In the summer of 1971, New York’s Attica State Prison was a symbol of much that was broken in America: rampant racism and a blind eye turned toward injustices perpetrated on the powerless. When the guards at Attica overreacted to a minor incident, the prisoners decided they’d had enough – and revolted against their jailers, taking them hostage and making demands for humane conditions.
Negotiations failed and state troopers stormed the prison, firing indiscriminately into a yard obscured by tear gas. Among the 43 dead, ten hostage correctional officers were killed by police gunfire, though “fake news” reports spread allegations, unsupported by medical reports, that their throats had been cut by their captors.
Beatings, humiliations and other reprisals against the prison population followed the quelling of the uprising, and two of the three volumes of the 1975 Meyer Report on the state’s investigation of the matter were sealed from public scrutiny for 40 years. Despite the secrecy, some reforms to the state prison system followed in the wake of Attica, including the institution of a grievance procedure for inmates.
At the center of the uprising was an inmate named Frank “Big Black” Smith. He was assigned the role of head of security, helping maintain order in a volatile situation and keeping the hostages and observers safe. The story of the nation’s most famed and deadly prison riot is now told from his perspective in a newly released graphic novel, Big Black: Stand at Attica. One of its authors, Saugerties resident Jared Reinmuth, will do a presentation on the new work he created with Frank Smith and Améziane, described as “an unflinching look at the true story about the price of standing up to injustice,” at the Saugerties Public Library at 6 p.m. on Saturday, February 29, wrapping up the library’s Black History Month activities.
The Saugerties Film Society and ShoutOut Saugerties are co-sponsors of this event, which is free and open to the public. It will also include a screening of Cinda Firestone’s highly regarded 1974 documentary Attica, which uses primary footage from surveillance and news cameras along with prisoner, family and guard interviews to reconstruct the events of that terrible week in September of ’71.
Big Black: Stand at Attica
Saturday, Feb. 29, 6 p.m.
Free
Saugerties Public Library
91 Washington Ave., Saugerties
(845) 246-4317
http://saugertiespubliclibrary.org