Danver Steven L. (Edited). Revolts, Protests, Demonstrations, and Rebellions in American History: An Encyclopedia (ENG)
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a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle. She is also credited with
coining “reproductive freedom” during a national abortion debate in 1972.
As the face of the women’s movement, S teinem has received considerable
abuse. Noting that the second feminist wave is about social equality and that con-
sciousness cannot be changed without a backlash, she argues that feminism is not
responsible for the breakdown of the family. To Stei nem, feminism is about
women refusing to become victims.
—Caryn E. Neumann
Further Reading
Rosen, Ruth. The World Split Open: H ow the Modern Women’s Movemen t Changed
America. New York: Viking, 2000.
Steinem, Gloria. Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions. New York: Henry Holt, 1995.
1058 Feminist Movement (1970s–1980s)
Attica Prison Riot (1971)
During Sept ember 9–13, 1971, the inmates at the Attica State Penitentiary near
Buffalo, New York, revolted against the prison authorities who kept them c on-
tained in substandard, overcrowded cell blocks and did not recognize even their
most basic human rights. The maximum-security prison was operating at over
40 percent above its s tated capacity. Inmates were allowed only one shower per
week and one roll of toilet paper per month. Other factors motivate d the inmates
as well. Racial tensions had long been building between the all-white prison offi-
cials and the predominantly black and Puerto Rican prison population. The racial
tensions that had permeated the nation for so long had an impact on the situation
at Attic a. Inmates saw the riots that had swept through America’s cities during
the prior decade. Whe n a se emingly typical prison yard inc ident took pla ce, the
simmering mixture of factors exploded.
On September 9, 1971, a scuffle took place between two prisoners, not an
unusual occurrence in a prison setting. The chain reaction of events that followed
would turn that seemingly minor incident into a major revolt. Rumors spread
among the inmates that the inmates were isolated and tortured by the guards. Spo-
radic confrontations between inmates and guards began to escalate. By the next
day, these minor skirmishes combined to become a revolt when over 1,000 inmates
left their cells, overpowered the guards, armed themselves with chains, pipes, and
baseball bats, and took over the prison’s nerve center. State police arrived, charged
with retaking the prison and restoring order, but by that time, the inmates had set
several buildings ablaze and had taken 40 prison officials hostage.
What made the Attica Riot more than justatypicalprisonriotwerethe
demands that the inmates made. Rather than seeking to leave the prison, they
sought what many other revolts throughout history had sought. They wanted better
living conditions in the prison, which they argued would only improve if the pris-
on’s warden were removed and the federal government took over operation of the
prison. The warden, the inmates argued, ran a racist regime that systematically
brutalized the inmates. Often, the dea ths of inmates at the hands of guards were
disregarded, and little or no action was taken. They saw their own situation as
emblematic of the situation faced by inmates nationwide, and viewed their
demands as setting an example for actions that could be taken to insure changes
in other facilities.
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For the next three days, a stalemate ensued, with inmates talking past s tate
officials who w ere in no mind to compromi se. By Sunday, the inmates called on
New York governor (and three-time presidential hopeful and future vice president)
Nelson Rockefeller to come to the prison and take a direct role in negotiations
about the issues that concerned the inmates. Largely blaming him for the condi-
tions that led to the uprising, inmates demanded that the governor meet with them
face to face to avert catastrophe. Outside observers in the press as well as state
government officials such as Commissi oner of Correctional Services Russell
Oswald agreed. However, Rockefeller would not come to the meeting. Wi th no
progress being made toward a solution, Rockefeller made a momentous decision
on Monday morning. He authorized the state police and the National Guard to
reta ke the prison by force, and the operation began wi th tear gas being fired into
the prison yard at 9:46 a.m. After everyone in the yard was incapacitated, officers
opened fire with pistols, rifles, shotguns, and submachine guns, firing blindly
through the heavy clouds of tear gas. Although Rockefeller had been told that
bloodshed would be avoided, as the attack transpired, it became apparent that the
toll was going to be devastating. Ten hostages and 29 inmates were kille d. The
treatment of the inmates did not improve when the assault was concluded. Guards
forced inmates to crawl naked back to their cells, beating them with nightsticks as
they went.
In the press, state officials claimed that all of the hostages had been killed by the
inmates, most of them from having their throats slit, and that the bullets found in
them were from so-called zip guns that the inmates had fashioned. It quickly came
to light that this was completely untrue; the inmates had no such zip guns, nor fire-
arms of any kind, and thus all of the bullets were from state officials’ guns. Fur-
ther, the coroner revealed that n one of the hostag es were killed by having their
throats slit; rather, all were killed by state officials’ bullets. The coroner who
revealed the true nature of the killings, Dr. John Edlund, faced character assassina-
tion and harassment by the state police to such a degree that he eventually moved
out of New York state. Governor Rockefeller turned the investigation of the inci-
dent over to the very same state police, and, as a result , no troopers, park police,
National Guardsmen, or corrections officials were charged with any crimes. Over
60 inmates were charged, but very few were convicted, and those who had pleaded
guilty were pardoned by Rockefeller’s successor, Hugh Carey, in 1976.
The trials over the Attica Riots lasted from 1974 until 2000. A number of prison
officials were found liable in a civil trial that finally concluded 23 years after it was
filed, when inmate Frank Smith (who, in the aftermath of the riot, was forced to lie
naked on a table with a football balanced on his chest for the entire afternoon,
being told that he would be castrated if the football fell) received a $4 million
1060 Attica Prison Riot (1971)
settlement. A class-action suit filed resulted in an $8 million verdict against the
state in 2000, to be paid to the 1,280 men who endured the attack.
—Steven L. Danver
Further Reading
Benjamin, Gerald, and Rappaport, Stephen P. “Attica and Prison Reform.” Proceedings of
the Academy of Political Science 31, no. 3 (1974): 200–213.
Dippel, Stewart A. “The Attica Muse: Lessons from P rison.” History Teacher 26, no. 1
(1992): 61–70.
Light, Stephen C. “The Attica Litigation.” Crime, Law, and Social Change. 23, no. 3 (Sep-
tember 1995): 215–34.
Starr, Roger. “Prisons, Politics, and the Attica Report.” Commentary 55, no. 3 (1973):
31–37.
Weiss, Robert P. “The Order of Attica.” Social Justice 18, no. 3 (1991): 35–47.
Wicker, Tom. A Time to Die: The Attica Prison Revolt. New York: Qua drangle, 1975.
Attica Prison Riot (1971) 1061
Cruel and Unusual Punishment
One of the main claims that the inmates involved with the Attica Prison Riot made
was that they had been subje cted to cruel and unusual punishment. Pr otection
against this, of course, is one of the most basic constitutional rights, guaranteed
by the Eighth Ame ndment. However, the issue of the cruel and unusual punish-
ment of prisoners raises an additional se t of iss ues. The ways that people who
are convicted of crimes are punished by state and local authorities is not prescribed
by the federal government, and such authorities have long had conside rable lati-
tude in deciding how those convicted of capital crimes are dealt with. The U.S.
Supreme Court has, for m uch of its history, consciously steered clear of cases
involving the ways that such inmates have been executed.
The treatment of inmates in prisons, on the other hand, has received consider-
able attention by the Supreme Court. The inmates at Attica argued that the situa-
tion of their incarceration, including excessive overcrowding, wide use of
solitary confine ment, and othe r incidents of prison offici als taking libertie s
with the inmates, constituted cruel and unusual punishment. It could even be argued
that the Attica riot was one of the events that brought the treatment of inmates to the
public’s attent ion, spurring addit ional lawsuits, many filed by the inmates them-
selves, that have resulted in improvements in the treatment of prisoners, as most
of this jurisprudence took place in the decades after the riots at Attica. Within three
years of the riot, the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Wolff v. McConnell (1974).
The decision stated that although inmates were denied some rights as a part of their
imprisonment, they were still protected by many of the liberties guaranteed in the
U.S. Constitution. They had the right to marry and to appear at hearings where
the terms of their imprisonment were discussed, among other rights.
The law governing the treatment of inmates, in most cases, distinguishes
between punishments that are a part of the everyday life in a prison setting, and
punishments that result from misconduct on the part of the inmates. The main
Supreme Court decision i n this matt er, Hudson v. McMillian, decided in 1992
while the Attica c ivil suits were still active, stated that mistreatment of inmates
on a day-to-day basis that resulted from “deliberate indifference” could be said
to be cruel and unusual punishment. By that definition, the conditions at Attica
certainly qual ified. When discussing the disciplining of inmates for th eir actions
(such as the incidents that occurred in the aftermath of the retaking of Attica by
state officials), the Hudson decision stated that if the punishment demonstrated
“malice and sadism,” th en it, too, was c ruel and unusual punishment. On this
count, the treatment of the Attica rioters qualifies as well.
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The Attica rioters saw themselves as setting a pattern that inmates nationwide
could follow, and many began to challenge the treatment they received, including
issues such as overcrowding, excessive punishment, and poor living conditions.
Attica became the inspiration for inmates nationwide, and a symbol of the intoler-
able situations faced by inmates. However, social conditions in the Unite d States
hindered reform efforts, as states struggled to keep up with the ever-expanding
prison population. The construction of new prisons could not keep up with a
prison population that grew 88 percent over the course of the decade following
the Attica riot.
—Steven L. Danver
Further Reading
Bonta, James, and Paul Gendreau. “Reexamining the Cruel and Unusual Punishment of
Prison Life.” Law and Human Behavior 14, no. 4 (August 1990): 347–372.
Light, Stephen C. “The Attica Litigation.” Crime, Law, and Social Change. 23, no. 3
(September 1995): 215–34.
Wicker, Tom. A Time to Die: The Attica Prison Revolt. New York: Quadrangle, 1975.
Rockefeller, Nelson A. (1908–1979)
The governor of the state of New York during the Attica Prison Riot and later the
vice president during Gerald Ford’s administration, Nelson Rockefeller came to
politics with a sen se of noble sse oblige that pervaded h is liberal Republican sen-
sibilities. Born to one of the wealthiest and best-known families in American his-
tory, Roc kefeller was born on the same date a s the gran dfather who built t he
family’s fortune, John D. Rockefeller.
Nelson Rockefeller climbed the political ladder during the 1940s and 1950s,
holding posts in the State Department, serving as chairman of the International
Development Advisory Board on aid to underdeveloped countries, undersecretary
of the Department of Heath, Education and Welfare, and as an assistant to
President Dwight D. Eisenhower. In 1958, Rockefeller defeated the incumbent,
W. Averell Harriman, in the race for the governorship of New York. Reelected to
four terms, Rockefeller’s governorship is best remembered for the role that he both
did not play and finally did play in the drama that played out at Attica State Peni-
tentiary in 1971.
Known for his liberal leanings despite his Republican Party affiliation, the
inmates at Attica thought that Rockefeller might be sympathetic to their desire
for less overcrowding, better living conditions, and an end to the racist
1064 Attica Prison Riot (1971)
administration of warden Vince nt Mancusi. However, the timing of the riot was
not propitious, as the more conservative wing of the Republican Party was ascend-
ing, and Rockefeller and those like him were forced to run on law-and-order plat-
forms if they wanted to save their jobs. Needing to take a tough line with the
inmates, Rockefeller refused their demands that he come to the prison and directly
negotiate for the release of the hostages. His refusal to come to the prison, instead
sending lower-level representatives, caused the prisoners to harden t heir stance,
refusing to release the hostages.
By September 13, 1971, Rockefeller had decided to authorize the state police to
retake the prison and end the riot, allowing them to use whatever force necessary
to restore order. At 9:46 a.m. on Tuesday, the operation began, and by the end of
the day, 10 hostages and 29 inmates were dead. After authorizing the operation,
Rockefeller again distanced himself from what was happening at Attica, not pay-
ing any attention to the recrimination that was being doled out on to many of the
inmates by the restored prison authorities.
The political gamble that Rockefeller took at Attica did pay dividends for him,
as his “tough” stance made him a more acceptable candidate to conservative
Republicans. Three years after the revolt, Rockefeller would be chosen by the
new president, Gerald Ford, who had ascended from the vice presidency when
Richard Nixon resigned, serving for two yea rs before retiring from political life
in 1976.
—Steven L. Danver
Further Reading
Bleecker. Samuel E. The Politics of Architecture: A Perspective on Nelson A. Rockefeller.
New York: The Rutledge Press, 1981.
Kramer, Mic hael S., and Sam Robe rts. “I Never Wanted to Be Vice-President of Any-
thing!” An Investigative Biography of Nelson Rockefeller. New York: Basic Books.
1976.
Persico, Joseph E. The Imperial R ockefeller: A B iography of Nelson A. Rockefeller.
New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982.
Wicker, Tom. A Time to Die: The Attica Prison Revolt. New York: Quadrangle, 1975.
Attica Prison Riot (1971) 1065
Trail of Broken Treaties (1972)
The year 1972 was a watershed for the Red Power movement in the United States.
The American Indian Movement (AIM) had been gaining visibility through earlier
protests such as the occupation of the replica of the Mayflower in Plymouth
Harbor, Massachusetts, on Thanksgiving Day 1970. Also that year, the Richard
Nixon administration had approved the return of Blue Lake to the people of Taos
Pueblo in New Mexico. However, most of the issues important to American Indian
activists, such as the restoration of Indian lands taken by the United States and the
honoring of rights guaranteed by treaties signed by the federal government and
American Indian tribal governments were still unaddressed.
AIM leaders, such a s Robert Burnett, Clyde B ellecourt, Dennis Banks, and
Russell Means, decided to take action, planning a nationwide protest caravan that
would go through Indian Country, gaining support, until it arrived in Washington,
D.C., shortly before that year’s presidential election. The media attention gained
by the caravan, which AIM leaders coined the “Trail of Broken Treaties,” wo uld
hopefully be a platform from which they could call public attention to the unfair-
ness with which the federal government had treated Indian people, in much the
same way that African Americans had with the 1963 March on Washington. Dis-
content was rampant throughout Indian Country, and support for the planned cara-
van spread. The shooting death of Alcatraz occupation leader Richard Oakes that
September only fueled the movement (Deloria 1974, 46).
In October 1972, three caravans began to make their way across the country,
starting in Seattle, San Francisco, and Riverside, and stopping at many reserva-
tions and urban areas along the way that had large Indian populations. The central
point of the protest was to be the presentation of a “20-Point Position Paper,” writ-
ten by AIM leader Henry L. A dams, that detailed what Vine Deloria Jr. called
“a new framework for considering the status of Indian tribes and the nature of their
federal relationsh ip” (Deloria 1974, 47). The three caravans converged on Octo-
ber 23 in Minneapolis, Minnesota—which was home to the movement and many
of its leaders—to draft the statement before continuing together to Wa shington.
By the time they arrived in the nation’s capitol in early November, a week before
the presidential election, their number had grown to nearly 1,000, much more than
organizers had planned for.
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