Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Pantheon Books: "Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy" By University of Michigan Historian Dr. Heather Ann Thompson

Blood In The Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 And Its Legacy

Dr. Heather Ann Thompson

Professor of History. Department of Afro-American and African Studies, Residential College, and Department of History. The University of Michigan

Pantheon (August 23, 2016), 
Hardcover 752 pages


THE FIRST DEFINITIVE HISTORY OF THE INFAMOUS 1971 ATTICA PRISON UPRISING, THE STATE’S VIOLENT RESPONSE, AND THE VICTIMS’ DECADES-LONG QUEST FOR JUSTICE 

On September 9, 1971, nearly 1,300 prisoners took over the Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York to protest years of mistreatment. Holding guards and civilian employees hostage, the prisoners negotiated with officials for improved conditions during the four long days and nights that followed. 
On September 13, the state abruptly sent hundreds of heavily armed troopers and correction officers to retake the prison by force. Their gunfire killed thirty-nine men—hostages as well as prisoners—and severely wounded more than one hundred others. In the ensuing hours, weeks, and months, troopers and officers brutally retaliated against the prisoners. And, ultimately, New York State authorities prosecuted only the prisoners, never once bringing charges against the officials involved in the retaking and its aftermath and neglecting to provide support to the survivors and the families of the men who had been killed.
Drawing from more than a decade of extensive research, historian Heather Ann Thompson sheds new light on every aspect of the uprising and its legacy, giving voice to all those who took part in this forty-five-year fight for justice: prisoners, former hostages, families of the victims, lawyers and judges, and state officials and members of law enforcement. Blood in the Water is the searing and indelible account of one of the most important civil rights stories of the last century.

(With black-and-white illustrations throughout)



About Heather Ann Thompson:

HEATHER ANN THOMPSON is an award-winning historian at the University of Michigan. She has written on the history of mass incarceration and its current impact for The New York Times,Time, The Atlantic, Salon, Dissent, New LaborForum, and The Huffington Post, as well as for various scholarly publications. She served on a National Academy of Sciences blue-ribbon panel that studied the causes and consequences of mass incarceration in the United States and has given congressional staff briefings on this subject.

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By Heather Ann Thompson (@hthompsn 

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