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I HAD THE GREAT PRIVILEGE OF SERVING AS A LAW CLERK FOR THE HONORABLE MICHAEL A. TELESCA IN THE EARLY 1980S. JUDGE TELESCA, WHO PASSED AWAY IN EARLY 2020, PRESIDED OVER THE SETTLEMENTS OF LITIGATION THAT SPANNED THREE DECADES AFTER THE ATTICA PRISON UPRISING. A SUIT WAS BROUGHT BY PRISONERS AND ANOTHER BY THE PRISON GUARDS AND THE FAMILIES OF GUARDS KILLED WHEN THE ORDER WAS GIVEN, AFTER FOUR UNSUCCESSFUL DAYS OF NEGOTIATIONS, TO FORCIBLY RETAKE THE PRISON. YEARS LATER, JUDGE TELESCA ASKED ME IF I KNEW THE TRUE STORY OF THE ATTICA UPRISING. I THOUGHT I DID, BUT HE QUICKLY CORRECTED ME AND ASSURED ME THAT I DID NOT. HE TOLD ME IT WAS AN IMPORTANT STORY FOR ME AND ALL AMERICANS TO KNOW, AND THE BEST REN- DITION OF THAT STORY WAS DR. HEATHER THOMPSON’S BLOOD IN THE WATER. I FOUND DR. THOMPSON’S BOOK ONE OF THE MOST FASCINATING AND FRIGHTENING BOOKS I HAVE EVER READ. DR. THOMPSON GRACIOUS- LY AGREED TO SPEAK IN ROME EVEN THOUGH SHE WAS ON SABBATICAL WRITING ANOTH- ER BOOK AND HAD DECIDED NOT TO ACCEPT SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS THIS YEAR. BELOW IS AN ABRIDGED SUMMARY OF HER REMARKS:
So why should we talk about Attica here today, this morning, in this beautiful setting? Why should we talk about prison, about something so grim, so ugly, especially about an event that took place so long ago? Well, in short, I want to suggest we have to talk about this because if one is an American, one is never able to escape the fact that we now live in a country that locks up more men, women and children than any other country on the globe and also more than at any other time in our history. I want to suggest that our history matters to this story and that all of this happened in no small part because we got our history wrong in ways that are really troubling.
We have to look back to the 1960s and ‘70s and accept that we got it wrong in ways that were not actually our fault. The American people, or- dinary people, goodhearted people who had been paying attention, trying to do the right thing, were, in turns out, deliberately mislead, in some cas- es actually lied to about some of the most consequential events that were going on at the time. One of those events was the prison uprising that took place in upstate New York at the Attica State Correctional Facility back in 1971, fifty-one years ago this week. And what happened there, I want to submit to you, changed history.
So what exactly happened? Well, Attica is a place where 1,300 men stood together to call attention to the brutal conditions that were going on inside. Those were conditions of men being fed on $.63 per day; terrible,
terrible, medical care. Terrible abuses, physical abuses, emotional abuses; indignities, one right after another. People being given one toilet paper roll per month.
And so these men came together on September 9, 1971, quite unplanned, quite unexpected, in a remarkable human rights uprising. I say “human rights uprising” because at the core, that’s what those demands were. This was an uprising that captured the world’s attention. The men had elected representatives to speak for them out of each of their cell blocks. They had set up a medical tent, a food tent. They had taken hostages. They felt that these hostages would be their way to prevent state officials from coming in immediately and retaking the prison. They surrounded those hostages with rings of prisoners to protect them. They protected those hostages for four days and nights and got the injured hostages out for medical care, as well as some of the injured prisoners.
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