Transcript Follows: 

Yolanda Johnson-Peterkin:

Good evening. Thank you so much for joining us this evening for the commemoration of the Attica Riots, the Attica is All of Us. Opportunity to hear from our Brothers, from the lawyers, from people who were there that evening. Yes, we know that this is an important evening, the 50th year anniversary of those riots. So we know that it was one of the most important evenings when you start speaking about prison uprising. It was the bloodiest in U.S. history and it's one of the most known and most significant flash points in prisoners' rights. A revolt in our history, prisoners demanding on guess what date? September 9th, 1971. But wait, can we have a moment of silence for those individuals who lost their life on that evening? A moment of silence please.

Yolanda Johnson-Peterkin:

Thank you. We have to remember where we came from in order to move it forward. So we want to make sure that we also say thank you to Manhattan Neighborhood Network, also to Alliance of Families for Justice, for supporting families and empowering individuals and helping us learn, standing with our Brothers and standing with them as our ancestors, as we push forward for individuals to be able to have some of the things that they have in incarceration today. But we know that across the nation we still have quite a bit of work to do.

Yolanda Johnson-Peterkin:

So today we're going to have two panels. First led by our sister. Soffiyeah Elijah, the Executive Director of Alliance of Families for Justice. Yes, supporting families, empowering families, educating families, mobilizing families so that they can do the work for themselves, marshaling over them, making sure that they understand and are able to get out and have voting power. Yes, the Alliance is doing a lot of work and they brought us here this evening. And Soffiyeah is going to lead our first panel with our Brothers as we find out what legacy are we standing on. Give it up our godmother. She's also the leader of the women who are on this march. We always go to her as the godmother to make sure that we are on the road and make sure we have a clear vision to freedom. She'll be leading them in tonight. Soffiyeah?

Soffiyeah Elijah:

Thank you. It's an honor and a privilege to be able to moderate this round table discussion. Thank you so much for giving me the honor to moderate this panel with you all. It's really important that our audience has a chance to learn a bit about the history and the legacy of Attica. So my first question is going to be to you Che, to please describe the conditions in Attica in leading up to September 9th in 1971.

Jorge “Che” Nieves:

The conditions in Attica were horrible. I'll begin it by saying that the food, as an example, was lousy. Pork every day, the same food every day. That was one condition. The other condition was that we got showers once a week and toilet paper once a month. That was another condition. Other conditions with the medical situation. Whenever we went to these two Nazis at the infirmary, they would give us aspirins. Regardless of what illness you had, you had an aspirin. And they would never have no contact with you it was through a little screen. So that was another condition.

Jorge “Che” Nieves:

The Black Muslims, as an example, they wasn't allowed to have religious services in the yard. The Hispanic population, as an example also, was the mail when they was received, if we was written in Spanish, it was ripped up. Why was it ripped up? Because there was nobody there to read Spanish. And so they would rip up the letters. Most of the Hispanic families that came up to visit their loved ones, if they didn't speak English, they were in trouble. They were not allowed into the prison.

Jorge “Che” Nieves:

So those were the conditions that led up to rebellion. I mean, people was totally tired of these type of conditions. And plus, they didn't treat us human beings. They treated us like slaves. They treated us like we was nobody to them. How far could you go with these type of conditions until you start rebellion? Just like when you put a dog up against the corner and you're hitting him, and you're hitting them, and you;re hitting them, you're hitting them. Eventually that dog is going to bark. It's going to bark at you, regardless of how much that dog may love you, it's going to bark at you. So it's the same with us. We just couldn't tolerate the conditions any longer.

Soffiyeah Elijah:

Okay. Che, thank you. And we're going to come back to that in a moment, but I return to Akil because I know that in order for people to really understand what took place on the night, they have to understand the layout of Attica. Because it's different for most of the other prisons. So Akil, would you do that for us? Would you explain to the audience how Attica was set up, and still is set up for that matter?

Lawrence Akil Killebrew:

Attica is like a big box with a cross in the middle of it. And these sections inside that cross is a block, A Block, B Block, C Block and D Block. These four blocks connected at a place called Times Square. And that's where everybody used to come through to either go to the mess all or work programs or whatever they had to do. And you was confined to your block. The only time you was allowed to see any... If you had a friend in another block, if you did see him coming out the mess hall, if he was at the last, tail end of another block coming out, you may catch him. But on the 4th of July, they opened the doors for hour and a half and they let you switch over to different blocks. Other than that, that's it. You were confined to your block and that's it.

Soffiyeah Elijah:

So I'm going to turn to you Latif. You had the... I guess we'll say the misfortune of having arrived at Attica just 30 days or so before the ninth and before everything took off. So what was your impression of Attica? It was the atmosphere, as you would describe it, having gotten there just 30 days earlier?

James “Latif” Asbury:

It was totally suppressed and oppressed. You could feel that. It was so thick that you could actually cut that. And the only thing you could do is come out when they cracked your cell, that was either eating sick, call, or work or a visit, depending on those things. But other than that, you were totally in yourself cell. Rec, you'd come out for rec, go out to the yard for whatever time rec was. It seems like to me, as soon as you got into it, it was time to lock up. But when I arrived it at Attica, it was like the only... The First thing and the first impression I seen was this 30 foot wall. And to me I said, "Who's going there?" They turned in there. So I said, "It was us." For real.

Soffiyeah Elijah:

Okay. I've heard a number of people say that it was a very tense situation there. Was that your impression, that there was a lot of tension?

James “Latif” Asbury:

Oh, they talked to us horrible, they didn't care. They may call you the N-word just because. And I guess it was all according to your presentation. A man is not going to be docile 24/7. Enough is enough. So pretty much what I did was just responded as courteously as I could. So I guess on that point, it helped me get through. Other than that, it was just totally oppressive and suppressive.

Soffiyeah Elijah:

Thank you. Latif. I'm going to shift to you Eddie. You were in Attica in September of 1971, as well.

Eddie LeShure:

I arrived in November of 1970, so it was almost a year before the uprising. And when inmates go in, at least for the first time, they go through an orientation. And the Assistant Warden was there, I think his name was Pfeil? And so they tell you a bunch of stuff.

Eddie LeShure:

But what really struck me, what really stood out was he says to me, "Listen, if you're smart, you stay away from the Blacks."

Eddie LeShure:

Like, "What?"

Eddie LeShure:

And he said, "If they want to hang out with you, it's always for the wrong reasons. They just want something from you. It's just going to be a problem. If you're smart, you stick to your own kind."

Eddie LeShure:

And I'm sitting there going, "You're not even subtle about your strategy of dividing up the inmates." But that's what they wanted to do.

Eddie LeShure:

And I think what was really significant about what happened leading up to the uprising and during the uprising and after was that the inmates saw through that. They saw that in order to get anything done, we had to stick together and we had to not buy into that division.

Eddie LeShure:

And this was all happening within the political backdrop of what was going on in the country. In the late sixties and in 1970, you had a lot of political stuff going on, against the war and within the Civil Rights Movement. And you had these leading figures like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King and Angela Davis, and so on.

Eddie LeShure:

So there was a growing political awareness that was happening outside and a movement that was happening outside. And it also was taking place inside as us inmates were expanding our political understanding, our political awareness. And understanding how we had a common cause. And a lot of that was fed in organizing that went on inside, prior to the uprising. And I'm not talking about organizing an uprising, because the uprising was spontaneous, that was not planned. It just... There was a spark because of the tension that the other Brothers have been talking about. It didn't take much to set it off. But what happened was, the Warden, Mancusi, was... I have a hard time avoiding any-

Soffiyeah Elijah:

Don't do it, don't do it.

Eddie LeShure:

I won't do it. But that guy, just as a show piece, he set up a Sociology class because there was an inmate in there that had taught at the university level, Sociology. So he says, "I'm going to make it look good and create a Sociology class."

Eddie LeShure:

So think back about what Akil said. Attica was really four prisons, maybe five, but really four separate prisons that were divided. Well with the Sociology class there was actually a classroom where inmates could come, it was within the school, where they could actually gather. The school was primarily self-study. You turn in a lesson and it comes back to you. And I was a teacher over there, so I would correct lessons-

Soffiyeah Elijah:

Can I pause you for a minute, Eddie?

Eddie LeShure:

Yeah.

Soffiyeah Elijah:

I just want to ask you a question for second so that everybody understands. When you say that people would come to the Sociology class, are you saying that people from different blocks could intermingle in this class?

Eddie LeShure:

Yes.

Soffiyeah Elijah:

Okay.

Eddie LeShure:

And the thing is, it was a Sociology class, but what it quickly turned into was a place where Brothers from different cell blocks in different organizations like the Young Lords party, Black Muslims, Black Panthers. And guys like Sam Melville, who was a really significant figure before and during the uprising, he was murdered on the 13th, were able to sit and talk and go, "What are we going to do? How are we going to overcome this?" And we were reaching out to people on the outside like Assemblyman Arthur Eve who was very open-minded and responsive and Reverend Scott in Rochester and trying to communicate with these people to try to get some changes made. They weren't trying to start a revolution. They were trying to reform and make things better. And I think when the uprising took place, that helped things gel so that when hostages were taken they said, "Okay, what are we going to do? Let's get together."

Soffiyeah Elijah:

I don't want us to skip over George Jackson and his death, because that's a significant piece.

Eddie LeShure:

Yeah.

Soffiyeah Elijah:

Che, do you want to speak to that?

Jorge “Che” Nieves:

Brother George, he was assassinated August 21st of 1971. During that time we in Attica the Young Lords and the Black Panthers and the Muslims, we were trying to figure out what we're going to do to commemorate Brother to pay our respects. And so we came up with what is called the hunger strike where we organized the population, very disciplinately to participate and many people participated. We walked into the mess hall and quietly, without even making no sound. We sat down. And many of us, including myself, we had black armbands. And we waited for the guard to give us the signal so that we could move out.

Jorge “Che” Nieves:

The Brother's assassination was something that many of us could not accept. The fact that he had had a gun underneath his Afro, that's ridiculous. We knew that was a lie. The hunger strike was very successful and everybody participated, Blacks, whites, Latinos. We all came together on that, even though a lot of whites probably didn't even who know George Jackson was. But the mere fact that we were all there, in the same conditions, many of them just got down and participated.

Soffiyeah Elijah:

You just made a point. You said many people maybe didn't know who George Jackson was. It occurs to me some of our audience listening weren't born by 1971. So they may not know who you're referring to when you talk about George Jackson or where he was killed, because it wasn't in Attica. So could you just take a moment and explain that, in a sentence or two. So that we set the context?

Jorge “Che” Nieves:

Okay. Briefly, let me just say that Brother George was arrested, I think he was 17 years old in California. He was accused of stealing, I think it was 70 or $75 from the gas-

Lawrence Akil Killebrew:

$10.

Jorge “Che” Nieves:

... something like that. $10? Okay. And so he was incarcerated. At first he was at Soledad and I think that he went to the same channels that I went to to get politicized. Once he became politicized, he started organizing and I think that's one of the reasons why they transferred him out from Soledad to San Quentin.

Soffiyeah Elijah:

I think we've set the tone and the atmosphere of what was leading up to September 9th. And I'm going to start with Latif. Could you briefly describe what the morning of September 9th, how it unfolded for you?

James “Latif” Asbury:

That night they put a key block on my door. That means, like I said, you either had some type of appointment so it wouldn't be necessary if you go to your assigned duty, right from the mess hall up to there. I remember all this commotion and that was coming from A Block. Yeah, I was in C Block. I'm sorry, I forgot to mention it, I was in C Block. I know I heard a lot of cussing from the ones that were still trying to sleep. But what happened is that I heard all this crashing and hollering and yellowing and things like that and I'm like, "What's really going on?" Somebody had mentioned the horn and they said the only time they ever heard that was the escape. I had never heard it because I just got there. And I'm saying, "What in the world is going on? They going to kill us or what?"

James “Latif” Asbury:

So I heard somebody say, "Go to the yard, follow everybody, go to the yard. If you don't... And if you try to stay behind, we are going to do something to you." And in prison, that meant do something to you. So I got with the crowd, wherever the crowd went, I turned. When they turned, I turned. And then what I remember is that I seen a lot of [inaudible 00:17:50] and that was the yard and there was a lot of celebrants out there because they had taken control. So their first impulse or instinct was that they were going to have some fun. And I'm still in awe because I'm saying "This getting real serious, I've never experienced anything like this." Because in my gut, my gut was telling me, "They going to get on their wall, they going to shoot everybody." They held out because I think they said, "Well, we'll first try to negotiate."

Soffiyeah Elijah:

And after you describe the evening of the ninth, we didn't talk about the evening of the eighth.

James “Latif” Asbury:

There was a disturbance between an African American and white young man. But they were actually not in a scuffle. They took it for that. And I guess in trying to subdue both of them, they all ended up fighting. So they locked him up and the guy went to the box but those that observed that, I guess they was distraught. It broke the cameras back because it didn't sit well with anybody. And you could hear the whispers when it got down and say, "Yeah, they say something going to jump off in the morning when they popped those cells." And that's what happened.

Soffiyeah Elijah:

Akil, if you want to add to that about what happened the evening of the eighth.

Lawrence Akil Killebrew:

Yes, I do. I knew Leroy Dewer. In fact, I [inaudible 00:19:11] home in Auburn. He came from Auburn. He was one of the Auburn people that were sent to Attica. From what we understood, what we heard, he had an argument with a white guy. But the thing is that we knew the police didn't like Black people. So we heard that he was screaming and hollering when they took him off to the box. But the white guy was walking. And people wanted to find out what happened to him. The next day when they came out, it broke in A Block. All I remember on the ninth is my door being cracked and the police wasn't doing the cracking in the doors, it was the inmates. And when I came out to D Block yard, I was young and the only thing on my mind was the same thing that was on my mind when Auburn happened, party time.

Soffiyeah Elijah:

And I'm going to turn to you Che. Do you remember anything else that happened on the eighth?

Jorge “Che” Nieves:

The way it was told to me by some Brothers of A block was that there was these two people, a white and a Black that was sparring. And so a guard came over and tried to break it up and they couldn't. And so a lieutenant came over and he tried to break it up. And for some reason, the Brother, his elbow moved back by accident and hit the lieutenant in a jaw. But the lieutenant did not do nothing at that moment. So that evening when people got locked in for the night, that's when the goon squad, they went into the cells and did those two Brothers in. And then took them out and then took them to Segregation. While they were passing, one Hispanic, he chucked something at one of the guys and they looked back at him and then he said nothing.

Jorge “Che” Nieves:

So the next day, they opened up the cells so that people could go to eat breakfast. But that Hispanic Brother, they kept them locked up. And so somebody, as they were going out, came and opened it up and that Brother, that Hispanic Brother, he got out and he went with Five Block. It was Five Block, Fifth Block, they went to breakfast. And so when they came back, it was time for them to have recreation. And for some reason, they noticed that there wasn't no recreation involved. They were going back to their cells. And so people just said, "No, man. We're going to have our recreation." And that's when everything just went off.

Soffiyeah Elijah:

Che, we're back to you. Things have jumped off. At some point, you end up in the yard. Right?

Jorge “Che” Nieves:

First of all, I was in B Block. All of a sudden I heard the siren go off. In Attica when the siren goes off, most of the time it's because somebody escaped. Everybody in the metal shop stopped working. They started listening to the siren. This, I mean, very loud sound.

Jorge “Che” Nieves:

And so I started looking towards the door and on the other side, I saw Sam Melville. He was, "Yo, bro!" And they were banging on the door and banging and banging.

Jorge “Che” Nieves:

And I said, "Oh, shoot. Man, What is that Brother doing on the other side?" But because I didn't know. Then all of a sudden the door just gave in. And Brother Sam, he came in, he said, "Y'all are free!"

Jorge “Che” Nieves:

I looked at the Brother, I said, "Yeah, Brother. I'm free, I'm ready going be free, when I'm out of here." But I said, "Okay. I go along with that." And so I started running. I don't know where Sam Melville, he probably went trying to free other people. But I was running with the crowd. As I got closer to the D yard, I noticed that there were some Brothers that were coming... I'm not mentioning no names. Brothers were coming and had hostages. And I said, "Oh, shit." Like, "What's happening here?" This is something that I didn't even imagine. And so I walked into the yard and I saw everybody, all over the place. People were doing all kinds... Drinking and doing all kinds of negative stuff.

Soffiyeah Elijah:

So we have the initial scene in the yard. And then at a certain point, things start to get organized and there's a list of demands. Akil, is that something you can speak to?

Lawrence Akil Killebrew:

We voted to have people represent us in the yard. They got law and order. The Muslims took over. Because everybody... It was mad. We organized, we got together, and we voted certain people to speak for us. And the Muslims took over securing the guards' safety. And everything started to get organized at that point. That was going on really the end of the first day, towards the second day.

Soffiyeah Elijah:

They were demands that were crafted and put out. Che, are you able to tell the audience what at least some of those demands were?

Jorge “Che” Nieves:

The restructuring of the Parole Board, as an example. Because when people go to Parole Board, they actually don't have no representation whatsoever and they just pass these decisions based on their own concerns and not based on the interest of the inmates. And so that was one of the things. The other thing was the mail, better food, better treatment-

Lawrence Akil Killebrew:

Education.

Jorge “Che” Nieves:

... education. We were asking to be respected as human beings.

Lawrence Akil Killebrew:

There you go.

Soffiyeah Elijah:

Okay.

Lawrence Akil Killebrew:

That's right.

Soffiyeah Elijah:

Thank you, Che. Now we're going to move forward to what happened on the 13th.

Eddie LeShure:

Well, several months before the uprising, in the spring I think, there were five inmates called the Attica Liberation Faction who created 27 demands. And I worked up in the school, so I had a desk and a typewriter and I don't remember who, but somebody came to me and said, "Hey can you type this up?" So I actually typed up the demands slow and made carbon copies and those were sent out to Oswald and different people on the outside.

Soffiyeah Elijah:

And who was Oswald?

Eddie LeShure:

Oswald was... Yeah, he was the... What's it called? Superintendent?

James “Latif” Asbury:

Corrections Commissioner.

Soffiyeah Elijah:

He was the Commissioner.

Eddie LeShure:

Yeah. He oversaw the entire prison system in New York state.

Soffiyeah Elijah:

Okay.

Eddie LeShure:

And basically what happened was he came and he met, but he just paid lip service to it and nothing happened. And that was right before the uprising. Now the demands that were drawn up and presented after the night weren't the same demands exactly, but most of the content, ironically, was the same stuff that he ignored before. But now there are hostages at stake.

Soffiyeah Elijah:

Akil, I'm going to ask you, I know you specifically have some information to share about what happened in A Yard. Because we hear a lot about what happened in D Yard. But let's talk about what happened in A Yard, briefly.

Lawrence Akil Killebrew:

They had eight of us in A Block corridor, as security. And that morning on the 13th, well he is not here no more... Big Black came in with somebody else that was with him [inaudible 00:27:08]. And they said, "Listen, you guys in a hot spot. We don't know how they're going to come, if they're going to shoot rubber bullets or real bullets. We don't know what's going on." Because I really thought they were shooting rubber bullets. We had a table on the floor with around three or four mattresses on it, to dive down on.

Lawrence Akil Killebrew:

That day when they left, we decided to stay up there. We said "No, we okay. We'll stay up here." Because we wanted to stay together, we formed alliance with each other and we just wanted to be with each other at the end. We didn't think it was going to be the end.

Lawrence Akil Killebrew:

But anyway, when they dropped that gas in the yard, the helicopter came above and they started dropping gas. They were shooting gas down the corridor. When they opened the gate and started shooting, coming down the hallway they was running. And I seen the guy jump up from the gas because that gas was... Man, you couldn't breathe. And the guy jumped up and I saw a blood gush out his neck.

Lawrence Akil Killebrew:

And the first thing he came to my mind was, "Oh, shit." I mean, they really shooting real bullets. So I told my friend, Taxi, I said, "Listen, Taxi. Get down." I said, "When we go out that door, don't go out first and don't go out last. Let's try to get between." And when we came out the door, I got hit. And when I fell on the floor, outside in A Block's yard, because that's where we was at, A Block's Corridor, somebody fell on my foot. And I looked down because gas was starting to rise. It was Taxi, he was laying there.

Lawrence Akil Killebrew:

Then I heard the police come into the yard and that's when they took me, told me I was just shot good enough. And they handcuffed me by my back, ripped my clothes off me, and made me run up A Block corridor to a cell in A Block. And they left me in there for a half an hour with a police or a guard sitting in front of the cell. And they said, "If he tries to make a move, blow his brains out."

Lawrence Akil Killebrew:

So I sat there with my hands cuffed behind my back on the toilet bowl. And when they came back, around three or four police, they said, "Come on out." So they took me out and I was walking across the yard to housing Block Z at the time, it's Special Housing Unit now. And I saw them dumping bodies on an army truck. And I said to myself, "This look like a scene from the Twilight Zone."

Soffiyeah Elijah:

Thank you. Since we have just a little bit of time left, what do you think is the most important takeaway in a sentence or two?

James “Latif” Asbury:

The Most important thing to me to take away was that I still believe I was going to get killed, like Brother was just talking about. Because I, too, ran the gauntlet and before I did that, LD pushed me down. We grew up together. We were out in the streets together and he said, "Man, get down. They shooting." I was frozen. I couldn't do nothing because I couldn't believe it. So he pushed me down and the next time I looked down, the guards was beating in and pulling my clothes off. He was bleeding. He said, "Go ahead man, I'm going to be all right." We're naked. Mind you, we're but naked in a cell with maybe six, seven guys. They give us paper to cover up with it night because they shot all the windows out. This is A Block.

James “Latif” Asbury:

There's got to be a better system than this to treat human beings better because they treated us as if... And I'm talking about white, Black, Spanish, whatever. They treated us as if we were just... They treat cattle better than they did us. And I say, "This got to change." So I began thinking about the court system, the legal system, the police system in saying that they all were in collusion together that created this type of warehouse and this type of atmosphere. And to this day, that's what I've been trying to put my energy and effort to. Trying to see. We got to come up with a better legal system in this. That was my thought.

Lawrence Akil Killebrew:

This whole system has to change. People have to realize that they have to vote to change these laws. They got to put people in office to change these laws. I don't think it's going to ever happen in my lifetime. If you want to do it with this system still here, you have to vote. You have to vote and put your votes in.

Soffiyeah Elijah:

I thank all of you so much for sharing some of those experiences. And I hope that our audience will go to the website for AtticaIsAllOfUs.org where they can see longer interviews with each of you, where you got to share a lot more of the history because it's so very important. And I hope that our audience won't... They say "Don't turn that dial." Stay tuned and continue to learn.

Victor Goode:

We're going to continue the conversation that started in that first panel from the perspective of some of the various participants that were part of the resistance and the fight back to the conditions that gave rise to this uprising. So first let me ask Brother James Brown to introduce himself.

James Brown:

Okay, my name is James Brown and I was up in Attica during the uprising, slightly before. I was transferred from Auburn as result of a uprising there. And that's how I wound up in Attica.

Victor Goode:

Now let's hear from Reverend Scott.

Minister Raymond Scott:

I was Minister Raymond Scott. I was President of the Fight Organization in Rochester, New York when this happened. And the people that had loved ones there came over to our organization and asked us to help and find out what the situation was like there and if their loved ones were safe.

Victor Goode:

And finally, we have attorney Michael Deutsch.

Michael Deutsch:

My name is Michael Deutsch. I'm an attorney with the People's Law Office in Chicago and I was one of the organizers of the Attica Brothers' legal defense. And 20 years later I was one of class counsel that brought the civil rights suit on behalf of the victims of the State Police and prison guards massacre.

Victor Goode:

James, when you introduced yourself, you told us that you were a transfer from Auburn. What happened at Auburn before Attica? And how did the events at Auburn influence in any way the Attica of rebellion?

James Brown:

The riot in Auburn started from them unjustifiably locking people up for virtually no reason at all. So as a result, we wanted to make sure that they was all right and what have you. And the officers wasn't in compliance with our demands at the time so we, I guess, took control of the institution. We opened up the cells and let those Brothers out. And as a result, that's what happened at Auburn. It wasn't severe as Attica, but it was a spark, so to say.

Victor Goode:

Give us a little bit of the personal perspective that you had when the uprising began. Where were you and what did you during that period?

James Brown:

I was in B Block. And what happened was something that stimulated the police's activities was because of Jonathan Jackson had got killed in California. His Brother, younger Brother, Jonathan tried to break him out and he tried to say that Jonathan Jackson had a gun, but it was hidden in an Afro. So we realized how senseless that was. So it got around. Sometimes people go to church services, that's when different people can meet, in the church services, announcing they would go. And consensus was that when we go to food to eat, no one's not going to say anything and no one's not going to eat. And basically that's what happened.

James Brown:

So that created a lot of tension. So as a result, they began locking some Brothers up for that, I guess probably for questioning, what have you. And then just from that point, once again, they just took control of the units and started opening cells. And when people breaking loose... It's a controlled center in Attica. From that sense, you could control the opening from cells out into the corridor from each unit. So when they did that, they realized that there was some type of confrontation going on. They closed off all the units and basically the only unit people was able to get to was the D Yard. All other units was closed off.

James Brown:

Then, started taking a correction officer's hostage and what have you. And the first day was very confusing. It wasn't really an organized event, it was just something that just spontaneously happened. People started coming up with grievances and now the term that we was going to negotiate was the grievances. And I think after the third day, what happened was one of the correctional officer had died. And that set a whole different tone in the correctional officers' attitude.

Victor Goode:

While you were experiencing that inside Attica, there were groups on the outside that heard what was going on. And Reverend Scott, why don't you tell our audience where you were and how you responded to the events?

Minister Raymond Scott:

Well, at that time I was President of an organization called The Fight Organization. And I was President at that time. And if there was anything that happened in the neighborhoods around us, then people would make a beeline to our office and talk about it and then we would try to help out and see if we can settle that situation.

Minister Raymond Scott:

So a couple of what... Actually about eight ladies, came over to our office and they had heard about the Attica uprising. We contacted a couple of people who were able to help us get down to Attica. In fact, we drove down right behind the Monroe County Sheriff's Department. So when we talked to him, we explained that we had some people back in Rochester who were loved ones of the inmates. He said, "Listen, I talked to the Commissioner. He wanted to ask you two ministers if, in fact, you would be willing to come into D Yard with us and see if we could just slow this thing down and hopefully bring it to some amiable conclusion."And so we said, "Yes."

Minister Raymond Scott:

It was interesting to me because after I got married, I moved to Rochester. But prior to that, I lived in Buffalo. And when I walked through the gauntlet that they had, I started hearing my name called by several guys, some from Buffalo, some from Rochester, "Hey, Raymond! Hey Raymond!" And actually, it was an interesting feeling for me because I felt secure when I felt them. I'm walking through this and then going down to the head table and sitting there with the people who were the negotiated there. And then they asked us about who we were and how we got there and what was our affiliation with the people on the outside. And the guys in Rochester, in particular, and Buffalo knew about the Fight Organization. So we got a good welcome there.

Victor Goode:

Now, Reverend Scott at this point, how many were a part of your group of civilian observers?

Minister Raymond Scott:

It was about five. That's all.

Victor Goode:

Only five. Okay.

Minister Raymond Scott:

At that time. It was one lawyer, I forgot his name, but it was Arthur Reed, myself, Marvin Chandler, and then it was the Commissioner, Commissioner Oswald. And we sat there and we talked and... Well, actually we introduced ourselves. Each one of us did that we came in for the first time. And when that happened, we were well received.

Minister Raymond Scott:

They had a head table and the inmates were leaders at the head table.

Victor Goode:

Okay.

Minister Raymond Scott:

And they sat on one side of the table, and we sat on the other. But then one of the guys, I remember, it got to be a bit heated because they felt like Commissioner Oswald had played a game on them and he didn't live up to one of the commitments that he said he was going to make happen. And this guy that was speaking said, "In fact, Commissioner Oswald, we just might not let you out of here." And everybody just looked around. And I got the microphone at that particular point and I said to the Brothers, I said, "Listen, listen, Brothers." I said, "We gave our word. We gave this man a commitment for safe passage in and safe passage out. Now they may not keep deadline, they may not keep their word, but we'll keep ours."

Minister Raymond Scott:

And some of the Brothers started clapping and "Yeah" and saying "Right on," that kind of thing. Our presence there for the inmates in particular, I thought made them feel a sense of security because we would be there to just watch what was going on. And bottom line is we could go out and tell the story-

Victor Goode:

Yeah.

Minister Raymond Scott:

... of what we were seeing and what we were experiencing.

Victor Goode:

You were a connection to the outside world for them?

Minister Raymond Scott:

Yes. Yes.

Victor Goode:

So now I'd like to shift things a little bit because we can't really talk about an Attica fight back perspective without bringing in the role of a number of progressive lawyers who played a vital role in that effort. Michael, how did you get involved in the legal fight back on behalf of the Attica inmates?

Michael Deutsch:

There was a call put out by the National Lawyers Guild that they asked lawyers to come to Attica, Buffalo and Attica, to help with the Brothers. And we had a meeting of our office and we had been in a new office that started in 1969. It was a law collective and we were representing members of the Black Panther Party and Young Lords party. And we were very active in the movement in Chicago. And we were beginning to do legal prison work, as well. And we felt an obligation to go to Attica. And we sent two of the people from our office there and they were there among the first lawyers that got into the prison.

Michael Deutsch:

And it's important to note here that lawyers came from New York on the day of the massacre. They had a federal court order to get into prison, signed by the local federal Judge John Curtin. And they refused to let them in and they called the judge and he refused to enforce his order. And they didn't get in until the 17th, four days later.

Michael Deutsch:

And already they were beginning a cover up in the first days they were going to be covering up the crimes of the State Police. 39 unarmed people were killed on that day. They fired 4,000 rounds of ammunition in six minutes. And 10 of their own people were killed, 29 prisoners were killed, and another hundred prisoners were wounded by gunshot. We knew there were going to be indictments and we knew that we had to prepare for them. And basically, it was a kangaroo grand jury that was going to indict just prisoners. And we were preparing for that and sure enough, a year later, they indicted 62 prisoners and 42 different indictments with 1200 felony counts, half of which could wind up with life in prison-

Victor Goode:

Now when the assault initially took place, the public was told that the inmates had killed the guards who were held hostage. How did you all sort that out so that, finally, the truth came out?

James “Latif” Asbury:

With the help of the Coroner of the Monroe County who did the autopsies on the guards and civilian employees who were killed. And he found each one was killed by bullet wounds. Nobody died as a result of having their throat slit. So that lie was exposed within a few days after the rebellion.

Victor Goode:

I was a law student at that time and I heard about the Attica defense legal committee or Attica defense effort. What was that and how did it begin to take shape?

James “Latif” Asbury:

So we had a tremendous amount of cases that we had to deal with and what we did was figure out a way to keep the unity of the Brothers. The Brothers were very strong, very unified, had a lot of political consciousness and wanted to stay together. So rather than at that point getting individual lawyers for all the 62 prisoners, we kept them all together and Attica Brothers' legal defense, represented all the prisoners.

James “Latif” Asbury:

First thing we did was stop the Prosecution from going forward because we inundated them with motions and paper. And the Brothers were very clear they wanted to put the state on trial. They wanted to show that Attica was caused by the conditions and inhumane conditions and that we wanted the real criminals to be indicted. That was a demand that Rockefeller for ordering the massacre, Oswald for denying medical care, and Mancusi for denying medical care, and then the head of the assault force, the guy by the name of John Donahan were all... We wanted them to be indicted. And of course the State Police and the prison guards.

James “Latif” Asbury:

It turned out that there were four trials, three acquittals... The jury in a kidnapping case... Of course a lot of the Brothers were charged with kidnapping for taking the hostages, which had a life sentence. They were acquitted in two hours. The first case they brought was a Brother by the name of Willie Smith who was charged with sodomy. They brought a sodomy case as the first case to disrupt and discredit the Brothers saying they... And he was acquitted. And then a guy with a gas gun was acquitted, as well.

James “Latif” Asbury:

And then the main case was the two young Native American prisoners who shouldn't have even been in Attica, were charged with a murder of Quinn, who was the guard who died in the early moments of the breaking of the Times Square door and he was trampled. And they had this big trial saying that they had murdered Quinn. And one of them, Johnny Hill Dacajeweiah was represented by William Kunstler. And the other one, Charlie Joe Pernasilice was represented by Ramsey Clark, the former Attorney General of the United States. And unfortunately, they were convicted.

James “Latif” Asbury:

The Governor, who was then Hugh Carey ordered there be an investigation of the investigation, essentially. Did the State Police cover up evidence? And was the whole investigation once sided? And this investigation by a guy by the name of Meyer, who was a New York State judge, found that there was a one-sided investigation. And as a result of that, Hugh Carey came forward and said, "I'm not going to let these criminal cases go forward. I'm going to give clemency to all the prisoners. And the two that were convicted, I'm going to give one who got a life sentence, the right to go to parole immediately. And the other one I'm going to let out." So no other prisoners were indicted or charged or convicted as a result of the Attica situation.

Victor Goode:

Michael, at first glance, that looks like a very humane response from the Governor. But what do you think the real reasons were behind that?

James “Latif” Asbury:

The real reason was obvious, they didn't want to charge the State Police or they didn't want to charge the prison guards that went in there with their own guns and shot down people, surrendering, lying on the ground. And of course, they didn't want to indict all these guards that were involved in the brutality, in the torture. Like Big Black was on a table for four hours and all these people were beaten as they ran through a gauntlet. That was the big victory. But it was because they did not want to charge the State Police or the prison guards or anybody else. So that's why they dismissed all the cases, so they wouldn't have to indict the State Police and the prison guards. 20 years later, we finally got the right to go to trial in the civil case, which had been languishing because the federal judge in Buffalo sat on a motion to dismiss for four years. He delayed it all.

Victor Goode:

Why don't you lay out for the audience exactly what was the civil case and what you were charging the state with?

James “Latif” Asbury:

Okay, the civil case was a class action for all the Brothers that were in D Yard. We said that there were victims of cruel and unusual punishment by an assault that was intended to kill and not to rescue anyone. In addition, there they denied the prisoners medical care, people were dying. And in fact, 10 prisoners died from bleeding to death because they didn't have medical care, which is an Eighth Amendment violation. And also there was the allowing, supervising the torture and brutality against Mancusi and against Pfeil, who was the Deputy Warden who supervised the rehousing of the prisoners.

Victor Goode:

In the aftermath of the assault, Reverend Scott, did your civilian observation group play any role at all?

Minister Raymond Scott:

Well, one of the things that we did was work on getting funds together for their defense. And a number of them were able to get out if in fact they had the bail money. And so we raised money to get them out, while they were waiting on the trials. And we kept the whole issue alive. We didn't want anybody to just walk away and forget this. So we kept having rallies and things like that. And as I said, it stayed alive. It really stayed alive.

Victor Goode:

James Brown. What was your situation after the assault took place? What happened to you?

James Brown:

They had the inmates walk the yards. They stripped us, had us walk the yard naked with our hands behind our back. And they kept announcing that anyone that's wounded to pull off through this particular exit, I don't quite remember. And there was a Brother behind me, he said, "Brother, you know shot right?"

James Brown:

I said, "Yes, I know."

James Brown:

So he said, "Well, they're announcing for you to go to the thing." But something, a voice inside of my head, kept telling me, "Don't separate yourself from the masses of people." So later on, after the investigation, a lot of people that went over to that unit, to that exit, wound up coming up dead afterwards.

James Brown:

And like I said, it was very humiliating, but we was a gauntlet. We had to walk through a gauntlet until we get to the Segregation Unit. We had to go up spiral stairs and then we still had to get beat with sticks on our way through the gauntlet and up the stairs. So it was that. And when they was taking, they kept saying, doing things. Because back then they had to slogan up, "Black is beautiful." And all the officers were saying, "Yeah, black is beautiful, especially when it's bleeding. We got you Black MFs now." I mean, the look in their eyes, they was foaming at the mouth while they were saying this. I really couldn't believe what I was seeing, but that's what I seen.

Victor Goode:

Wow. Michael, [inaudible 00:52:03] the story back to you and the evolving civil lawsuit.

Michael Deutsch:

Unfortunately, the six jurors that were picked originally improperly hung the jury and they found that medical care was denied, but they didn't hold anyone responsible. They hung on the assault, they hung on the Oswald's responsibility. And the only verdict they returned was against the Deputy Warden who was in charge of the rehousing of the prisoners and saw all the torture and beating.

Michael Deutsch:

Then, since this was only for liability, we had two damaged trials. One for the worst person that was damaged, and that was Big Black. And the jury returned a 4 million dollar-verdict for him. Then that we had a trial of the typical person who was run through the gauntlet and beaten up, but didn't have any permanent injuries. The jury found $75,000 for him. So do the math. If there was a thousand people who were treated that same way, that's 75 million dollars. That's what they were looking at, plus the 4 million from Big Black. So of course, they appealed to the Second Circuit, the United States Court of Appeals. And they took that verdict away from us. They said, for some reason we had to prove each individual plaintiff was injured by this failure to supervise and that the jury verdict forms were confusing. And they said we had to start all over again, basically, doing 1200 individual trials.

Victor Goode:

Wow. hat's incredible.

Michael Deutsch:

Yeah, and this is after 20 years of work and all this money. And we didn't have the resources to continue like that. But the one thing they did say is, "Maybe you can settle it." And they sent the case to the Chief Judge, Michael Telesca, and he began settlement hearings and he had all the Brothers come and tell what happened to them. And then at the end of that process, which was now 22 years later, he awarded 8 million dollars to the Brothers and 4 million to the lawyers. And he gave... It's piddly stuff. For each prisoner that was killed, he gave him $25,000.

Victor Goode:

Wow.

Michael Deutsch:

And for the Brothers that were maimed or tortured, 125,000. And for the person that was just run through the gauntlet, $6,000.

Victor Goode:

Wow.

Michael Deutsch:

So what we could have had, if they would've affirmed that verdict was millions of dollars. But they didn't want to give prisoners millions of dollars. And they were all tied to Rockefeller anyway. A lot of those judges were friends of Rockefeller and they weren't about to give money to prisoners, rebelling prisoners. But Telesca worked it out and that was the result. And as Big Black said, "We didn't go in that yard to get a barrel of money. We went to show the world that we were human and we were entitled to be treated as human beings."

Victor Goode:

We are commemorating something that happened 50 years ago, but we're also trying to learn from what happened 50 years ago. What do you think some of the lessons are and how does that inform our communities going forward?

Minister Raymond Scott:

I think as we look at this situation that we had to endure, if we don't remember it, then it's foredoomed to repeat itself. And that's a very dangerous thing.

James Brown:

Back then, you couldn't do anything to an inmate without the different organizations coming together and making sure that that person was not harmed. Now you may have gangs fighting against each other, back then we had different organizations. You had the Young Lords, the Black Panthers and the Muslims, we had the Weathermen. But they would come together if anything happened to an inmate and they would go to the staff and make sure that those people wasn't being harmed or hurt like that. Today, seem like inmates is fighting against each other. We fought against the establishment. Today, they fight against each other. They're not going to get any meaningful change as long as it remains as that.

Michael Deutsch:

Well, at first I would say that the Attica Brothers were an extraordinary group of men, very politically conscious, very committed. The experience of working with them and seeing their resilience and their consciousness and their courage made me think, "Well, if I'm going to work with the Attica Brothers, I got to make a commitment like that." And I can't just walk away and say, "Oh, well they're there and I'm here."

Michael Deutsch:

But the reaction to what happened at Attica was that they decided to build high security prisons where they put people in what they called control units. And they took the politically active people, the politically conscious people, and they classified and put them these in these control units and kept them there indefinitely. And that happened all over the country. My understanding and my view is that we have to educate the people outside what's going on in these prisons, because they don't know.

Victor Goode:

On behalf of the organizers of this conference, I want to thank each of you for your participation, your insights, but most of all, I want to thank each of you for your participation in the events of that time. I think that when the audience ask, "What does the word solidarity mean?" Each of you have demonstrated in your own way of what it means and what it looks like. And as all of you have pointed out, it is solidarity, our commitment to work with one another, to engage and connect with one another that's going to make things like Attica never happen again. And who knows? Maybe the idea that we can radically transform criminal justice in America will be more than just an ideal. So thank you all.

Outro Music:

(singing)

 

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Attica at 50: Now

Opening Words:

Jamal Joseph, Educator

Activist Angela Davis (3:57)

 

Takeasha Newton, Community Organizing Fellow, AFJ (8:10)

Danny Glover, Artist, Activist (8:34)

Panel One (12:36):

 

Moderator:

Yao Obiora Dibia

 

Panelists:

Emani Davis, Daughter of Attica BrotherJomo Davis

Iisha Hamilton, Loved One Currently at Attica

Antonio Yarbough, Formerly Incarcerated at Attica

Pearl Smith, Wife of Attica Brother Frank “Big Black” Smith

 

Panel Two (32:19):

 

Moderator:

Heather Thompson

 

Recording:

Voice of Mumia Abu-Jamal

 

Panelists:

Mumia Abu-Jamal, Journalist

Vivian Nixon, The Square One Project

Sharif Alhajji, Attica Brother

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