Survivors of 1971 rebellion demand: ‘Shut down Attica!’

New York City

The Attica Brothers Foundation (ABF) organized an event at Trinity Church in New York City on Sept. 9 to commemorate the 52nd anniversary of the heroic uprising of prisoners. Participants in the uprising were murdered and tortured by guards, state troopers and the National Guard at the notorious Attica Correctional Facility on Sept. 13, 1971.  

Prisoners were forced to take guards hostage to present to the world their righteous demands to be treated as workers and human beings. The official report stated that 32 unarmed prisoners and 11 guards were shot to death.  

Wearing “Attica is all of us” shirts, Attica brothers, including Che Nieves, Akil Shakur, Carlos Roche and Tyrone Larkins, spoke eloquently about surviving the massacre and continuing the fight for social justice for people inside and outside the walls. A main theme of the program and an ongoing campaign of the ABF is to shut down Attica once and for all.  

The program also featured a presentation by author Heather Ann Thompson, who won a Pulitzer Prize for her book, “Blood in the Water.” The book gives an account of the horrific conditions inside the prison that sparked the four-day rebellion, the cowardly massacre ordered by the late New York governor and billionaire, Nelson Rockefeller, and the aftermath of the rebellion.  

Go to facebook.com/AtticaIsAllOfUs and atticabrothersfoundation.org for more information. Read “WW interviews Attica survivor, Che Nieves” in three parts at workers.org dated Aug. 11, Aug. 18 and Aug. 20, 2021.