Sitting in tonight was carved out of the old kitchen space. A word about one gubernatorial connection i offer to offer full disclosure in the presence of my old colleague mike klein. Both of us proudly serve in the administration of another governor, mario cuomo and instructed to remember whether it was because of the lesson of attica or his own innate patience, humanity and negotiating ability, mario cuomo was able to face a prison uprising of his own. In his case at sing sing, only 17 days after he was sworn in as governor in 1983 with a strikingly different result. Hostages were taken, demands were made, that was a bit of memory i wanted to share. Lets turn the clock back 25 years from todays house was restored for this kind of discussion. The event we are gathered to approach is the attica prison uprising from 1971, its causes, its meaning and the truth and consequences of deadly suppression, to focus on these truths our special guest tonight is doctor Heather Ann Thompson, detroit born and bred scholar, teacher and activist who served on the history faculty of unc temple, and most recently the university of michigan. The author of many important and awardwinning articles on criminal justice and mass incarceration for the New York Times, Time Magazine and the atlantic, previously offered a major book, politics, labor and race in modern detroit. For the last 10 years she has been researching and writing this exhaustive, definitive and universally acclaimed new book, blood in the water the attica prison uprising of 1971 and its legacy. Which takes us back to the trigger point of the deadly events of 1971 and the response by government. To accomplish this she interviewed surviving prisoners, hostages, Law Enforcement, former government officials, medical examiners the list is astonishing, including such familiar and revered names of tom wicker, gail is here tonight and we welcome her. Let me also acknowledge one of our own who played a role in that examination period after the uprising, our own advisor, board member who served as chairman of the new york city board of corrections, is mentioned in the book and was quite a critic of the report. So the result of that ten years, has been worth the wait, hailed as remarkable, a book that helps us understand why one group of prisoners rioted, and shared the cost. The news of the last 48 hours is fittingly it was named the list of nominees. [applause] National Book award nights because we are so proud joining doctor thompson in conversation tonight be the distinguished and really beloved writer Tanehisi Coates, macarthur grad genius 15 book between the world and me with not only a number one best seller of the 2015 National Book award, serves currently as Senior Correspondent for the atlantic, a cultural critic and cultural force and we are honored to have him here with us. We start, just a bit of housekeeping. Our guests engage in conversation of 45 minutes, they will take questions from the audience. There are cards on your seat, if you have a question at any time after the proceedings get underway, please write it down, and we will have aids patrolling to select them, and delivering your questions as well and when we end all of you are invited to the for freedom room upstairs where we will celebrate Heather Ann Thompson at a reception and book signing. With all of that out of the way, the history of bookkeeping and everything, please join me in welcoming Tanehisi Coates in conversation with Heather Ann Thompson. Trying to find something to keep it from ringing. It is just going to ring. I got it on airplane mode. A garbage bag. I called my dad today. We already talked about that i have a great reason but this is a deeply painful, agonizing book to read. The cafe on 110 and broadway, earlier today and i was reading it and heather didnt understand what i was saying but i texted her and said this is brutal and got back a question mark. What it is is a deeply painful and hard book to read and it is personal to me in a way i have not explained to you. Attica is in many ways responsible for my presence here today. When i was a child my dad had as i thought it an awful tradition of fasting on thanksgiving and who would do that fasting on the day that everybody else talks about how much they are going to eat and how much food they are going to inhale and my dad had us fasting on thanksgiving, the worst holiday. I still hate thanksgiving. I leave the holiday for thanksgiving. Part of that was a conversation we always had, the country, we need to remember the true history of what happened to the native americans. The tradition began a couple years or a year or so, do you know the story . Of course you know this story because you wrote the book, you wrote the book. So basically in memory of what happened on attica at attica, i dont know how many of you stuck with it i stuck with it to this day and called him today and i said you got to read this. A Research Librarian with citation, 100 pages of footnotes. You are going to love this. There are no footnotes and he got on me about that. You are going to love this and i told him this and i wanted to tell you you are a hero. Really wanted me to tell you that and he said i dont know if i can get through this. My dad was around when this happened. This is a huge deal. My dad was a prisoners rights activist. The story of attica pushed him to get involved and i tell people my earliest memory of a black man in jail and i literally mean that is my dad taking me to prison to see folks, his radical policy of the day identified, the headquarters, the enemy, and very much up close and attica was a huge influence, it was mostly folks, radicals who Say Something horrible that went wrong and hadnt believed it and i old him that is why you shout even if you are outside the mainstream, because you never know when history will come around and people verify those things that are mainstream at the time and he was exactly right. I am only halfway room. It is incredible. A ton of questions, but a few here, can we just get a very quick summary of what happened . Sure. 1971, attica like so many prisons in new york were bursting at the seams because there was a real intensification of policeing, and particularly in new york city. Buffalo, and the conditions were horrendous and one roll of toilet paper to last a month, two courts of water to do everything, wash, clean your self, drink, medical care so bad that prisoners were not only dying but were permanently disfigured from lack of care. This is the context the men in the yard Start Talking about, civil rights in prison, human rights in prison and many of these guys came from the streets, very active particularly rebellious in philly and 64, harlem, rochester in 64. And they begin to ask for help, initially through the system, writing letters to their state senators and begging the commissioner of corrections to do something but nothing was really done. What was done was a great deal more repression. Anyone caught having a letter asking for help, meant you were throwing yourself for an indefinite period of time and it was in that context that people Start Talking across political lines and racial lines and spanishspeaking prisoners and somebody in the yard trying to translate between the group so everyone can understand what everyone else was saying and to make a very long story short they eventually erupt and the initial moments, probably caused by a management decision wasnt planned on the part of the prisoners but it becomes a very important human rights rebellion, 1300 men, they elect representatives from each of the cellblocks, ask for observers to oversee negotiations with the state so they feel they can be heard. One of them mentioned his lovely wife is here, really insisted the media come in, Television Cameras because the problem with prison is no one sees what goes on inside and these guys were very committed to shining the light on the inside of the walls, they had been inspired by other incidents, auburn, the new york city jail system and for four days negotiated intensely the state for these basic human rights. And then one of the most brutal events, i would argue, in the 20th century. That is what you are alluding to, most difficult to read. For four days these guys are negotiating with state and Television Cameras rolling, meanwhile outside atticas walls, every battalion of the new York State Police were coming to attica and assembling outside, Corrections Officers from all the prisons in the surrounding area and for four days they didnt sleep, didnt eat much but were really fed on a diet of rumor of inmate atrocities which my Research Indicated was not coincidentally coming in the fbi, and should they falter or fall they would shoot them in the head. These guys need to have guns which will become important to the story but they are amassing, made very clear to the observers at any moment the state will come in, i now understand they were determined to come in from the beginning. The idea negotiations might net something, i think there were certainly very goodhearted people that worked hard to make it happen but at the highest level they were biding their time and i would argue would have come in sooner if not for those observers that stalled things. Suddenly they decide to come in. All those arms Corrections Officers despite the fact not like armored clubs. These guys for four days were passing out weapons indiscriminately. Nobody was writing down serial numbers, photographs of them passing the guns out and later discovered paperwork indicating some trooper started to write down these numbers and started to rip it up. Also personal weapons, personal weapons, shotguns, deer hunting rifles and literally ammunition banned by geneva. In that moment when it is clear they are going to go in the long time story was they warned the prisoners we will come in if you dont release the hostages, we are going to come in but internal paperwork revealed to me they deliberately did not give an ultimatum. The language that was used that morning was no different than on any other morning before this attack began and everybody told rockefeller including people he put on the Risk Committee who were republicans, very supportive of rockefeller, said come in like this it will be a massacre and we now know he was told if we come in like this we will kill some of the hostages and he said we are going to do it anyway so they came in and before they came in, this was a big piece of it. They sent over helicopters, one was dumping gas over the yard and i share this story because when you think of teargas you think of gas, gas in the air, cover your mouth to avoid it or something, it was a powder clinging to peoples skin in their naval passages so everyone is retching and falling to the ground, the limited footage, we have the cloud of smoke, that is when a come in with the gun. Sharing my emotions on the book, to disqualify, and the helpful turn that is a militarized why dont we think of it that way you as i was reading the book, and turned out not to be true. The insistence on hiding the identities of all, took dentures from people. And the hallmark of a lynching. Why did you think about that q remind everybody, the brutality, when everyone was subdued within 15 minutes. Certainly when everyone was shot 6 or 7 times as one of the prisoners said, and it is extremely reminiscent of lynching for a number of reasons. It is deeply racialized and prisoners with white skin stood with black prisoners, the racial epithets, punctuating, days, weeks, months, and like a lynching they stood out in front of the world because remember the media is here from everywhere but officers killed the hostages, the prisoners slipped the throat of the hostages. Not only that they castrated one of the guards and stuffed his testicles in his mouth and we saw it happen and of course this goes out on the front page of the New York Times, the la times, every smalltown newspaper in america. What it does on the inside is touches off a theory that we think of, the race riots of the 1900s or the 1890s where it is unstoppable. One prisoner, frank big black smith was all these guys were stripped naked, no medical care, bleeding, splayed on a table, a football put under his neck and is told after six hours of laying there as they are torturing and being him if you drop this football we are going to kill you. Of course he believes it, he has seen so many compatriots killed and another prisoner i talk about in the book, so many friends trying to carry him, some measure of safety, they shoot him for trying to help. Why dont we think of it. And think about what happens to people behind bars so the assumption, somehow folks are less then human, and couldnt be a lynching because they couldnt be real victims. To this question, watching in chicago, watching events across the nation which i would argue to allow people to see it. We are witnessing a moment, police legitimacy, i want to be clear, evidence, and actions have been going on, if you look for chicago, costly executing somebody and coming together, this story repeated over and over again. A certain amount of respect, in many ways different than any other violent force. You see that in attica. The media is according them respect. The authorities told us this. When the media is told the prisoners killed the hostages nobody asked or corroboration, nobody questions the idea that a black prisoner would have castrated a white guard and it ends up on the front page but this issue of Police Accountability runs throughout. For me personally one of the most Important Research finds to figure out why it was in attica we have this event that does become clear the police have in fact killed not only prisoners but hostages, why 62 prisoners were indicted for crimes that attica. Not one member of Law Enforcement so part of this book, and the interest ordinary levels, state and federal government go to to protect the police and how the police themselves from the very beginning are removing photographs, placing film and indeed, one of the most damning pieces of evidence in the book in the days, the governor is essentially persuaded to have an investigation, this is kind of a disaster, bodies everywhere. One doctor says it looks like a civil war painting inside attica but it does point someone to investigate attica. What no one knew was within days after this retaking and three more times in secret meetings that rockefellers pool house the new York State Police are there. The architects of the retaking who were then allowed to investigate the retaking, the head of the attica investigation was at this meeting and a whole cast of characters and over these meetings they essentially get their story straight and you quickly understand there are so many layers to this protection. The last and i will say about that is it works, theres a benign neglect part of this abuse too because these brothers and hostages are not silent they are telling their story, saying you are being beaten here, abused, somebody help us and there are heroes and heroines in this book who step up and try to help. The attica lawyers in particular but at every level from the lowest level workmens compensation official to state senators to the governor to the president of the United States to the Justice Department who is hearing the stories and decides not to intervene to the Supreme Court of the United States, the only one who seems to want to intervene is thurgood marshall. Everyone else says no thank you. At every level questions about how democracy at any president ial level on down. At least a conspiracy to cover up a lynching. And this is coming out to demonstrate what happened as we dont live under a military system. What does that say . That so many Democratic Institutions are their too, so quick, not only to allow this to happen i am asking how much can folks handle . How much reality can Democratic Institutions take . What you are getting at is the question, who is a legitimate victim and who really can have the mantle of victimhood and attention put on them . One of our colleagues and friends, Khalil Mohammed talks about the criminalization of blackness in his brilliant book and take a lot of profound points was one of them is certainly during prohibition prisons began to fill with more and more white folks and prisoners as white and people in power were white people were appalled at what they saw and rolled back a lot of policies and wanted to change a lot of those laws. Fundamentally we are talking about what was it not just about prisoners but these prisoners that were not legitimate, not human in the eyes of the state and why would he when it comes to prosecution their lives were not valuable. I must say on that point if you will allow me, one of the controversies in this book is i am a historian and theres a chapter on the state investigation of attica. I talk about who the state believes in Law Enforcement committed crimes at attica. Not saying they committed a crime at attica. I am recounting what the state new, when they knew it, what they thought or believed. People focus a lot of attention on that. Why would you name these guys after four years. What i find so remarkable is nobody has ever asked me why did i name the names of the prisoners at attica who also were accused of things that 62 of them did not do, and i name their names because the state was accusing them of such and such and no one ever said what about their families . Are you not tarnishing their name . So again it is a question of who has the right to be innocent. And then devoted a little epilogue to what came out of it. Maybe, you would know this, maybe there are actually books like this that exist. Like, that would be one way to write the book, but you didnt do that. I think maybe about twofifths of the book is, you know, setting the context and then what happened at attica and everything that happened afterwards. Whyd you make that decision . Yeah. Well, the book would have been a lot shorter [laughter] had i not made that decision. Im sure my editors around the room are saying, well, maybe we should have considered that. Because a whats so interesting to me about attica is we did have memoir accounts of those days. And, you know, again, everyone continued to speak up. But what we didnt know was what happened for the next 40 years that the survivors still to this day have not had an apology from the state of new york, let alone any admission of responsibility, that everybody i talked to for this book and i really, i believe pretty much everybody at some point in our discussion had a breakdown. I mean, as a historian, ones not really equipped to deal with that. I mean, i wrote a piece just for my fellow historians where i was trying to work this out. You know, were not equipped to deal with that kind of lived trauma in the present. And that told me something about the importance of the afterstory as much as the part about what brought people together at attica. Because, in fact, the afterstory, i think, is what helps us to explain why once again today you and i are sitting here not only in the nation that incarcerates more people than any other on the globe, but that chicago is erupting, and baltimore or is erupting, and, i mean, because its one of the reasons were here again, is because of the coverup, i think, at attica or the lies told about it or who was allowed to be a victim in it. Just as a writer, i have to say this is a compellingly written book, and i love historians, but people dont often say that. [laughter] about historians. [laughter] so i have two questions, and i hope im not being condescending here. What would whered you learn to write like this . Lets just get right to it. [laughter] who taught you . First of all, i mean, i do want to say any book of this length and this size, you know, cant be accomplished without amazing help from editors and, you know, helping me to figure out who are the key people to focus on and the key stories, and thats not me. But, you know, frankly as historians, and weve talked about this, we are trained to footnote well, and we are trained to do Research Better than anyone, i would maintain. But we are not necessarily trained in how to convey that. And i felt very inadequate in that. I mean, i remember picking i would start to read, you know, novels and try we just, it just felt like bereft of language, you know . How do you describe the retaking without constantly using words like, you know, terrible or horrific. [laughter] now youre a writer. [inaudible conversations] welcome to my world. Were not capturing it. And, of course, again, so with tremendous insight and help from folks who read it and helps me with that. But thank you. Because interestingly, when this book was first, you know, when i thought i would do it, i didnt even consider necessarily doing it as a trade press. I mean, again, even in the profession we dont often think about that you were going to go with University Press . Originally, because my first book was with cornell University Press, and needless to say, it was an upstate new york story. But the reality was i wanted my grandparents to read it, i wanted someone to read it who, you know i wanted everyone to read it because of the story in it and because i wanted the stories finally in one place and shouted out somewhere. What about a decision to go narrative as opposed to more, i guess, a method that compares different view points in different ways people have looked at it, more because i wanted people to read it. [laughter] because i was, because if we would have begun what this book argues right, right, right, exactly. [laughter] no, i mean, no. With enormous respect to my profession, some stories are just they tell themselves. Right. And, frankly, the survivors told this story. Right. You know, sitting i remember one time, and i always share this story with people because for some reason it was one that stuck with me. I visited the widow of one of the slain guards, ask were sitting in her house, and her family was so traumatized by this event because many of these guard families if i didnt say this, the guards not only are killed as well, but theyre also swindled by the state of new york which we can talk about in a moment. So im in this living room x this family is destroyed by this. One of their children had committed suicide. Again, one just the ripples of trauma. And she was so overwhelmed by how could this have happened . How could they have come this and killed their own that she wrote to William Kunsler who was one of the attica observers and was very clear that his allegiances were with the prisoners and, in fact, had volunteered to be a lawyer during the negotiations. And she wrote to him, and she went in her back room and brought out this letter that he had wrote back to her. It was one of these moments that it just kind of clicked that these stories were telling themselves. They, two people from about as different worlds as you can imagine, are having a correspondence, and both of them coming to the same conclusioning which is that the state was willing to take power at any cost rather than let these, you know, in her words kind of the little people, but people without allowing anyone to challenge them. And it just i dont know. I dont know if that says it. But one more was a prisoner, in fact, i saw him today at an earlier event. Theres an early part of the book where hes describing the first night in the yard, and he said he sees this guy who is a friend of his in the yard, and hes kind of Walking Around just smiling. And he asks him, you know, well, so how are you feeling . And he says just kind of in wonderment, he says i havent seen the stars in 22 years. And that, thats why its a narrative, because those stories told themselves. And does it speak to the power of and im sorry to keep taking it, but to the power of white supremacy, that folks would slaughter their own just to get this done . Yeah. No, theres no question. And that theme comes up so often even in the during the retaking in the grandchildrens that troopers graphics that troopers are writing on the wall, in the visit roll that comes yeah, its not subtly racist. 37 dead niggers or whatever number it was, the racism is not hard to distinguish forcing people to their knees that have already been shot and forcing them to give the white power salute. Right. Its very, very, very obvious. What are the lessons that we did not learn . You know, so many. But i, but i want to be clear that we didnt learn them it was very deliberate that we didnt learn them. Right. When with the state of new york stands outside of this prison and tells the world that the prisoners have killed the hostages, i really one cannot express what an important moment this is, because leading up to that in this country we were actually down, we were actually considering more community corrections, we were actually thinking about ways in which to humanize prisons. There had been lots of lawsuits to challenge brutality in prisons. And, indeed, on the eve of attica ive done, i looked at a lot of the polling, and people were sympathetic to the idea that guards needed more training in general, just ordinary citizens sympathetic to the idea that prisoners were deserving of human rights. And in that moment, i mean, not to put everything on this moment, but this moment, i think, was really a pivot. Because the, i mean, overnight, right, prisoners are barbaric, they are animals, they should get the Death Penalty for what they did at attica. Meanwhile, it was, again, it was Law Enforcement that had committed these deaths or, you know, carried out these deaths. But yet that was where, that was where the nations sentiment went. So we didnt learn what had really happened at attica but not because reasoned people could not have figured it out. We didnt learn it because the narrative was immediately taken over right. And every time the hostages tried to speak out, they were shut down. They tried to sue the state of new york for workmans compensation. They couldnt because the state had come to their houses and given them little meager or checks and said, you know, mrs. So and so, thisll tide you over. Never told them if they cashed these 42 checks that they had elected a remedy, they wouldnt be able to sue the state of new york. Thats their story. These prisoners story, these atrocities are going on, and clear up until the final civil case the States Lawyers maintained this was nothing but a fraternity hazing, it hadnt happened, it didnt happen. And one of the most chilling things to read is the defense, the closing arguments in the defense of the final civil cases because it is an utter denial that these people suffered anything. So the fact we didnt learn it is in part because the people who experienced it were not able to speak. And the cost of not learning it was, again, i feel like prisons have become bigger, larger, more punitive. Folks do much more time, much more time in solitary or. The event solitary. The event that i did this morning, there were atta brothers attica brothers there that had been in the yard, but also a whole lot of young guys that had come from attica. And it was really one of the most kind of haunting experiences listening to them, because it was so clear that the repression after attica lasted decades, not but the legacy, i say in the book, is not just repression. Because, you know, if weve been watching the news, i mean, in the last week 400 prisoners in florida, 400 in michigan, people have been erupting again. There have been a series of work stoppages. We dont actually know the full extent of it because, frankly, because we cant get inside of these Public Institutions to know whats going on. But in every one of those cases, they shouted out attica. Because it also, part of its legacy is, again, that fight for justice and that desire to always be heard as a human being. You know, i think one of the things you do pretty remarkably is draw human beings. And one of the most oddly compelling characters in there is the guy whos head of corrections, oswald, who sees himself as a good guy. Very, to me, prototypical sort of liberal reformer that cant quite go far enough or cant get the powers that be to go far enough. Somebody approaching him as a character, how did you feel . I felt like he was deeply a tragic figure. Right. Because whereas rockefeller, i mean, his reputation was certainly as a liberal republican, but he was also a deep, cold warrior. He felt kind of an operator, right . Like advises on the presidency, and hes thinking about absolutely. But he also feels like this is a communist conspiracy from jump. And hes very, again, hes a dyedinthewool cold warrior. But oswald is this guy from wisconsin, he works on the parole system, hes a reformer, he believes these guys need to be listened to. If it werent for os to wald, im not sure os to wald, im not sure there would have been observers. He allows them in. But hes frazzled and harried, and hes one of these people thats between these polls of people poles of people who say, no, its not enough to give me one more shower, you know . The guys in the yard. And the state who he has literally pushed back at and who are calling for him to be resigned, to resign and who are, basically, the Law Enforcement is sending him death threats. So hes one of these guys that really, you know, really do very emblematic of this period, right . Trying to fix it, trying to do the right thing but being between these poles where it would have been very difficult. I keep coming back to this question, and i think itll be my last one, because its almost your guys time. I could talk all night. Maybe ill be [inaudible] i just keep well, let me ask you this first. Reading this book as a reader, i find myself, i think about where my sympathies are are pretty clear. But i found myself frustrate ared at various moments. [laughter] its a very interesting night, you know whats going to happen and you look at [inaudible] and youre like, come on, man. So you look at William Kunsler, and you say, oh did you find yourself in moments where you were actually frustrated even though you know whats happening, whats going to happen . Right. I mean, so one of the stories that hes talking about is that many of the guys in the yard, they on their list of observers is these people who they have lifted up as real heroes who will speak for them. And they wanted someone from the black panther party, and they originally wanted huey newton, but who they got was bobby seale. And its not a very flattering portrait of bobby seale, because he essentially comes into the yard, and theyve been waiting for him and waiting for him and waiting for him, and he wont he kind of he doesnt want to, he doesnt want to endorse them, he doesnt want to endorse and so he sort of does nothing, and he turns on his heels and leaves. And its just one of these moments where its, yeah, its dashing a few illusions, but its also, that was why this was i hope what people feel is the unexpected. One minute you think you know what side youre on for lack of a better term and then get a little bit right. Its more complicated. I think one of the things that got me was the sheer scale of, like, the villainy also. Literally, youre having autopsies, and theyre troopers, you know what i mean, who are, you know, basically trying to get in the room. Folks are driving around to funeral homes, you know what i mean . To make sure, you know, this constant intimidation. And i hate to come back to this, heather, but i just what the hell are we supposed to think . These are the people who are supposed to protect us, you know, who are acting like thugs, and this is a thing that happened within the living memory of many of us, you know . What are we left with . Well, certainly were left today as were having these discussions about prosecutors and grand juries and police that the internal system is clearly flawed and insufficient. Attica shows nothing else, it shows that. I mean, its a closed society. As prisons are a closed society, in that sense Law Enforcement and the grand jury system and the prosecutorial relationship between the police and the grand jury, i mean, this is a very closed world. And yet the stakes are far too high to have a world that closed with that much responsibility. But i dont think thats, any of that is unfixable. Right. But it is remarkable how were still here, and this idea that theres so much prosecutorial discretion of what even to bring to a grand jury or that the grand jury can hear heinous testimony and still not indict. I mean, it really does raise a lot of questions about today, or at least i hope it does. One of the things is that closed society is not just present in prisons, its very much present in how police commit crimes right. Absolutely. Okay, so its you guys time. Do i have any more questions . Oh, theyre coming. I like this. Theyre getting screened here, okay. What vised you most surprised you most during and after the book . What did you least expect to uncover . [laughter] i think the journey what i, what i was most surprised initially was that as a historian, i just assumed when i decided i wanted to write a book on attica that i would go to the archives, and i would ask for box number ten and folder number five, and i would write the story. So that was shock number one. But probably shock number two was after a number of years of poking around, i did have the tremendous fortune to come across a whole stash of records that changed everything because it really did show the inside of the attica investigation. And probably what is most surprising today is and im deeply grateful for it is that the story of prettier rights rez prisoner rights resonates again. I wonder if even three years ago it would have resonated as it is now, and im very grateful for that because this stuff, according to the guys im hearing today, this morning, this tough goes on all the time. And yet those walls are so high, and the doors are closed so firmly that we cant, we dont see it. You mentioned heroes in your book. Can you tell us about the women in this story . Oh, gosh. Yeah. Even though this is a facility that its all men, and the observers are men, the reason we know so many of these stories and one of the heroines is sitting here, is the attica lawyers, many of whom were, i mean, devoted their entire lives to making sure that these stories were told, making sure that the attica prisoners were defended. And so women like elizabeth gains, elizabeth fenk, you know, tremendous advocates for justice. And then on the hostage side of it, women like gwen miller, the daughter of a slain guard, who, you know, this became her life to make sure that the story was told. In fact, her activism has really pushed the envelope to get the Attorney Generals Office today to start thinking about releasing records. So theres a lot of women in here who, i mean, they, theyre with attica ca for 40 years, and they make it happen. As you were doing your research, who did not want to talk to you . [laughter] and or can you talk about the role fear played and why is that fear still so pervasive today . So i feel like, i feel like the only people who didnt want to talk to me were from rockefellers administration. I certainly tried. But i feel like pretty i mean, i was able to talk to troopers, i was able to talk to pretty much someone from every one of the groups of people who are talked about or told in this book except for people closest to rockefeller. And i, you know, i do regret that, because i did have a lot of questions. Although, you know, again, the paper trail, you know, was there. I do feel confident that i was able to count a lot of what they did think or did do, but i wasnt able to talk to them. But even the troopers i must say, you know, its very interesting. The troopers committed so many of the horrors at attica, but many of those troopers were actually so traumatized by attica that they come to court 40 years later, 30 years later, and thats how we know that the identifying badges were removed, you know . Thats how we know i had a guy who was a Monroe County sheriff who after the 40th anniversary called me, and he was, he had for 40 years, you know, or whatever since then at point 30 years, holding on to these stories of what he witnessed that day. And, i mean, he just broke down. He wanted so this was such a horrific event that the Law Enforcement even that participated and there were plenty who denied it all, and theyre in here too. But there were just these pockets of heroes and heroines in this story. Im going to paraphrase this question. Did you contact any of the officers who were imly candidated . I get implicated. I get that a lot. No, i did not. But Everyone Needs to understand too that i didnt this was not an oral history, so youll notice in my footnotes it doesnt say that i interviewed people. Its really clear i had conversations with people, and many of those people came into my life through the journey of doing the book. When i discovered who some of these people were, again, who the state had felt had committed a crime at attica, i was very worried about even, frankly, revealing that i had the documents, that i had seen what i had seen because thered been such a concerted effort to not release the attica files. So at that point, i just kind of hunkered down and just not raise the alarm that i had seen the documents more than anything else. So attendant to those documents were those names, but i didnt. And i dont know, frankly, whether anyone has tried to find them. Are there people still alive who might be charged or prosecuted for the atrocities that occurred . You know, thats an interesting question. Certainly legally, and im not a lawyer, but i think someone can correct me if im wrong, but because theres no statute of limitations on murder, presumably there could still be prosecutions. But one cannot underestimate the damage that was done to the chain of right. Command. The chain of evidence is what im trying to say. You know, its not impossible. First of all, it would take the will, and we dont even have the will today to see through investigations in chicago, for example. Right, right. So it would take the will. But it also, you know, coverups are effective, and it would be very difficult. But, you know, i think that always will remain a question. And i do think it goes to the heart of why those documents are so protected, and i think it goes to the heart of why the police, every time there has been a talk of opening these records, they have stepped up and been very, very active to not want these records open, and one can only imagine thats why. Its also part of and, you know, forget the individual atrocities, but that the state itself might be held responsible, and there might be some compensation, reparations [laughter] yeah. Im just saying. Yeah. Well, and its but its interesting you say that, because at the end of the day, you know, i think that the chapter on the retaking which is the hardest to get through, initially when youre in that chapter, its the fury at Law Enforcement, its the fury of that kind of brutality. But i think, and correct i dont know what youll think, but by the end of the book, it seems so clear to me that the real responsibility is, again, with state. Oh, its true even when i was reading that chapter. Even in that chapter its clear. Its clear. Sending in people by the way, one of the troopers that gets sent in, his brother is a hostage, and hes been out there for four days arming so whos responsible for that . Whos responsible for letting this happen . So that at the, at the end of the day, that is the state. What do you think of the idea that attica should be closed can turned into a museum . Attica should absolutely be closed. Right. Stop there. No. Attica should absolutely be closed. Yes. I mean, and theres many new yorkers who share that view, who are working very hard to try to close it. And, indeed, internally officials who have worked at attica and who know attica intimately feel that it should be closed. It is, it is a trauma site, and it is and by the way, i mean, if you walk in there today, it looks just as it did in 1932. Wow. It has not changed. When i was up on the cat walks of attica catwalks of attica, you can still see the chips in the event where the bullets were flying i mean, this is a trauma site. And to this day, trauma goes on in it, so, yes, attica needs to be shut down. How difficult was it for you to get in there . Extremely. Because the state denied my request. I made numerous requests, and the only way i got into attica was a very convoluted way. I ultimately met some of the surviving hostages. One of the surviving hostages i mean, one of the slain hostages sons is still a corrections officer at attica, and he wanted me to see it. And so it was through him that i was able to get in and see the catwalk, and he showed me, you know, this is where my father was killed, this is where the bullets were. But had it not, again, been for that and, frankly, speaking of privilege, had i not looked like i looked, i would never have probably gotten in there to see that. Are you aware of the reform passed for prior felons to apply and go to suny college . I saw that, and again i think this really speaks to that other legacy of attica which is not repression which is the legacy of, again, reaching into the humanity of the story and understanding that part of, part of this process has got to be healing, and part of this process cannot be abuse no. None of this process can be abused. Part of it has to be learning, healing, education, recognizing that people in prison are people. How are we doing on time . [inaudible] okay. I love this question. Oh, dear. [laughter] no, youre fine. Okay. [laughter] because its relevant even today. The question is why did the press knuckle under . What happened to investigative reporting . I was going to say, why dont you answer [laughter] yeah. I just want to Say Something yeah, yeah, yeah. I think more journalists, even journalists who are covering this president ial campaign should be more aware of the extent to which the american media, specifically american newspapers, have been part of the atrocities that have been committed against africanamericans in this country. [applause] its a long, like, disgraceful history. Yeah. And people who are, you know, going into this profession who think that theyre just being objective and dont understand the traditions in which theyre working, its just, it was so sad. I mean, i was not shocked at all to see the press knuckle under. The press knuckled under only ten years ago with iraq. I mean, it happens all the time. Why is the New York Times calling, you know, when one country doing something calling it torture, and when the United States does it, calling it enhancedded interrogation . We knuckle under all the time. Its sad to say, but true. I mean, agree. And i think attica actually shows a little bit of the behind the scenes of this. There are stories when the press is told that the prisoners have killed the hostages, i follow up on that a little bit in the book because the question is, so what was was there any fallout from this when its very clear that this isnt what happened . And it was a really interesting, mixed response. Some of the reporters are furious and are, you know, at rockefellers door banging on it saying, you know, you lied. Because, of course, part of it is your own guilt not asking the questions. You just accepted it. Exactly. One of the interesting stories that i just heard last week x i wish i would have known this for the book, one of the most important attica reporters on the scene was john johnson. And he stands out. If anyone has seen the eyes on the prize, he is the reporter outside, and he just breaks down, and he says theyre killing people in here, because hes hearing the retaking. Anyway, i was never able to find him. And kind of would have wanted to talk to him. He contacted me, and he told me this fascinating story which is that when this happened and the lies were told about attica, everybody rushed to print, and he refused, and he worked for abc, and he lost his job. Wow. And not only that, but the guys who did then try to do right thing and this i do write about for one of the newspapers in new york their own editor in new york stepped in and said, nope, this is far too sympathetic to the prisoners, lets, lets find to out, and youll see this, i want to know what were their crimes that got them there in the first place. Right. How can this book impact or accelerate Prison Reform in usa . Do you even accept the term Prison Reform . Is that one you would use . I dont, but i am grateful if at the very least this book moves the needle. I wouldnt even presume that it would, but i would be thrilled if it would move the needle even so far as that people read this and get a very different idea of who is it thats behind bars. The thing about the story is that, you know, you say attica today, and everybody, i think, pictures sort of the worst of the worst. Even the word connotes such a brutal maximum security facility, attica, upstate new york. And some of the first people you meet in this book are, you know, 19yearold parole violaters who are there driving without a license, cutting someones convertible top, you know . Two of the barkley, right . L. D. Barkley was 241. Right. 21. So i hope it destabilizes this idea of whos behind barses. Many of these guys, frankly, there were some bad dudes in there, but there was a lot of drug addiction, you know . A lot of property crimes because people were stealing because they should have had a drug addiction dealt with. And thats no different than today. And if it destabilizes at least