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Blood in the water : the Attica prison uprising of 1971 and its legacy / Heather Ann Thompson.

by Thompson, Heather Ann, 1963- author.

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Pantheon Books, [2016]

Prison riots -- New York (State)

Prisoners -- Abuse of -- New York (State)

New York (State)

On September 9, 1971, nearly 1,300 prisoners took over the Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York to protest years of mistreatment. Holding guards and civilian employees hostage, during the four long days and nights that followed, the inmates negotiated with state officials for improved living conditions. On September 13, the state abruptly ended talks and sent hundreds of heavily armed state troopers and corrections officers to retake the prison by force. In the ensuing gunfire, thirty-nine men were killed -- hostages as well as prisoners -- and close to one hundred were severely injured. After the prison was secured, troopers and officers brutally retaliated against the prisoners during the weeks that followed. For decades afterward, instead of charging any state employee who had committed murder or carried out egregious human rights abuses, New York officials prosecuted only the prisoners and failed to provide necessary support to the hostage survivors or the families of any of the men who'd been killed. Heather Ann Thompson explores every aspect of the uprising and its legacy from the perspectives of all of those involved in this forty-five-year fight for justice: the prisoners, the state officials, the lawyers on both sides, the state troopers and corrections officers, and the families of the slain men.

xvii, 724 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm

Introduction: State secrets -- The tinderbox: Frank "Big Black" Smith -- Power and politics unleashed: Michael Smith -- The sound before the fury: Tom Wicker -- Retribution and reprisals unimagined: Tony Strollo -- Reckonings and reactions: Robert Douglass -- Inquiries and diversions: Anthony Simonetti -- Justice on trial: Ernest Goodman -- Blowing the whistle: Malcolm Bell -- David and Goliath: Elizabeth Fink -- A final fight: Deanne Quinn Miller.

Bancroft Prize in American History and Diplomacy, 2017

Finalist, National Book Award for Nonfiction, 2016

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