18:49,159
Speaker 1: the State Police was slowly and gradually moving through the

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00:18:49,200 --> 00:18:52,639
Speaker 1: prisons other cell blocks, eventually retaking all of cell blocks

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00:18:52,680 --> 00:18:56,679
Speaker 1: A and C. Eventually, law enforcement had retaken all of

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Speaker 1: the prison except for cell blocks B and D and

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00:18:59,560 --> 00:19:01,960
Speaker 1: the sun, the tunnels and the catwalks that connected them

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00:19:02,160 --> 00:19:06,840
Speaker 1: and Times Square. Once officials had retaken A and C blocks,

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00:19:06,880 --> 00:19:09,439
Speaker 1: they also had a vantage point on catwalks where they

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00:19:09,440 --> 00:19:12,520
Speaker 1: could see what was happening in the other blocks. From

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00:19:12,520 --> 00:19:16,480
Speaker 1: early afternoon on Thursday, September nine through Sunday, September twelve,

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00:19:16,600 --> 00:19:19,760
Speaker 1: this was the basic breakdown, with prison authorities having control

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00:19:19,800 --> 00:19:23,440
Speaker 1: of most of the prison, but the the uprising having

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00:19:23,440 --> 00:19:26,920
Speaker 1: control of being D blocks and those those connecting other areas.

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Speaker 1: With the incarcerated men concentrated in cell Block D and

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00:19:31,359 --> 00:19:33,760
Speaker 1: the state police holding most of the rest of the prison,

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00:19:34,560 --> 00:19:38,359
Speaker 1: the uprising took an unexpected turn. Rather than moving to

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Speaker 1: retake the rest of the prison, Commissioner of the Department

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00:19:41,560 --> 00:19:46,119
Speaker 1: of Correctional Services, Russell g Oswald, decided to negotiate with

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00:19:46,160 --> 00:19:49,080
Speaker 1: the men who were occupying cell Block D and we're

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00:19:49,080 --> 00:19:51,040
Speaker 1: going to talk about what happened, but first we will

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00:19:51,040 --> 00:19:53,719
Speaker 1: take a break and hear from one of our sponsors.

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363
00:21:19,240 --> 00:21:26,919
Speaker 1: com slash history. Of course, not every person in d

364
00:21:27,040 --> 00:21:31,240
Speaker 1: Yard during this uprising was actively participating in the uprising

365
00:21:31,280 --> 00:21:33,600
Speaker 1: as it evolved. A lot of them were basically just

366
00:21:33,640 --> 00:21:37,600
Speaker 1: passing time or waiting, maybe causing some mischief. Some were

367
00:21:37,600 --> 00:21:41,200
Speaker 1: really there under durest they had been moved by the

368
00:21:41,240 --> 00:21:45,720
Speaker 1: forces of that were that were rioting. Initially basically felt

369
00:21:45,720 --> 00:21:49,600
Speaker 1: threatened and went along with it. But those who decided

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00:21:49,640 --> 00:21:55,239
Speaker 1: to organize developed really ambitious goals. First, they negotiated for

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00:21:55,320 --> 00:21:58,720
Speaker 1: medical care, including first aige for the injured and help

372
00:21:58,800 --> 00:22:02,800
Speaker 1: for people who had chronic medical conditions. Walter C. Swift,

373
00:22:03,119 --> 00:22:05,919
Speaker 1: who was serving a life sentence for murder. Was working

374
00:22:05,920 --> 00:22:08,439
Speaker 1: in the prison hospital as the head nurse, and he

375
00:22:08,560 --> 00:22:12,960
Speaker 1: volunteered to deliver prescription medications to d Yard. He wound

376
00:22:13,040 --> 00:22:16,080
Speaker 1: up both successfully negotiating with d Yard for the release

377
00:22:16,080 --> 00:22:20,200
Speaker 1: of several hostages and providing medical care during this uprising.

378
00:22:20,760 --> 00:22:24,719
Speaker 1: He became known as the Angel of Attica. Dr Warren Hansen,

379
00:22:24,760 --> 00:22:27,800
Speaker 1: who worked at a nearby hospital, provided medical care during

380
00:22:27,800 --> 00:22:32,000
Speaker 1: the uprising as well. After commandeering a typewriter from the

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00:22:32,040 --> 00:22:35,000
Speaker 1: prison school, a group of men in d Yard started

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00:22:35,080 --> 00:22:38,960
Speaker 1: drafting a set of demands. They began, one, we want

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Speaker 1: complete amnesty, meaning freedom for all and from all physical, mental,

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00:22:43,640 --> 00:22:47,359
Speaker 1: and legal reprisals too. We want now speedy and safe

385
00:22:47,400 --> 00:22:52,040
Speaker 1: transportation out of confinement to a non imperialistic country. Three

386
00:22:52,119 --> 00:22:55,160
Speaker 1: we demand that federal government intervened so that we will

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00:22:55,200 --> 00:23:00,000
Speaker 1: be under direct federal jurisdiction. Four we demand the reconstruc

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00:23:00,000 --> 00:23:02,840
Speaker 1: action of Attica Prison to be done by inmates and

389
00:23:03,040 --> 00:23:07,320
Speaker 1: or inmates supervision. This manifesto went on to list a

390
00:23:07,400 --> 00:23:10,840
Speaker 1: number of people through whom they wanted to negotiate and

391
00:23:10,880 --> 00:23:15,040
Speaker 1: demanded that all communication happened in quote our domain, which

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00:23:15,080 --> 00:23:19,639
Speaker 1: was the d Yard. What followed the delivery of this

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00:23:19,680 --> 00:23:23,720
Speaker 1: manifesto was a huge, multi day effort to negotiate and

394
00:23:23,760 --> 00:23:26,400
Speaker 1: to try to bring the uprising to a peaceful end.

395
00:23:26,960 --> 00:23:29,879
Speaker 1: At three in the afternoon that day, Assemblyman Arthur O.

396
00:23:30,119 --> 00:23:33,440
Speaker 1: Eve and Professor Herman Schwartz, both of whom had been

397
00:23:33,480 --> 00:23:37,280
Speaker 1: advocates for prison reform, were allowed into the prison. They

398
00:23:37,280 --> 00:23:40,200
Speaker 1: were involved in much of the rest of the negotiations,

399
00:23:40,280 --> 00:23:43,520
Speaker 1: and along with prison officials, media and observers who were

400
00:23:43,560 --> 00:23:46,600
Speaker 1: selected by the inmates to try to negotiate a settlement,

401
00:23:47,040 --> 00:23:50,199
Speaker 1: they made repeated trips into the d yard over the

402
00:23:50,240 --> 00:23:55,440
Speaker 1: next three days. By Thursday evening, the overall mood was optimistic.

403
00:23:55,920 --> 00:23:58,960
Speaker 1: Commissioner Oswald had come to the yard himself and had

404
00:23:59,000 --> 00:24:02,399
Speaker 1: spoken to the men to Professor Schwartz had left to

405
00:24:02,400 --> 00:24:06,080
Speaker 1: get a court order to prevent reprisals against the incarcerated men.

406
00:24:06,840 --> 00:24:09,480
Speaker 1: An assemblymen Eve had left to gather the more than

407
00:24:09,560 --> 00:24:13,320
Speaker 1: thirty observers the incarcerated men had requested to help negotiate

408
00:24:13,440 --> 00:24:17,359
Speaker 1: on their behalf. For their own parts, the inmates had

409
00:24:17,400 --> 00:24:21,200
Speaker 1: crafted a set of fifteen practical proposals patterned after a

410
00:24:21,240 --> 00:24:23,560
Speaker 1: set of demands that were written during a protest at

411
00:24:23,560 --> 00:24:27,679
Speaker 1: fulsome prison in nineteen seventy. These proposals included things like

412
00:24:27,880 --> 00:24:30,640
Speaker 1: apply the New York state minimum wage law to all

413
00:24:30,720 --> 00:24:36,120
Speaker 1: state institutions, stop slave labor, and give us free religious freedom,

414
00:24:36,160 --> 00:24:39,600
Speaker 1: and allow all inmates at their own expense, to communicate

415
00:24:39,640 --> 00:24:44,040
Speaker 1: with anyone they please. Many of these Oswald openly said

416
00:24:44,080 --> 00:24:47,760
Speaker 1: that he agreed with, at least in spirit, but by

417
00:24:47,800 --> 00:24:52,600
Speaker 1: Friday morning, negotiations started to get rocky. The prisoners didn't

418
00:24:52,640 --> 00:24:55,880
Speaker 1: believe the injunction Schwartz came back with was valid because

419
00:24:55,920 --> 00:24:58,600
Speaker 1: it had no seal and because it referenced quote the

420
00:24:58,640 --> 00:25:03,440
Speaker 1: disturbance on September nine, and now it was the tenth.

421
00:25:04,320 --> 00:25:08,120
Speaker 1: Initial feelings of optimism started to fade as Attica's incarcerated

422
00:25:08,160 --> 00:25:12,440
Speaker 1: men started to lose their trust in the negotiations. Back

423
00:25:12,480 --> 00:25:16,919
Speaker 1: and forth, essentially uninterrupted negotiations continued all day Friday and

424
00:25:16,920 --> 00:25:21,080
Speaker 1: into early morning hours on Saturday, September ten. By that point,

425
00:25:21,119 --> 00:25:24,800
Speaker 1: the strain was clearly starting to show. In addition to

426
00:25:24,880 --> 00:25:28,200
Speaker 1: the core demand of complete amnesty for everyone who had

427
00:25:28,200 --> 00:25:31,639
Speaker 1: participated in the uprising, which was just a huge sticking point,

428
00:25:32,160 --> 00:25:35,479
Speaker 1: the thirty some observers who had been summoned were really

429
00:25:35,520 --> 00:25:38,120
Speaker 1: all over the spectrum in terms of the social their

430
00:25:38,160 --> 00:25:41,160
Speaker 1: social and political points of view. They ranged from more

431
00:25:41,240 --> 00:25:45,560
Speaker 1: moderate social reformers who might advocate for, you know, incremental

432
00:25:45,640 --> 00:25:49,320
Speaker 1: reforms that were a little less uh less radical, to

433
00:25:49,960 --> 00:25:52,520
Speaker 1: people who truly were parts of very radical Black and

434
00:25:52,560 --> 00:25:57,280
Speaker 1: Puerto Rican nationalist organizations. Eventually, they decided that thirty something

435
00:25:57,320 --> 00:26:00,439
Speaker 1: observers were way too many to effectively negoti eight, so

436
00:26:00,480 --> 00:26:03,000
Speaker 1: they narrowed their numbers down to a much smaller group.

437
00:26:03,960 --> 00:26:08,919
Speaker 1: By Saturday evening, after lengthy negotiations, the observers and Commissioner

438
00:26:08,960 --> 00:26:12,159
Speaker 1: Oswald each had versions of a set of proposals for

439
00:26:12,240 --> 00:26:15,480
Speaker 1: reforms at Attica which addressed many of the conditions that

440
00:26:15,520 --> 00:26:18,719
Speaker 1: we outlined in Part one, and the two documents had

441
00:26:18,800 --> 00:26:22,199
Speaker 1: quite a bit of overlap. For example, both contained quote

442
00:26:22,200 --> 00:26:26,440
Speaker 1: provide adequate food, water, and shelter, with the observer's proposal

443
00:26:26,560 --> 00:26:30,399
Speaker 1: ending quote for this group and the commissioners quote for

444
00:26:30,600 --> 00:26:34,800
Speaker 1: all inmates. The observers read quote apply the New York

445
00:26:34,840 --> 00:26:38,399
Speaker 1: State minimum wage law and the commissioners read quote recommend

446
00:26:38,440 --> 00:26:41,240
Speaker 1: the application of the New York State minimum wage law.

447
00:26:42,240 --> 00:26:46,440
Speaker 1: So while there were lots, really lots of points of overlap,

448
00:26:46,760 --> 00:26:49,960
Speaker 1: the two sets of proposals also had some places that

449
00:26:50,000 --> 00:26:54,320
Speaker 1: were a total disconnect. The observers proposed quote placed this

450
00:26:54,440 --> 00:26:58,159
Speaker 1: institution under federal jurisdiction, but the corresponding point and the

451
00:26:58,200 --> 00:27:01,719
Speaker 1: Commissioner's proposal is quote, as established by October one, nineteen

452
00:27:01,760 --> 00:27:05,360
Speaker 1: seventy one, a permanent ombudsman service for the facility, staffed

453
00:27:05,359 --> 00:27:09,879
Speaker 1: by appropriate persons from the neighboring communities. The observers proposals

454
00:27:09,920 --> 00:27:13,240
Speaker 1: had thirty eight points to the commissioners thirty three. So

455
00:27:13,320 --> 00:27:16,359
Speaker 1: some of the things that that the observers were proposing,

456
00:27:16,720 --> 00:27:21,760
Speaker 1: the Commissioner wasn't really noting at all. The biggest stumbling

457
00:27:21,760 --> 00:27:26,639
Speaker 1: block continued to be, unsurprisingly, the idea of amnesty. The

458
00:27:26,680 --> 00:27:29,760
Speaker 1: men in D Block still insisted on total amnesty for

459
00:27:29,800 --> 00:27:33,000
Speaker 1: their participation in the uprising, and some even went so

460
00:27:33,040 --> 00:27:37,200
Speaker 1: far as wanting to be granted asylum outside the United States,

461
00:27:37,800 --> 00:27:41,720
Speaker 1: and that was more than officials could really grant. It

462
00:27:41,920 --> 00:27:46,440
Speaker 1: is possible that with continued negotiations, Oswald and the observers

463
00:27:46,480 --> 00:27:48,600
Speaker 1: could have gotten to a settlement that the men in

464
00:27:48,680 --> 00:27:52,040
Speaker 1: D Yard would have accepted, especially if they could have

465
00:27:52,080 --> 00:27:56,800
Speaker 1: been convinced to accept a more narrow definition of amnesty

466
00:27:57,320 --> 00:28:00,119
Speaker 1: rather than like a total amnesty, Like there were a

467
00:28:00,119 --> 00:28:03,160
Speaker 1: lot of things in place to try to prevent reprisals,

468
00:28:03,200 --> 00:28:06,040
Speaker 1: but I mean, the state obviously was very reluctant to say, yeah,

469
00:28:06,040 --> 00:28:08,600
Speaker 1: we're just gonna disregard that this whole thing even happened.

470
00:28:09,400 --> 00:28:13,679
Speaker 1: But on September eleven, Officer William Quinn, who had been

471
00:28:13,720 --> 00:28:16,840
Speaker 1: struck in the head during the initial takeover of Times Square,

472
00:28:16,960 --> 00:28:20,760
Speaker 1: died of his injuries. Rumors ran through the d Black

473
00:28:20,800 --> 00:28:23,760
Speaker 1: Assembly about exactly what had happened, and these were fueled

474
00:28:23,800 --> 00:28:26,920
Speaker 1: by inaccurate media coverage saying he had been thrown from

475
00:28:26,920 --> 00:28:32,800
Speaker 1: a window, But in general everyone involved recognized that someone

476
00:28:33,080 --> 00:28:36,359
Speaker 1: would be charged with murder, and Officer Quinn's death this

477
00:28:36,600 --> 00:28:39,480
Speaker 1: amnesty point that had been so so central to the

478
00:28:39,880 --> 00:28:43,480
Speaker 1: demands from the very beginning was now completely off the table,

479
00:28:44,440 --> 00:28:48,720
Speaker 1: and with that, negotiations started to fall completely apart. By

480
00:28:48,760 --> 00:28:52,800
Speaker 1: Sunday morning, September twelve, those negotiating with d Block took

481
00:28:52,920 --> 00:28:55,520
Speaker 1: desperate steps in the hope of preventing an invasion and

482
00:28:55,600 --> 00:28:59,760
Speaker 1: massacre they were certain was on the horizon. Calling his

483
00:29:00,120 --> 00:29:02,840
Speaker 1: listed home number, which they got from a state senator,

484
00:29:03,280 --> 00:29:06,440
Speaker 1: the observers tried to convince New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller

485
00:29:06,520 --> 00:29:09,440
Speaker 1: to come to Attica to talk directly to the prisoners,

486
00:29:09,720 --> 00:29:15,080
Speaker 1: which he declined to do. Attica's superintendent, Vincent Macusie, offered

487
00:29:15,120 --> 00:29:17,600
Speaker 1: to resign in the hope that it would encourage the

488
00:29:17,600 --> 00:29:21,280
Speaker 1: men to accept the agreement, but Oswald declined to accept

489
00:29:21,360 --> 00:29:27,000
Speaker 1: his resignation. On the morning of September thirteen, Commissioner Oswald

490
00:29:27,040 --> 00:29:30,640
Speaker 1: sent a final pleading request d Yard to accept his

491
00:29:30,720 --> 00:29:34,480
Speaker 1: proposal and to bring things to a peaceful end. After

492
00:29:34,760 --> 00:29:38,640
Speaker 1: some debate, the men in d Yard rejected it. Soon after,

493
00:29:39,160 --> 00:29:42,520
Speaker 1: inmates took eight hostages up to the catwalks around the

494
00:29:42,600 --> 00:29:45,840
Speaker 1: yard and held knives to their throats in a visible

495
00:29:45,840 --> 00:29:51,080
Speaker 1: show of defiance. Shortly thereafter, state police moved into Attica

496
00:29:51,200 --> 00:29:54,520
Speaker 1: in an operation planned by State Police Major John Monaghan.

497
00:29:55,520 --> 00:29:59,000
Speaker 1: His job, however, was only to plan the assault, not

498
00:29:59,160 --> 00:30:02,480
Speaker 1: to plan for com indication with the media or families,

499
00:30:03,080 --> 00:30:06,800
Speaker 1: medical care, emergency response, or a return to normalcy for

500
00:30:06,880 --> 00:30:10,760
Speaker 1: the prison, and consequently there was no plan for any

501
00:30:10,800 --> 00:30:15,560
Speaker 1: of those things. There were procedures in place to protect

502
00:30:15,600 --> 00:30:18,840
Speaker 1: the state police who participated in this assault from harm.

503
00:30:19,360 --> 00:30:22,160
Speaker 1: For example, they were barred from participating in hand to

504
00:30:22,200 --> 00:30:24,640
Speaker 1: hand combat, knowing that the men in Cell Black D

505
00:30:24,880 --> 00:30:29,200
Speaker 1: had armed themselves with makeshift knives. Additionally, they anticipated that

506
00:30:29,320 --> 00:30:31,400
Speaker 1: visibility was going to be really poor in the whole

507
00:30:31,440 --> 00:30:35,720
Speaker 1: situation chaotic, but there were no policies in place really

508
00:30:35,760 --> 00:30:39,440
Speaker 1: to reduce the threat of unnecessary injury or death among

509
00:30:39,480 --> 00:30:44,280
Speaker 1: the inmates or the hostages. Also, Attica's correctional officers, who

510
00:30:44,320 --> 00:30:47,400
Speaker 1: had clear emotional ties to what was going on, were

511
00:30:47,480 --> 00:30:52,040
Speaker 1: allowed to participate in this assault once once the negotiations

512
00:30:52,040 --> 00:30:56,320
Speaker 1: had completely broken down. When the assault began at ninety

513
00:30:56,440 --> 00:31:01,040
Speaker 1: six am on Monday Septem, power was cut to the prison.

514
00:31:02,000 --> 00:31:05,480
Speaker 1: Sharpshooters made their way to rooftops to provide covering. Fire

515
00:31:06,480 --> 00:31:09,080
Speaker 1: units moved through the prison and began to cut their

516
00:31:09,120 --> 00:31:12,160
Speaker 1: way through barricades that blocked their way into D Yard.

517
00:31:13,120 --> 00:31:16,280
Speaker 1: Gas grenades were dropped by helicopter and a warning played

518
00:31:16,320 --> 00:31:21,400
Speaker 1: by loudspeaker, do not harm the hostages. Surrender peacefully. You

519
00:31:21,400 --> 00:31:24,240
Speaker 1: will not be harmed. Put your hands on top of

520
00:31:24,280 --> 00:31:26,920
Speaker 1: your head, and move to the outside of B and

521
00:31:27,000 --> 00:31:32,040
Speaker 1: D corridors. Sit or lie down. Once everything was in place.

522
00:31:32,560 --> 00:31:36,280
Speaker 1: From their positions along catwalks above D Yard, New York

523
00:31:36,280 --> 00:31:40,840
Speaker 1: State Police open fire. Over the span of about fifteen minutes,

524
00:31:41,240 --> 00:31:44,280
Speaker 1: thirty eight people were shot to death and eighty more

525
00:31:44,360 --> 00:31:48,040
Speaker 1: were wounded. One more would die of his injuries about

526
00:31:48,040 --> 00:31:52,520
Speaker 1: a month later. Overall, ten percent of the people in

527
00:31:52,640 --> 00:31:56,120
Speaker 1: the yard were hit by the State police's gunfire. A

528
00:31:56,280 --> 00:32:01,520
Speaker 1: quarter of the hostages died in the mediate aftermass. Officials

529
00:32:01,520 --> 00:32:04,760
Speaker 1: announced that the hostages who had died had all had

530
00:32:04,840 --> 00:32:08,040
Speaker 1: their throats cut by inmates before the state police assault

531
00:32:08,080 --> 00:32:12,520
Speaker 1: on the prison. This was false. Although two survivors did

532
00:32:12,520 --> 00:32:15,600
Speaker 1: have serious knife wounds to the neck, both said that

533
00:32:15,640 --> 00:32:18,560
Speaker 1: they had been slashed after the state police opened fire,

534
00:32:19,040 --> 00:32:24,200
Speaker 1: not before. Because there had been no plan in place

535
00:32:24,280 --> 00:32:28,720
Speaker 1: for providing medical aid, including no plan for transferring incarcerated

536
00:32:28,720 --> 00:32:32,000
Speaker 1: men to hospitals, many of the people who were injured

537
00:32:32,080 --> 00:32:35,720
Speaker 1: went without medical care for hours Because there had been

538
00:32:35,720 --> 00:32:39,120
Speaker 1: no plan in place to identify bodies or to communicate

539
00:32:39,120 --> 00:32:43,160
Speaker 1: with families of the incarcerated men or the hostages. The

540
00:32:43,280 --> 00:32:46,360
Speaker 1: last families to be notified that their loved ones had

541
00:32:46,440 --> 00:32:51,160
Speaker 1: died happened on the following Thursday. A National Guard unit

542
00:32:51,200 --> 00:32:53,360
Speaker 1: that was meant to set up a field hospital did

543
00:32:53,360 --> 00:32:56,440
Speaker 1: not even arrive on the scene until after the initial

544
00:32:56,480 --> 00:33:00,000
Speaker 1: assault was over, and then was described in media report

545
00:33:00,440 --> 00:33:03,680
Speaker 1: as having been part of the assault, which was absolutely

546
00:33:03,720 --> 00:33:08,400
Speaker 1: not true. After the initial assault on the prison, state

547
00:33:08,440 --> 00:33:12,240
Speaker 1: police and correctional officers began trying to relocate inmates from

548
00:33:12,320 --> 00:33:16,880
Speaker 1: D Yard to still functioning cells in other blocks. During

549
00:33:16,880 --> 00:33:21,240
Speaker 1: this process, there was extensive retribution against the incarcerated men.

550
00:33:22,200 --> 00:33:25,400
Speaker 1: Some were made to essentially run a gauntlet of officers

551
00:33:25,440 --> 00:33:29,640
Speaker 1: who beat them on the way down. Others were taunted, humiliated,

552
00:33:29,680 --> 00:33:33,600
Speaker 1: and addressed with racist slurs. And while there certainly were

553
00:33:33,600 --> 00:33:37,360
Speaker 1: officers who exercised restraint both during the assault and during

554
00:33:37,360 --> 00:33:41,040
Speaker 1: the efforts to restore the prison to normalcy, many definitely

555
00:33:41,080 --> 00:33:46,479
Speaker 1: did not and the words of the official commission report quote.

556
00:33:46,720 --> 00:33:50,600
Speaker 1: Officials have subsequent subsequently pointed to the one thousand, two

557
00:33:50,680 --> 00:33:53,640
Speaker 1: hundred fifty survivors of D Yard and said they did

558
00:33:53,640 --> 00:33:57,040
Speaker 1: not do badly. The Commission has considered the thirty nine

559
00:33:57,120 --> 00:34:00,239
Speaker 1: dead and scores of wounded and concluded it was not

560
00:34:00,280 --> 00:34:04,360
Speaker 1: done well. There was also a conversation between the governor

561
00:34:04,800 --> 00:34:08,719
Speaker 1: and President Richard Nixon, and which Richard Nixon was basically like,

562
00:34:09,000 --> 00:34:12,000
Speaker 1: we've saved a lot of guards, so that's good. In

563
00:34:12,120 --> 00:34:15,840
Speaker 1: making their way through the heavily damaged prison, officials found

564
00:34:15,960 --> 00:34:19,080
Speaker 1: nearly fift ndred weapons, many of them made during the

565
00:34:19,120 --> 00:34:24,640
Speaker 1: course of the uprising, including molotov cocktails, wooden and metal bludgeons,

566
00:34:24,680 --> 00:34:29,680
Speaker 1: and makeshift knives. There were also baseball bats, knives, razors,

567
00:34:29,719 --> 00:34:33,800
Speaker 1: and tear gas guns scavenged from around the prison after

568
00:34:33,800 --> 00:34:36,839
Speaker 1: the assault was over. Officials also found the bodies of

569
00:34:36,920 --> 00:34:39,560
Speaker 1: three inmates who had been stabbed to death during the

570
00:34:39,560 --> 00:34:43,560
Speaker 1: course of the uprising. One was Barry Schwartz. He was

571
00:34:43,600 --> 00:34:46,360
Speaker 1: the one who had hidden guards in one of the cells.

572
00:34:48,440 --> 00:34:51,600
Speaker 1: Some of the reforms that Oswald had been planning before

573
00:34:51,640 --> 00:34:54,840
Speaker 1: this uprising did follow after it, and a lot of

574
00:34:54,880 --> 00:34:57,840
Speaker 1: them were compatible with what the inmates had been demanding

575
00:34:57,960 --> 00:35:01,440
Speaker 1: during their negotiations, as as a few examples. In the

576
00:35:01,480 --> 00:35:04,880
Speaker 1: months after the uprising, telephone booths were installed at Attica

577
00:35:05,000 --> 00:35:08,040
Speaker 1: for for the men to use, along with a new

578
00:35:08,080 --> 00:35:12,160
Speaker 1: commissary that actually sold commercial droppers for heating food, so

579
00:35:12,239 --> 00:35:14,719
Speaker 1: you could both buy food and buy something to heat

580
00:35:14,760 --> 00:35:19,480
Speaker 1: it up. The library was expanded and censored materials were

581
00:35:19,520 --> 00:35:24,399
Speaker 1: re reviewed, with fifty five of previously rejected materials being

582
00:35:24,400 --> 00:35:28,840
Speaker 1: approved this time around. At the same time, correctional officers

583
00:35:28,880 --> 00:35:31,960
Speaker 1: were largely bitter after the uprising, both at the inmates

584
00:35:32,000 --> 00:35:38,040
Speaker 1: who had participated and the Commissioner Oswald for negotiating with them.

585
00:35:38,040 --> 00:35:41,560
Speaker 1: In July of nineteen seventy two, incarcerated minute Attica went

586
00:35:41,600 --> 00:35:45,000
Speaker 1: on strike to protest the dismissal of a recently hired

587
00:35:45,080 --> 00:35:49,800
Speaker 1: female nurse, which derailed further plans for reform, with officials

588
00:35:49,800 --> 00:35:52,400
Speaker 1: instead becoming a lot more focused on the prevention of

589
00:35:52,440 --> 00:35:57,360
Speaker 1: another uprising. Many of the same resource issues, racial and

590
00:35:57,400 --> 00:36:02,040
Speaker 1: economic disparities, and other factors that to that uprising still

591
00:36:02,080 --> 00:36:06,960
Speaker 1: persist today. The prison strike that started on September nine,

592
00:36:07,080 --> 00:36:10,320
Speaker 1: for example, was in protest of forced labor for minimal

593
00:36:10,360 --> 00:36:13,840
Speaker 1: pay that is still a standard part of many US prisons.

594
00:36:15,000 --> 00:36:20,200
Speaker 1: The New York State Commission on Attica was convened after

595
00:36:20,239 --> 00:36:22,839
Speaker 1: this to basically research everything that had happened, and they

596
00:36:22,880 --> 00:36:26,279
Speaker 1: did extensive interviews among basically everyone who was involved, and

597
00:36:26,320 --> 00:36:30,640
Speaker 1: you can read that entire report online and initially I

598
00:36:30,719 --> 00:36:34,000
Speaker 1: had multiple lengthy quotes from it that really sound like

599
00:36:34,120 --> 00:36:38,000
Speaker 1: they could be about today with things that are in

600
00:36:38,040 --> 00:36:41,319
Speaker 1: the news relating to racism and the justice system and

601
00:36:41,520 --> 00:36:47,960
Speaker 1: mass incarceration, like all of these things really sound as though, uh,

602
00:36:48,120 --> 00:36:50,880
Speaker 1: they could be about situations that are happening in in

603
00:36:50,960 --> 00:36:54,320
Speaker 1: today's world. So even though a lot of the circumstances

604
00:36:54,360 --> 00:36:59,359
Speaker 1: that were present Attica in nineteen seventy one were improved later,

605
00:36:59,480 --> 00:37:01,719
Speaker 1: a lot of the core conditions that lead to this

606
00:37:01,840 --> 00:37:06,160
Speaker 1: uprising are still things that exists in the world today.

607
00:37:06,280 --> 00:37:08,680
Speaker 1: And we will link to that in the show notes

608
00:37:08,719 --> 00:37:10,799
Speaker 1: so that people can read for free, because as I said, like,

609
00:37:10,880 --> 00:37:14,319
Speaker 1: this is really an overview of it, and the book

610
00:37:14,320 --> 00:37:18,000
Speaker 1: Blood in the Water that just came out um in August,

611
00:37:18,200 --> 00:37:25,320
Speaker 1: I think, uh also incredibly detailed, full of like research

612
00:37:25,400 --> 00:37:30,480
Speaker 1: gleaned from tons and tons of of original record requests. Uh.

613
00:37:30,640 --> 00:37:33,880
Speaker 1: So there is lots of other information available out this

614
00:37:34,080 --> 00:37:37,839
Speaker 1: about this for folks who are interested. I also don't

615
00:37:37,840 --> 00:37:39,759
Speaker 1: want to make it sound like there was, you know,

616
00:37:39,800 --> 00:37:42,440
Speaker 1: a protest at Attica and then all of these conditions

617
00:37:42,480 --> 00:37:44,200
Speaker 1: got a whole lot better, because a lot of the

618
00:37:44,200 --> 00:37:47,719
Speaker 1: things that they were protesting about do still exist. There's

619
00:37:47,719 --> 00:37:50,040
Speaker 1: still you know a lot of censorship in prisons, and

620
00:37:50,640 --> 00:37:53,440
Speaker 1: pay that is either or work that is either not

621
00:37:53,480 --> 00:37:55,680
Speaker 1: paid or paid a few cents per day or per hour.

622
00:37:56,040 --> 00:37:59,319
Speaker 1: A lot of the same sorts of conditions that were

623
00:37:59,440 --> 00:38:03,000
Speaker 1: so dehumanizing to people in nineteen seventy one are definitely

624
00:38:03,040 --> 00:38:06,919
Speaker 1: still around today. Hey, Tracy, you also have a little

625
00:38:06,920 --> 00:38:09,400
Speaker 1: bit of listener mail for us. Maybe not so heavy

626
00:38:09,440 --> 00:38:11,759
Speaker 1: you do. It's not it's not so heavy. It is

627
00:38:11,760 --> 00:38:15,120
Speaker 1: a correction. Uh. This is from Heidi. Heidi was the

628
00:38:15,160 --> 00:38:17,719
Speaker 1: first person who wrote to us about this. Several other

629
00:38:17,760 --> 00:38:19,759
Speaker 1: people have written to us about this. And then the

630
00:38:19,800 --> 00:38:22,560
Speaker 1: thing that I love is that several people have commented

631
00:38:22,800 --> 00:38:25,719
Speaker 1: on our Facebook posts to say, I came over here

632
00:38:25,760 --> 00:38:28,600
Speaker 1: to see if you had already corrected this. I love

633
00:38:28,640 --> 00:38:32,680
Speaker 1: all of you who did that so much because occasionally

634
00:38:32,719 --> 00:38:35,439
Speaker 1: when when when one of us messes something real bad,

635
00:38:35,719 --> 00:38:37,719
Speaker 1: it starts to feel like kind of a pile on

636
00:38:37,920 --> 00:38:40,359
Speaker 1: and and so all the folks, I love you all

637
00:38:40,480 --> 00:38:43,480
Speaker 1: very much. Yeah, thank you for not making a landslide,

638
00:38:44,760 --> 00:38:48,640
Speaker 1: because I messed up a super concretely messed up, so,

639
00:38:48,719 --> 00:38:52,000
Speaker 1: Heidi says. Dear Tracy and Holly, Greetings. I was listening

640
00:38:52,000 --> 00:38:55,400
Speaker 1: to your most recent episode entitled six Impossible Episodes Deja

641
00:38:55,480 --> 00:38:57,839
Speaker 1: Vu and was super excited to hear you talking about

642
00:38:57,880 --> 00:39:01,280
Speaker 1: the history of my hometown Toledo, Ohio. Thanks for covering

643
00:39:01,320 --> 00:39:04,160
Speaker 1: this little section of the Midwest. Throughout the section, you

644
00:39:04,239 --> 00:39:06,800
Speaker 1: discussed the Toledo Strip as the area of land between

645
00:39:06,840 --> 00:39:10,960
Speaker 1: Indiana and Lake Michigan. However, this was actually Lake Erie,

646
00:39:11,800 --> 00:39:15,759
Speaker 1: easily confusing since like Michigan is more often associated with

647
00:39:15,920 --> 00:39:20,320
Speaker 1: Chicago and Wisconsin then its namesake state. That was tricky

648
00:39:20,360 --> 00:39:23,000
Speaker 1: to say, and I'm with you on the Ohio State

649
00:39:23,080 --> 00:39:26,160
Speaker 1: University University of Michigan football rivalry. Not being a big

650
00:39:26,239 --> 00:39:28,440
Speaker 1: fan of sport myself, I only knew football was in

651
00:39:28,520 --> 00:39:31,880
Speaker 1: season growing up because it was also marching band season. However,

652
00:39:32,120 --> 00:39:34,320
Speaker 1: you always knew the big game was coming when the

653
00:39:34,400 --> 00:39:37,520
Speaker 1: Friday before everyone was dressed for their team. The demographic

654
00:39:37,560 --> 00:39:39,759
Speaker 1: of fans and Toledo is almost fifty fifty in the

655
00:39:39,800 --> 00:39:42,720
Speaker 1: town exploded with blue and yellow or red and white colors.

656
00:39:43,200 --> 00:39:46,200
Speaker 1: Thanks again and keep up the good work, sincerely, Heidi.

657
00:39:47,280 --> 00:39:49,440
Speaker 1: First of all, I get this whole thing about marching

658
00:39:49,480 --> 00:39:51,719
Speaker 1: band season being what football season was because I was

659
00:39:51,760 --> 00:39:53,359
Speaker 1: in the marching band and that was how I knew

660
00:39:53,400 --> 00:39:57,600
Speaker 1: what was up. Uh. Yeah, I want to preface this

661
00:39:57,680 --> 00:39:59,439
Speaker 1: by saying I do know how to read a map.

662
00:40:01,160 --> 00:40:04,000
Speaker 1: I have used maps often to get myself out of

663
00:40:04,160 --> 00:40:09,080
Speaker 1: the situation being lost uh. And in this real enticular case,

664
00:40:10,200 --> 00:40:13,279
Speaker 1: I looked at the descriptions of where the borderline so

665
00:40:13,400 --> 00:40:17,960
Speaker 1: many times, and they all referenced Michigan and Lake Michigan.

666
00:40:18,520 --> 00:40:21,320
Speaker 1: That like, in my head, Lake Michigan became the problem.

667
00:40:21,520 --> 00:40:24,680
Speaker 1: That's incorrect. So, for those of you who don't necessarily

668
00:40:24,800 --> 00:40:26,759
Speaker 1: have in the forefronts of your mind a map of

669
00:40:26,800 --> 00:40:30,839
Speaker 1: the United States, Michigan, the peninsula of Michigan looks kind

670
00:40:30,840 --> 00:40:33,920
Speaker 1: of like a hand in the little mitten, and over

671
00:40:34,000 --> 00:40:36,680
Speaker 1: on the pinky side of the mitten that is Lake Michigan,

672
00:40:37,000 --> 00:40:39,640
Speaker 1: and then over the thumb side of Lake Michigan that

673
00:40:39,840 --> 00:40:42,120
Speaker 1: is Lake Erie. And so if you draw a straight

674
00:40:42,239 --> 00:40:45,840
Speaker 1: liright across your wrist, you're gonna eventually cut off access

675
00:40:46,040 --> 00:40:49,600
Speaker 1: to Lake Erie down there. And I, in my head,

676
00:40:50,600 --> 00:40:53,360
Speaker 1: I just decided that Michigan was the problem. Like that

677
00:40:53,560 --> 00:40:57,000
Speaker 1: was not correct at all. So I feel like I

678
00:40:57,040 --> 00:41:00,600
Speaker 1: should interject here because you're taking all the blame for this,

679
00:41:01,200 --> 00:41:04,520
Speaker 1: and you may have prepped those notes. I have relatives

680
00:41:04,760 --> 00:41:08,040
Speaker 1: in both the up and LP of Michigan. Didn't even

681
00:41:08,400 --> 00:41:10,719
Speaker 1: click for me. No, not a phase, not a moment

682
00:41:10,800 --> 00:41:14,160
Speaker 1: of that doesn't seem geographically correct. I drove up there

683
00:41:14,239 --> 00:41:18,080
Speaker 1: over the summer. So I have to take some of

684
00:41:18,160 --> 00:41:21,520
Speaker 1: the heat on this because my brain didn't geography one

685
00:41:21,680 --> 00:41:24,600
Speaker 1: Harry bit it went, yeah, that seems right, it seems good.

686
00:41:24,680 --> 00:41:28,320
Speaker 1: It seems good. Uh And so yeah, I apologize for

687
00:41:28,480 --> 00:41:30,480
Speaker 1: messing that up. Thank you again for the folks who

688
00:41:30,520 --> 00:41:33,040
Speaker 1: have written in. And I just I think this is

689
00:41:33,120 --> 00:41:35,520
Speaker 1: the first time that we have made a like a

690
00:41:36,480 --> 00:41:40,120
Speaker 1: that discreet and concrete of an error, that a bunch

691
00:41:40,160 --> 00:41:42,120
Speaker 1: of the response that we have gotten his people on

692
00:41:42,200 --> 00:41:44,359
Speaker 1: our on our Facebook page saying hey, I just came

693
00:41:44,400 --> 00:41:46,160
Speaker 1: to check and see if you had corrected this, and

694
00:41:46,200 --> 00:41:48,839
Speaker 1: I'm glad that you did. And that makes my heart

695
00:41:48,920 --> 00:41:51,840
Speaker 1: happy because number one, it means people are coming to

696
00:41:51,880 --> 00:41:54,239
Speaker 1: our Facebook page to talk to us. And then number two,

697
00:41:54,320 --> 00:41:56,719
Speaker 1: it means like that's the thing that folks, folks know

698
00:41:56,960 --> 00:42:01,480
Speaker 1: that when we mess up, we're gonna try to fix it. Uh.

699
00:42:01,600 --> 00:42:05,400
Speaker 1: So I I apologize for that error. I'm glad it

700
00:42:05,440 --> 00:42:07,400
Speaker 1: gave me the opportunity to describe a state as a

701
00:42:07,440 --> 00:42:10,080
Speaker 1: hand at a mitten. Now it sounds really cute when

702
00:42:10,120 --> 00:42:12,640
Speaker 1: you describe it. I have to say I never thought

703
00:42:12,640 --> 00:42:14,520
Speaker 1: of those kind of look like a hand. Sweetest thing

704
00:42:14,640 --> 00:42:17,880
Speaker 1: ever there's so many other states that look like somebody

705
00:42:18,360 --> 00:42:21,640
Speaker 1: making a real gestures, so it was nice to describe

706
00:42:21,680 --> 00:42:24,359
Speaker 1: what this Vans did. If you would like to write

707
00:42:24,400 --> 00:42:26,400
Speaker 1: to us about this or any other podcast where at

708
00:42:26,480 --> 00:42:28,719
Speaker 1: history podcast at how stuff works dot com. We're also

709
00:42:28,760 --> 00:42:31,080
Speaker 1: on Facebook at facebook dot com slash miss in History

710
00:42:31,120 --> 00:42:33,200
Speaker 1: and on Twitter at miss in History. Are tumbler is

711
00:42:33,200 --> 00:42:35,240
Speaker 1: missing history dot tumble dot com. We're also on panterst

712
00:42:35,280 --> 00:42:38,160
Speaker 1: at Penris dot com slash miss in History, and we

713
00:42:38,200 --> 00:42:40,520
Speaker 1: have an instagram too that is missing History. You can

714
00:42:40,600 --> 00:42:42,640
Speaker 1: come to our parent company's website, which is how stuff

715
00:42:42,640 --> 00:42:45,480
Speaker 1: works dot com. You'll find articles on just about anything

716
00:42:45,560 --> 00:42:47,760
Speaker 1: you can think of. You can come to our website,

717
00:42:47,760 --> 00:42:49,960
Speaker 1: which is missed in History dot com, where we have

718
00:42:50,080 --> 00:42:53,200
Speaker 1: show notes for everything Holly and I have ever worked on.

719
00:42:53,560 --> 00:42:56,360
Speaker 1: Like I said, I'm gonna put the Special Commission Report

720
00:42:56,640 --> 00:42:58,239
Speaker 1: a link to that in the show notes for this

721
00:42:58,400 --> 00:43:00,080
Speaker 1: because there are just so many things we didn't not

722
00:43:00,200 --> 00:43:03,480
Speaker 1: even get into you in this overview. So you can

723
00:43:03,560 --> 00:43:05,520
Speaker 1: do all that and a whole lot more at how

724
00:43:05,560 --> 00:43:07,600
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com or missed in History dot com

725
00:43:12,120 --> 00:43:14,520
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics. Because

726
00:43:14,560 --> 00:43:22,840
Speaker 1: it how stuff works dot com, m