The pain of it. You know, my dad was in the black panthers. This is a huge deal. Im telling you what it means to me. My dad was in the Panther Party, the story of early pushing after he left the Panther Party to stay involved. My earliest memory of black men in jail. Commitment jail. I mean it to be true. My dad taking me into the person to see folks. He identified it as the headquarters. He wanted me to watch a close. The buddy said to me, at the time it was mostly folks, radicals or something went wrong i told them that is why you shall. That is why you scream outside the mainstream because you never know when history will come around 45 years later and people verify things that the mainstream at the time and it turns that is exactly right. Ill save that for the bug. Even though im only halfway through. If you hear who are not familiar, can we just get a very quick summary of what happened and why its important. Sure. 1971, abaco like so many prisons in new york were bursting at the seams because they had been a real policing in inner cities across the nation that particularly in new york city. Buffalo, rochester and attica was filled with 2400 men overwhelmingly black and puerto rican but also bateman and the conditions were horrendous. They wear, you know, one roll of toilet paper is to last a month. Two quarts of water to do everything in. Wash, clean yourself, drink. Medical care so bad that prisoners were not only dying, but were permanently disfigured from lack of care. This is the context that the men in the yard Start Talking about his civil rights in the presents, human rights and the prison and many of these guys had also come from streets that had been buried at it, particularly parliament 64, rochester and 64 you 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 dead. While the sun was a great deal more repression. Anyone caught having the letter asking for help with be thrown in yourself for indefinite periods of time. You couldnt get out. It is in that context that people Start Talking across political lines, racial lines. There is usually somebody in the yard trying to translate between the group so everybody could understand what everyone else was saying. To make a very long story short, they eventually erupt. Actually, the initial moment is probably caused by a management decision wasnt planned on the part of the prisoners that it becomes a very important human rights rebellion. 1300 men gathered together in one part of the pricing. They elect representatives from each of the cellblocks to speak for them. They ask for observers to come in to oversee negotiations with the state said that they feel they can be heard. One of them is Herman Padilla was mention, his lovely wife is here and really insisted that the media come in. That there were Television Cameras because the problem with prison is nobody ever what goes on inside. These guys were very committed to shining the light on the inside of the wall. Of course they have been inspired themselves by other uprisings that it just happened. Auburn, new york city show system and for four days negotiating intensely with the state for these basic human right. And then, one of the most brutal events i would argue in the 20th century and i think that is part of what you were alluding to is most difficult to read. For four days these guys are negotiating with the state announced the Television Cameras are rolling meanwhile outside of atticas walls, virtually every battalion of the new York State Police were coming to attica and assembling outside his house correction officers from all of the prisons in the surrounding area. For four days they didnt sleep on the chimney much, but were really fed on a diet of rumor of an made atrocities on the inside which incidentally my Research Indicated was not coincidentally coming from the fbi. One of the rumors was these guys were standing at the hostages and attention it should default to our fault they would shoot them in the head. These guys didnt even have guns which will become very important to the story. They are amassing and its becoming clear to the observers that at any moment the state will come in. I now understand they were determined to come in from the very beginning. The idea that negotiations might have meant something, there is certainly very goodhearted people that help so i worked hard to make it happen. At the highest levels they were biding their time and i would argue that its coming sooner sooner had it not been for observers in the quicktime installed a safe faith. Suddenly on the fifth day, they decided they were going to come in with the new York State Police and not the second correction officers despite the fact when you say armed, even literally. Like with clubs. The guys were passing out weapons indiscriminately. Nobody was writing done serial numbers. I have photographs of them passing gunfight at the back of trucks. Later i discovered paperwork indicating some of the troopers did start to write down and they were told to rip it up basically. We dont want to know who has which guns. Personal weapons, shotguns, deer hunting, rifles. Literally giving mission is banned. Thats right. And now gone that when its clear they are going to go when, the longtime story was dead once the prisoners we are going to come in. If you dont release hostages we will come in. Internal paperwork revealed to me that they actually deliberately did not give an ultimatum. In other words, the language used is no different than it had been any other morning before this attack began. Everybody told rockefeller, including people he put on the Observers Committee who were republicans, who are very supportive set if you come in like this its going to be a massacre. We now know that he was told if i come in here like this we are going to kill some of the hostages. He said we are going to do it anyway. So they came in and right before they came in, another big piece of it, they first sent over helicopters that were dumping gas over the yard. I share this story with people because when we think of tear gas, we think our guys come at a gas in the air and maybe if you cover your mouth you can avoid it or something. But is actually a powder clinging to peoples skin in their nasal passages. Everyone is scratching and falling to the ground, largely immobilizing. The limited footage we have deep into the cloud of smoke and everybody gets mowed down. That is when they came in with guns. You know, we talked earlier and one of the questions qualifies as a lynching immediately had to guess. Its a militarized lynching. Why dont we think about it that way . I knew the story before i read it. As i was reading about was reading the book a lot of details to mention for instance paranoia about what was happening to not be true. The insistence on hiding the identities of people, the taking of souvenirs, all of it has the hallmark of a lynching. Why do we think about that one . Before he answered back, let me remind everybody to retake it is just the beginning of the brutality. When everybody is subdued within 15 minutes i would argue they were subdued when the gas came through. Certainly a bonus six and seven times as one of the prisoners said all i could see was the lead in the water. If the bafflement the road brutality wins and its extremely reminiscent of a lynching for a number of reasons. One, it is deeply racialized. Even the prisoners with white skin because they assume that the black prisoners. The racial epithets coming with all of them in punctuating the torture that goes on throughout the days, weeks, months. But also like a lynching they stood out in front of the world because the media is here from everywhere at this point and say after their officers, the prisoners have slit the throats of the hostages and not only that theyve one of the cars stuffed his in the mouth. We saw it happening. One actually said we have film of it. Of course this goes out on the front page of the New York Times, l. A. Times, all the ap papers in every smalltown newspaper in america. But it does on the inside is touches off a fury that we think of the race riots of the 1900s in the 1890s where it is just unstoppable. One prisoner, frank a blacksmith below these guys are stripped, bleeding, no medical care on a table with a football put under his neck if they dropped the football we are going to kill you. Of course he believes that. He that. Hes just seen so many killed and another prisoner that i talk about in the book shot so many times. But one of his friends is trying to care he had to some measure of safety, issue had first tried to help. So why dont i think about it that way . It goes to the core of our conscious of the nation that we dont think about what happens to people when we put them behind bars. If we were to retake a prison in this fashion they somehow those folks are less than human and what happens to them could be a lynching because they couldnt be real victims. Botching these events in chicago and across the nation over the past few years that we have new technology to allow people to see it but they are particularly new events. That we are witnessing a moment in which the real assault on police legitimacy. I want to be clear about what im saying. Its not the evidence making the assault. The actions have been going on for a long time. But i look at chicago and when you have cops literally executing somebody in coming together to create a story and you see it repeated over and over again. Theyre supposed to have a certain amount of respect. In many ways he werent any different than any other violent course in the nation. I think you kind of see that in attica. I mean, the media is supporting members back. The authorities told us this. Some of the media so the prisoners are killed, nobody asks for cooperation. Nobody questions the idea that a black prisoner wouldve a white card. Its just of course and therefore it ends up on the front page. But the issue of Police Accountability i think runs throughout. For me personally one of the most Important Research scientist to figure out why it was that she had this event that quickly does become clear to the nation that the police have in fact killed not only the prisoners that hostages. Why is it the 62 prisoners were indicted for crimes that attica and not one member of Law Enforcement. The story about state and federal government go to protect the police and how the police themselves from the very beginning are removing photographs and indeed in one of the most damning pieces of evidence in the book, in the days after this retaking the governor is essentially persuaded that he has to have an investigation. This is kind of a disaster and theres bodies everywhere. It resembles a civil war painting inside of attica. So he does appoint someone. What no one knows what days after this retaking and three more times in secret meetings at rockefellers will house, the new York State Police that they are. The architects of the retaking who are then allowed to investigate the head of the attica investigation is that this meeting and the whole cast of characters and over the meetings they essentially get their stories straight. You just quickly understand that there are so many layers to protection and the last thing ill say about that if it works there is a benign neglect part of this abuse because these brothers that attica and the hostages are not silent. They are telling their story. They are saying we are being beaten in here. We are being abused. Somebody help us. There are heroes and heroines in this book reduce step up and try to help put the attic of in particular. But at every level from the lowest level workmans comp and haitian officials to state senators to the governor to the presidency of the United States, to the Justice Department who decide not to intervene, to the Supreme Court of the United States, the only one who seems to want to intervene as Thurgood Marshall enough analysis note thank you. At every level, everyone just turns away. These questions about a democracy. You literally have a president ial level of doubt. A conspiracy to cover up a lynching. I dont think its too far to say that. You actually have evidence to demonstrate that is actually what happened. We dont live. What does that say . So many of our democratic institutions. It was so quick to not only allow this to happen very quickly turn the page. And asking how much truth can folks actually handle . How much actual reality cannot democrat institutions take . What youre really getting at is the question of who is a legitimate big and who really can have that intel is victimhood and put on them. One of our colleagues kahlil mohammed writes about blackness in his brilliant book and makes a lot of profound points. One of them is during prohibition as they begin to fill as more and more white folks and began to see prisoners people were appalled and wanted to go back a lot of these policies and change a lot of these laws. Fundamentally we are really talking about what is it about but just prisoners, but not legitimate, not human in the eyes of the state and why would it be when it comes to prosecution their lives are not valuable. I must say im not point if youll allow me one of the controversies in this book is aries and historian and there is a chapter in the state investigation of attica. With the state believed in Law Enforcement have committed crimes of attica. They knew when they knew it and with a sour believed. Ive taken some degree. They focus a lot of attention on that. By which he named these guys after 40 years. What i find so remarkable is that nobody has ever went past me like a guy named names of the prisoners that attica who also were accused of things. 62 of them they did not do. I named their names because again the state was accusing them of such and such a no one ever went said what about their families . So what is this question of who has the right to be in this sense. It is absolutely when you read what actually happened and folks feel like again, you dont say anybody did anything. U. S. And historian can effectively be involved in the coverup. Thats really hard to deal with. One of the significant things about this book is very interesting to me. If you like one could have written a book recounting what happened and devoted apple augusta might have been. That would be one way to write the book. It is maybe about two fifths of the book is set in the context of not having to attica and everything that happened after. The book wouldve been a lot shorter had i not made that decision. What is so interesting to me about attica as we do have no more accounts of those days. Everyone began to speak up. But we didnt know was what happened for the next 40 years that the survivors still to this day have not had an apology for the state of new york let alone any admission of responsibility that everybody i talked to for this book and i believe pretty much everybody at some point in our discussion had a breakdown. I mean, as an historian 11 is not really equipped to deal with that. I wrote a piece when i was trying to work this out. We are not equipped to deal with that kind of trauma in the present and that told me something about the importance of the after story as much as the part about what brought people together because in fact the after story i think is what helps us to explain my once again today you and i are sitting here not in the nation in the globe but that chicago is erupting because its one of the reasons we are here regarded as because of the coverup and who is allowed to be of the victim. This is a compellingly written book. I love historians, but people dont often say that. I have two questions. I hope im not being condescending here. Where did you learn to write like this . Lets get right to it. Who taught you . First of all, i want to say any book of this length and size can be accomplished with that amazing how print editors in helping me figure out who are the key people to focus on and the key stories and that is not me. But frankly as historians in the top about this, we are trained to do research, but we are not necessarily trained in how to convey that. I felt very inadequate in now. I would start to read novels. It just felt like a raft of language. Have you described of retaking without constantly using words like terrible or horrific. Welcome to my world. We are not capturing it. The tremendous insight and help from folks who read it and helped me with that. The thank you. Interestingly when this book was first when i thought it would do it, i didnt even consider necessarily doing it as a trade press. Even the profession we dont often take about that. Originally my first book was at Cornell University press and is an upstate new york story at night it seemed a little logical. The reality was that one of my grandparents to read it. I wanted someone to read it i wanted everyone to read it because of the story and it and because i wanted the story is finally in one place somewhere. What about the narrative as opposed to a method that compares different viewpoints and different ways people look at it. Because they wanted people to read it. If we wouldve begun with this boat argues book argues. With enormous respect to my profession, some stories tell themselves. Frankly, survivors told this tory. I wish her the story with people and because its one that stuck with me. I visited the widow of one of the slain guards that we are sitting in her house and her family was so traumatized that the event because many of these families if they didnt say this, the guards not only are killed as well but also slender slender swindled by the state of new york. Again, the ripples of trauma and she was so overwhelmed by how could this have happened . How could they have come in and killed their own debt she wrote to william comes later, who was one of the attica observers and was very clear that his allegiances were with the prisoners and in fact i did volunteer to be a lawyer for prisoners in the yard during negotiation. She wrote to him and she went in her background and brought up the ladder wrote to her. It is one of these moments where it operates that these words are telling themselves. Two people from about as difficult as you can imagine how the correspondent can come to the same conclusion that the state was will