65 pages • 2 hours read
Heather Ann ThompsonBlood in the Water
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2016A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2: “Power and Politics Unleashed”
“Michael Smith” Summary
Michael Smith was in many ways a typical CO. From rural New York State, he took a job in the prison system to support and marry his wife. First at a prison in Napanoch, New York, he then moved to Attica. Smith tried to treat the prisoners with respect but was concerned by the inhumane treatment practiced by other COs. When Oswald gave the recorded response to the prisoners, he becomes worried that something would happen.
Chapter 8 Summary: “Talking Back”
After the disappointment of Oswald’s message, and with failed promises of reform, as Thompson says, “most men at Attica were now at a breaking point” (45). Sure enough, on September 8, 1971, an incident occurred. At 3:30pm, Leroy Dewer and another man were sparring with each other in the recreation yard when a CO misinterpreted what was happening as a genuine fight and called senior CO Lieutenant Maroney, who then ordered Dewer to his cell. When Dewer refused, Maroney grabbed him, and Dewer turned and punched him. Maroney informed prison superintendent Mancusi but got no response. Later that evening, COs went to take Dewer to solitary confinement, and when he stalled, they dragged him out of his cell. With the commotion, many prisoners thought that guards had killed Dewer.
Chapter 9 Summary: “Burning Down the House”
Prisoner Oritz was kept in “keep-lock” (being kept in one’s cell for an indefinite amount of time as a punishment) for throwing something at a guard the previous night, but the prisoners managed to release him the next morning. Because they did so, on the way back to the yard after breakfast, there was an order from a high-ranking CO, Curtis, to take one group of prisoners straight back to their cells, and the tunnel to the yard for them was locked. When these inmates then saw Curtis in A-Block tunnel, one of them assaulted him, and a riot ensued in the tunnel. This riot then spread to the rest of the prison, with COs being beaten and taken hostage. However, some efforts were made on the part of prisoners to protect COs and to get those who were injured to safety.
Chapter 10 Summary: “Reeling and Reacting”
Superintendent Vincent Mancusi responds to the riot by first attempting to take back the prison with his own men, recalling off-duty COs, but was required to call for back-up from state police. Putting out a fire in E Block, they also managed to retake A and C blocks with tear gas and rifles. It was unclear what would happen, though, with B and D blocks, still in prisoner hands, as it was now apparent that the inmates had hostages and were organizing.
Chapter 11 Summary: “Order Out of Chaos”
This chapter discusses the immediate post-riot situation from the prisoners’ point of view. Initially there was chaos, involving reprisal beatings of COs, the raping of two inmates, drug taking, and theft. However, by the afternoon of September 9, prisoners had started to organize. Roger Champen, aka “Champ,” galvanized this effort with the use of a bullhorn. Forming a provisional committee from the various political factions, Black Panthers, Black Muslims, and Young Lords, they helped establish security, protection for the hostages, food distribution, and medical aid. They put aside differences because, as prisoner and Black Panther L.D. Barkley put it, quoted by Thompson, “everybody was in this thing together” (67). Finally, they had elections for representatives and formulated a list of demands, as well as a list of whom they should invite as potential “observers” to the prison.
Chapter 12 Summary: “What’s Going On”
Mancusi met with prisoner representatives and demanded that they surrender. They were only willing to talk with Oswald, head of correctional services in New York. Lawyer Herman Schwartz and Arthur Eve, a sympathetic Black assemblyman, visited the prisoners and looked at their list of demands. These included the demand for free passage from the US, which Schwartz suggested was unrealistic. Commissioner Oswald then went into D Yard, where prisoners had gathered, and agreed to prisoner demands for food, water, and the involvement of the media. After a fiery speech by inmate L.D. Barkley, the inmates gave Oswald an updated set of more practical demands, including those for better food, education, and rehabilitation programs. However, no progress had been made on the issue of hostage release, and negotiations seemed to be at an impasse.
Chapter 13 Summary: “Into the Chaos”
On the evening of the rebellion, at 7:30pm, the deputy commissioner of correctional services, Walter Dunbar, went with Schwartz to talk with prisoners. One of the prisoners had drawn up a legal document that, when signed, would guarantee that the state would not engage in reprisals. Schwartz offered to try to get it signed by a judge he knew, although the judge in question was still at a conference in Vermont. A doctor was also permitted to go in and treat prisoners. Finally, Thompson explains how despite the fear of retaliation from the state, for many inmates the night of the rebellion “felt wonderful.” In the words of one prisoner Thompson quotes, “I haven’t seen the stars in twenty-two years” (88).
Chapter 14 Summary: “A New Day Dawns”
Chapter 14 gives an account of how the “observers committee,” a group of independent lawyers, politicians, and activists, was drawn together on September 10 to negotiate with prisoners. As well as Schwartz and Eve, it included Raymond Scott, who worked with anti-poverty group FIGHT, and Black clergyman Martin Chandler. The state also wanted someone more sympathetic to its side of things, so Norman Hurd and Buzz O’Hara from the governor’s office were enlisted for this role. At 11:25am, Oswald, along with Schwartz, went for further talks in D Yard. Both Oswald and Schwartz were subjected to verbal abuse, and the document secured by the latter, with the signature of a judge guaranteeing no state reprisals, was ripped up after doubts about its authenticity. After two votes, Schwartz and another observer, Hess, were detained, although Oswald was allowed to leave. Still, the meeting had been, as Thompson notes, “disastrous” and “had unnerved everyone” (96).
Part 2 Analysis
Despite what would be claimed later by some politicians, the uprising at Attica was not planned. Organizations like the Black Panthers, or the Weather Underground, a group “committed to fighting racism and imperialism” (45), had revolutionary aspirations. They were also active in the prison. The riot itself, however, emerged from a combination of confusion and brutality. Occurring in an already volatile situation, one that had escalated due to the failure of efforts to secure reform, the locking of the A-Block tunnel, ostensibly trapping prisoners there as a punishment, had been the spark.
In this respect, Attica was not unique. Revolutions and riots are often, in their direct causes, more the result of chance than design. Still, if they had not planned this, political groups and individuals were able to play a key role in the way it unfolded. They leadership of Black Panthers Roger Champen and L.D. Barkley most immediately manifest in the re-establishment of order. From a violent riot, these men and others ensured that organization and peace were secured, thus allowing for other positive developments. As Thompson notes, “D Yard was being transformed from anarchy into an organized tent city with democratically elected representatives, a security force, a dining area, and a fairly well-equipped medical station” (69).
Food, medical treatment, and, most importantly, prisoner participation in decision making were now all present. Many of the things inmates had been demanding unsuccessfully for years had, seemingly, been achieved overnight. Indeed, the first evening of the rebellion was symbolic of this point. As Thompson says, there was “a feeling of unexpected joy as men who hadn’t felt the fresh air of night for years reveled in this strange freedom” (88). As she describes it, there was playing of music, embracing, and tears. From the darkest of circumstances had emerged a new sense of community, possibility, and hope.
However, it was equally obvious that all this might well be fleeting. Whether or not improvements to prisoner life could be won in a more sustained way would depend on other factors. In particular, it depended on whether prisoners could use this situation, and the leverage of hostages, to push the state into guaranteeing reforms. As such, a core task of the elected prisoner representatives was first to formulate a program. This was initially a list of six demands. At its root was a desire to be acknowledged and, as L.D. Barkley had put it in his speech in D Yard, to be treated as “men,” “not beasts” (78). It was mostly, though, a set of concrete demands, or “practical proposals.” These included requests to be paid minimum wage for work done in the prison, an end to the censorship of mail and reading material, a better diet with fresh fruit, and less cell time. More problematic, and ambitious, were demands for immunity and transport from the country. As the list itself put it, and as Thompson restates verbatim:
1. We want Complete Amnesty. Meaning Freedom for all and from all physical, mental and legal reprisals.
2. We want now speedy and safe transportation out of confinement, to a Non-imperialist country (74).
The real question was how to get the state to accede to these demands. Prisoners, in their second list of demands, had dropped the request for transportation. The issue of amnesty, though, seemed non-negotiable. Without this guarantee, not only would prisoners be prosecuted, but they would almost certainly suffer reprisals afterwards. The example of Auburn would have been at the forefront of minds on this point, for rebelling prisoners had surrendered there with the promise of no punishment, only to be brutally beaten by COs when they did.
The problem, moreover, was with state movement on this point. While negotiating better food, ending censorship, or educating COs, was all possible, amnesty was much less straightforward. From the perspective of state officials like Oswald, these were criminals who had engaged in violent rioting. Promising immunity not only was legally difficult but would be hard to justify politically. It would set a dangerous precedent, namely rewarding insurrection against state authority and encouraging further such rebellions. Further, inmates did not help themselves in their initial dealings with Oswald. Aggression directed toward him likely just strengthened his intransigence over this issue. Conversely, it was hard for prisoners to accept Oswald’s promises about there being no reprisals given his previous backsliding over reforms. It may have been hoped that the observers committee could make better progress. Perhaps they would be able to bring about a peaceful end to this developing stand-off. Without some kind of compromise on the issue of amnesty, though, this hope would be in vain.
