An important case demands our support. Crishaun “CeCe” McDonald, a young Black transgender woman faces two counts of second degree murder for defending her friends and herself from physical attacks by a group shouting ugly racist and homophobic insults.
Please contact the Hennepin County Attorney Michael Freeman and demand he drop the charges against CeCe:
Please bring this case before local GLBTQ groups, Black Community organizations, Unions and community groups, Occupy assemblies and anywhere people are struggling for freedom and justice. An Injury to One is an Injury to All!
“Around 12:30 am on June 5, CeCe and four of her friends (all of them black) were on their way to Cub Foods to get some food. As they walked past the Schooner Tavern in South Minneapolis, a man and two women (all of them white) began to yell epithets at them. They called CeCe and her friends ‘faggots,’ ‘niggers,’ and ‘chicks with dicks,’ and suggested that CeCe was ‘dressed as a woman’ in order to ‘rape’ Dean Schmitz, one of the attackers.”
“As they were shouting, one of the women smashed her drink into the side of CeCe’s face, slicing her cheek open, lacerating her salivary gland, and stinging her eyes with liquor. A fight ensued, with more people joining in. What happened during the fight is unclear, but within a few minutes Dean Schmitz had been fatally stabbed. CeCe was later arrested, and is now falsely accused of murder.”
The coroners report showed Schmitz had a large nazi swastika tattoo.
CeCe now faces a Justice system that is anything but. African-Americans are imprisoned in Minnesota and the U.S. at rates far disproportionate to the population. Black defendants incur greater rates of conviction and harsher sentences than whites, especially when the alleged victim is white. In fact the CeCe Support Committee has documented four separate recent instances when the local Hennepin County Attorney has declined to press charges when a white person killed an alleged attacker.
Likewise the Criminal Justice system is grossly discriminatory against transgender defendents. Trans people are routinely placed in isolation and/or subjected to increased sexual violence, harassment, and abuse at the hands of prisoners and corrections facility staff. Cece herself “was kept in solitary confinement “for her own protection”; she had no say in this matter. Finally, she was transferred to a psychiatric unit in the Public Safety Facility. It was nearly two months before she was taken back to a doctor to check up on the wound on her face, which by then had turned into a painful, golf ball-sized lump”, according to the CeCe Support Group website.
The Hennepin County Attorney, Mike Freeman, is the Democratic Farmer-Labor Party politician responsible for prosecuting CeCe. Previously Freeman unsuccessfully prosecuted an Anti-Racist Action activist for defending himself from a neo-nazi at an anti-fascist demonstration in 1993. Freeman’s office also led the racist railroading of the young African-American men known as the “Minnesosta 8″ for the shooting of a police officer in 1992.
CeCe had every right to defend herself and her friends from this assault. Black folks, queer folks, and trans people deal with enough insult and abuse from bosses, the police, school, and other official institutions without having to worry about physical attacks just for being who they are. Racist and transphobic violence cannot be tolerated. Silence and inaction will only aid the perpetuation of white supremacy, sexism, homophobia and transphobia inherent in the structure of this oppressive and exploitive system. The necessary unity to defeat this system requires the solidarity of all of us – not just lowest common-denominator unity that favors the most privileged – but defense of the most oppressed and exploited. As the social crisis sharpens, the need for self-defense from both individual bigots and from a system built on white supremacy and patriarchy will only increase.
A strong support group, based among young transgender activists and including anarchists, has come together to defend CeCe. First of May Anarchist Alliance pledges our solidarity as well. We will work to make this case well known among working class activists and organizers and help to raise the costs for the prosecutor and the system he represents for carrying out this injustice.
The following comes from the international anarchist site, Anarkismo.net. Once again Egypt is in the throes of revolt with masses of the people demanding an end to the rule of the military’s supreme army council. Dozens have been murdered by the army and police, hundreds more wounded. Yet the masses remain defiant. From within our hearts we wish love and solidarity to our sisters and brothers in Egypt.
The Egyptian masses rise up again to complete their revolution!
Testimony from an Egyptian anarchist-communist
Since the fall of Mubarak in February, Egypt has been run by a military junta – the SCAF – which has left the basic structures of the dictatorship untouched. Protests and strikes have been met with extraordinary violence, unions have faced draconian laws to make any action impossible, torture has been widely practised and there has been selective repression against revolutionary militants in the social movements. 12,000 people have faced military courts during this counter-revolutionary crackdown against the living forces and demands that mobilised the Egyptian people on the 25th January unfinished revolution. All of this is happening while they have been stimulating sectarian conflict between Christians and Muslims in order to divert attention from the real problems of the Egyptian people. On Friday, the masses took over Tahrir again, demanding that the SCAF step down, in the middle of exceptional measures being decreed to reinforce its powers. The whole political spectrum, but significantly the Muslim Brothers (who have been very quiet since they have a number of secret agreements with the SCAF) came out that day because elections are programmed for November 28th and they fear that whatever the result, the real power will be hijacked by “Field Marshal” Tantawi, head of the SCAF. The SCAF, indeed, has passed a decree giving the military a veto over the Constitution to be drafted by the new parliament due to be elected in a week.
This Friday’s protest got all the international media talking about clashes between the Muslim Brothers and the SCAF. But the actual clashes started on Saturday, when a group of 200 diehard Tahrir revolutionaries were brutally attacked by the police. That was the spark that ignited these protests that have seen hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, take over the streets again. These current clashes have nothing to do with political Islam, which again – as on 25th January – has not been a main actor in the protest. This is a protest led by the same people that led the January revolution, who now realize the real counter-revolutionary nature of the army, poorly disguised in a “nationalist” aura.
At this very minute, there is street fighting in all of the major cities of Egypt, particularly in Cairo, Port Said, Alexandria and Suez. In Southern Egypt there are numerous demonstrations, and clashes with the repressive apparatus of the SCAF have also been reported. Police stations have been attacked and barricades have been built on most important roads and streets. The repression has been fierce: at least 6 people have died so far and over 1,000 have been seriously injured by the military and the hated Central Security Forces, the backbone of Mubarak’s repressive forces. Protesters at Tahrir were evicted some hours ago with gruesome force, with the use of armoured vehicles, suffocating gas (kindly provided to the SCAF by Obama) and rounds of rubber bullets and live ammunition – in scenes reminiscent of the Maspero Street massacre in October (See http://anarkismo.net/article/20723). At this minute (11.30 pm), the protesters have managed to recover Tahrir once again for the people and for the revolution. The rallying cry of the people is “down with the SCAF, down with Tantawi”.
At 12pm we had the chance to talk with comrade Yasser Abdullah from the Egyptian Libertarian Socialist Movement, who explained to us what is happening in Cairo. His first-hand testimony of the events in Cairo is living proof that the revolutionary spirit is alive and well and that the coming days will be crucial for the Arab revolts. All forms of solidarity are needed for our libertarian comrades moving forward with the Egyptian people towards liberation.
José Antonio Gutiérrez D.
20th November 2011
1. What has been happening in Tahrir Square over the last couple of days? Who is protesting and what is the cause of the struggle?
A few days before Friday (18th November), a number of relatives of victims and martyrs of the Revolution started a sit-in in Tahrir demanding their rights. For ten months now, since Mubarak stepped down, none of those accused of killing and shooting people during the uprising have been sent to jail. Also, last July the SCAF (ie., the military junta) created a fund of 200 million Egyptian Pounds (about €25 million) called “the Fund for the Revolution’s Casualties and Martyrs” in order to compensate them and their families, but this was nothing but propaganda: the SCAF and Sharaf’s Government gave some of the victims jobs as garbage collectors, literally speaking, so the victims felt humiliated, that insult had been added to injury, so they started a sit-in for a respectable solution. On Friday, a “Million People” march was also planned, calling for an end to military rule and the interim civil authority before April 2012. After the march, the sit-in continued, and another march broke, called by the Islamist parties – who are against the sit-in and are trying to do their best in order to win the next elections, scheduled for November 28th.
So the sit-in was left alone with just a few dozen people; on Saturday 19th, at 11.00 am the Central Security Forces (CS, civil police) started an attack on the sit-in. There were around 200 protesters, who fought back against the CS. After that, the CS started to use tear gas and drove their armoured car into the protestors, running some over. Then some other protesters joined them to defend Tahrir square, and that’s how it all began. The CS attacked Tahrir, we fought them back, they took Tahrir for only half an hour, then we reclaimed it back and are occupying it – now, November 20th at 12.00 pm, there are ongoing clashes between protesters against both CS forces and Military police disguised as civil police.
2. The Muslim Brothers until recently had been allied with the transition authorities… Why are they now clashing with the police as reported by the international media?
After the referendum for the Constitutional Amendment on March 19th, the Muslim Brotherhood and all other Islamist forces, mainly the Salafis, allied themselves with the SCAF. On March 20th, a Salafi sheikh stated that the ballot box said “yes to Islam”… They did not see the referendum as being merely about amendments, but actually about Islam, whose spirit they saw reflected in people’s opinions as they voted. They claimed that most voters were for them because they represented Islam, and acted as if it were a referendum on them. From March onwards, the Islamists stood against any direct action against the SCAF, as they thought they would get into power at the next elections, so they had to compromise with the military junta… But now they feel that the SCAF has bluffed them, using their influence only to consolidate their own power. Actually, the junta and the Islamists are quarrelling brothers, they can shout in each other’s faces but they will not really fight. The ongoing clashes have nothing to do with the Muslim Brotherhood or any other Islamist party, or even any other party whatever its denomination. The majority of parties now are aiming at parliament not at revolution. Only one leftist coalition has announced they’re thinking of boycotting the next elections – all the other parties are putting all of their main attention on the next elections and they have not joined the Tahrir occupation. Only the main revolutionary forces and the unorganised youth who are ready to fight back for their rights are in Tahrir now, in defence of the revolution. The political parties are all looking for compromise with the junta, trying to win the next elections, to take power by an agreement with the SCAF… So to say that the ongoing clashes are by the Muslim Brotherhood or any other organised political force is nothing more than a big lie circulated by the mainstream media.
3. Is there any potential for the popular movement in these protests? Do you think the military will consolidate its power or that there will be a renewed revolutionary wave?
The potential for the popular movement now is very high… On November 19th I felt as if we had been taken back to January 25th. The main chants now are “Down with military rule” and “People demand the removal of the regime”. There have also been clashes in Alexandria and Suez. The casualties up to now (12 pm) are 1 dead in Cairo and 2 dead in Alexandria… Today there are plans for a day of action against the SCAF all over Egypt. This action is not being planned by any of the political parties, a positive thing, for after ten months of revolution the people now realize that their power lies in a leaderless, collective movement. They’re realising now that all the political parties are traitors, trying only to gain seats in parliament. I don’t think the junta can consolidate its power… They’re now in big trouble. On the one hand, their allies are demanding that they transfer their authority after the elections, and on the other hand, the protesters are in revolt on the streets, seeking to continue the revolution. I think the next few days will be a witness to all forms of action against the SCAF.
The following is a flier distributed in Detroit in coordination with the Nov. 17th national Day of Action.
Members of First of May Anarchist Alliance are participating in the Committee for a General Strike. The flier is in response to the Detroit crisis which has been highlighted by the both the Mayor and City Council’s ongoing proposals for mass layoffs, wage and city service cuts, liquidating of union contracts, and a general assault on the city’s workers and our communities.
Detroit has been ground zero for such attacks. The city government, backed by politicians both county and regional, has stated there is no other way forward. This is nothing short of class warfare on the part of the government and their backers. Taking inspiration from the Occupy movement and its increasingly radical dimensions we are arguing for a popular resistance to the crisis and the government austerity proposals. We are under no illusions and fully realize that, much like in Oakland, a general strike will be difficult to carry out. But as a concept and a real tactic to build towards, a general strike resonates within the working classes and poor as both a weapon in our defense as well as a conscious, militant, and creative expression of our attempt to determine our own course outside and against the system.
BUILD A GENERAL STRIKE OF ALL
WORKERS AND THE COMMUNITY
CANCEL THE DEBT; STOP ALL DEBT SERVICE PAYMENTS
TAX THE RICH: MAKE THE BANKS AND CORPORATIONS PAY
NO SERVICE CUTS; NO LAYOFFS; NO WAGE AND BENEFIT CUTS
Bing and the banks have decided on a new round of cuts in jobs, benefits and services to the people of Detroit. They claim the city is bankrupt so union contracts must be thrown aside and the people must endure still greater cuts in basic services. Why should the working class and poor continue to pay for a crisis made by the banks, the giant corporations and the politicians who serve them.
We have to stop transferring tax dollars and public resources to the banks which caused this economic crisis. The city budget provides for more than $433 million in payments to the banks for debt service this year. That’s where the money is going. We must demand cancellation of the debts and stop all payments of public funds for service on the debt. The banks made billions by selling impossible and predatory loans to working people in our community and throughout the country. When the bubble burst and millions faced foreclosure, the government took our tax dollars and bailed out the banks to protect their profits. Now, when housing prices have fallen off the cliff and thousands of vacant, foreclosed homes fill the city, the banks demand that still more tax dollars be paid to them. We say no more.
Bing, Ficano and company tell us that the public funds must be paid to the banks, and that the rest of us must pay for the crisis. This is a government of the banks and for the banks. What resources we have from property taxes, income taxes and other sources must be directed to meeting the needs of our people. Tax dollars from casinos and revenue sharing are to go only to education; that’s what we were promised. But 87% of those tax dollars are going instead to the banks for payment on the debt. Of the $590 million in state per pupil aid for Detroit, more than $512 million is paid directly to the banks for service on the debt. Not one more penny to the banks.
The fight against “austerity” is nationwide and international. From Egypt to Greece to Wall Street to Oakland, people are rising up against the banks and governments. We cannot succeed in this struggle if we are isolated or separated. All workers and all unions must join together and act together against these cuts. Bus drivers, bus mechanics and bus riders must stand together. The people of the community who rely on city services must join the fight. Our allies are the Wayne County workers and residents who face similar cuts. The workers and people of Hamtramck, Highland Park, Flint, Pontiac and Benton Harbor who already are suffering under the boot of emergency managers must join together. The workers and people of Taylor, Plymouth, Hazel Park and Warren face the same attacks.
Occupy Oakland organized a general strike in that city in response to police attacks on demonstrators and the life threatening attack on Iraq war veteran active in the protests. The workers of Greece have carried out several general strikes against austerity cuts in that country and caused a government to fall. We stand with them all.
Our response must be unified and direct. We must organize and mobilize for a general strike. And we must build a movement that includes workplace and neighborhood organizations for defense and to meet the basic needs of our people. No one is coming to save us. We must rely on ourselves and our allies to end the domination of the banks and corporations. Our goal must be direct control of public resources and the economy by the workers and the people. We can build the new society, together.
Contact us for information, meetings, and updates:
Committee for a General Strike - P.O. Box 15024, Detroit, MI 48215 – cmte.gs@gmail.com
Build on the Anarchist and Revolutionary Potentialities of the Occupy Wall Street Movement.
The following is a joint statement from the First of May Anarchist Alliance and The Utopian: A Journal of Anarchist and Libertarian Socialism.
Photo: The movement spreads. The General Assembly from Occupy Atlanta
1. The ongoing Occupy Wall Street demonstrations, encampment, and related actions around the country are a significant development. These events may well be the beginning of a 1960s style movement of great potential. Because of its focus on the economic crisis, the financial/corporate shenanigans that contributed to it, and, most important, jobs, the movement has the potential to strike a resonant chord in the hearts of millions of people who have been slammed by the events of the last few years and who are aching to do something about them. This is particularly true of those who have lost their homes and/or their jobs, as well as those who have little prospect of finding work.
2. The Occupy Wall St. movement, like the movement of the 60s in its early stages, is anarchistic, that is, unconsciously anarchist in how it is structured and what its underlying goals are, in spite of the liberal populism of its rhetoric and explicit demands. The key question is: Will the movement be corralled by liberal, reformist, or authoritarian forces or will it develop in a self-consciously revolutionary and anarchist direction? The example of the 60s, in which the radical wing of the movement abandoned its original libertarian principles and embraced an array of authoritarian Marxist-Leninist politics, is instructive here. We must do our best to make sure something like that does not happen again.
3. Consequently, we believe it is crucial for all anarchists to participate in this movement and work to build it. We also think it is essential that we explicitly propagandize and organize for both anarchist methods of struggle and for an anti-authoritarian social vision/program. We urge all of our groupings, formal and informal, while remaining free to experiment in these matters, to recognize the need for some degree of ongoing coordination and, at critical moments, the effective concentration of our forces. Weakness and disorganization in this respect will allow important events and possibilities to pass us by as well as allow attacks on the autonomy of the movement to go unanswered.
4. We should defend the movement’s aim to be as broad and as deep as possible, to reach out to individuals of all classes, while we concentrate on drawing in workers and poor people. We want to educate everybody about the strategic importance of building a movement concentrated in the working class. Toward this end, we welcome the participation of several major unions in the protests. Their presence helps to legitimize the occupation among wider layers of people and brings unionized workers into direct contact with others in the fight for justice and an alternative society. We support bringing those unions of which we are members into the struggle as one way of getting our co-workers involved. But we also need to highlight the danger that labor’s bureaucratic/reformist apparatuses will attempt to chain the movement to their political purposes, which are contrary to the spirit and aims of the Occupy Wall Street movement. We must be both creative and energetic in our efforts to foment a subversive consciousness among participants in the movement, and to generate independent organization and radical action by the workers themselves, both inside and outside the union structures.
Photo: Unionized nurses join Occupy Wall Street protests
5. One of the strengths of the movement at present is its concentration on direct action. We should work to ensure that the movement retains this focus: demonstrations, occupations, and strikes, up to and including city-wide, state-wide, and national general strikes. These must remain the movement’s tactics of choice. We also need to struggle to turn the general distrust of and disgust with capitalist politics and politicians into a full-blown recognition that both the Democratic and Republican parties are controlled by, and beholden to, corporate interests, and are therefore our enemies.
Photo: March and Occupation of Brooklyn Bridge, NYC
6. Finally, we should strive to convince the movement that the problem in the US today is not just Wall Street or the corporations or the fact that the economic system is somehow being “gamed” or “rigged” by tricky selfish individuals. We need to explain that the cause of the crisis is the capitalist system itself, a system in which production is carried on only when it results in profits, the vast majority of which go to the tiny elite that runs the country. Correspondingly, we should work to persuade the movement that its ultimate aim should be the radical democratization of our entire society, in other words, a revolution in which the vast majority of people seize control of the economy and the country as a whole from the rich and disperse power and direct control of all aspects of social life as widely as possible. As a result, we should propose and support radical demands that both point in this direction and unite the broadest sectors of the population.
This statement issued by the following groups:
First of May Anarchist Alliance, m1aa@org;
The Utopian: A Journal of Anarchist and Libertarian Socialism, http://www.utopianmag.com/
On behalf of our union, the General Executive Board of the Industrial Workers of the World sends our support and solidarity to the occupation of Wall Street, those determined to hold accountable our oppressors.
This occupation on Wall Street calls into question the very foundation in which the capitalist system is based, and its relentless desire to place profit over and above all else.
When 1% of the ruling class holds the wealth created by the other 99%, it is clear that the watchwords found in our union’s preamble, “the working class and the employing class have nothing in common”, ring true more than ever.?The IWW does not follow a business union model. We believe that the working class and the employing class have nothing in common and we don’t foster illusions to the contrary.
Throughout the world, from Egypt to Greece, from China to Madison, Wisconsin, working class people are starting to rise up. The IWW welcomes this. We see the occupation of Wall Street as another step – no matter how large or small – in this process.
Introduction There are so many roots to the tree of anger/that sometimes the branches shatter/before they bear. — Audre Lorde
What has happened here is but the sound before the fury of those who are oppressed. — Declaration to the People of America by Attica prisoners, September 9, 1971
The Event
From September 9 to 13, 1971, prisoners took control of the Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York, motivated by a series of abuses as well as anger over the recent murder of Black Panther activist George Jackson in San Quentin prison. The prisoners made a series of demands to prison administrators and held about 40 people as hostages. After four days of fruitless negotiations and without meeting with prisoners, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller ordered that the prison be retaken by force; 39 people were killed in a 15-minute assault by state police. The New York State Special Commission on Attica (also known as the McKay Commission) appointed to investigate the uprising stated that “with the exception of Indian massacres in the late 19th century, the State Police assault which ended the four-day prison uprising was the bloodiest one-day encounter between Americans since the Civil War.”
The Background
In September 1971 at Attica Prison, there were over 2,200 people locked up in a facility built to accommodate 1,600. 54% of those prisoners were Black and 9% were identified as Puerto Rican. 40% of the prisoners were under the age of 30. One out of 398 correctional officers was Latino and all of the prison administrators were white. It cost $8 million dollars to run Attica Prison in fiscal year 1971-72; that amounted to about $8,000 per prisoner. Most of this money was spent on correctional officers’ salaries (62%). Inmates at Attica spent 14 to 16 hours a day in their 6 by 9 foot cells.
Attica had been on a slow boil throughout the summer of 1971. In June 1971, five Attica prisoners established the Attica Liberation Faction (ALF). Carl Jones-EL, one of the five founders, suggested that the ALF was created “to try to bring about some change in the conditions of Attica. We started teaching political ideology to ourselves. We read Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Malcolm X, de Bois, Frederick Douglass and a lot of others. We tried a reform program on ourselves first before we started making petitions and so forth. We would hold political classes on weekends and point out that certain conditions were taking place and the money that was being made even though we weren’t getting the benefits.”1
On September 8th 1971, two prisoners were roughhousing in the yard at Attica Prison. They were ordered by correctional officers to stop. An altercation ensued involving a few prisoners and guards. There is some confusion about what exactly happened during this incident. Regardless, later in the day, two prisoners were accompanied by guards to the infamous “box” in Housing Block Z (HBZ). Prisoners at Attica had heard stories about what happened to people who were taken to segregation and none of what they heard was pretty. Stories of abuse, brutality and torture circulated; the guards did nothing to disabuse prisoners of these ideas.
It seems that one of the prisoners who were targeted for confinement at HBZ hadn’t even been involved in the original melee. His fellow inmates were furious at this perceived injustice. The next day, a correctional officer named Robert Curtiss who had been involved in the previous day’s incident was overpowered by a group of prisoners in retaliation. This sparked the most well-known prison uprising of the 20th century.
The organizers
The group known as the Attica Liberation Faction did not instigate the riots that led to the Attica Rebellion, but they quickly stepped in to help negotiate the prisoners’ demands and organize prisoners’ anger into a platform. The five founders were Frank Lott (who took on the title of Chairman), Donald Noble, Carl Jones-EL, Herbert X. Blyden, and Peter Butler.
Lee Bernstein (2010) provides some background about the founders of the ALF:
“These five – Frank Lott, Herbert X. Blyden, Donald Noble, Carl Jones-EL, and Peter Butler – were among the most experienced activists in Attica. Blyden had participated in a rebellion at the Tombs prison in New York City the previous year, helping to write the rebels’ list of demands. Others had been involved in a sit-down strike at Auburn prison. Blyden is credited with demanding that the prisoners be transported to a non-imperialist country as a condition of ending the takeover. While deemed impractical by one of the outside observers, this demand grew logically from the political education many inmates received while in prison. Blyden and Jones served on the negotiating committee during the takeover. Blyden was a member of Attica’s Nation of Islam community, and Carl Jones-EL and Donald Noble were members of the prison’s Moorish Science community. (Bernstein, p.67-68)”
During that summer, prisoners at Attica launched peer-led classes in sociology. This was preceded by the formation of several study and discussion groups led by prisoners who had affiliations with the Nation of Islam, the Black Panther Party, the Young Lords and the Five Percenters. Carl Jones-EL explains:
“The education department, the school system that they have, it only goes so far, far as trying to give a man an education. We more or less have to educate ourselves. When we came here [Attica] we knew the conditions and we felt that people should come together and get a better understanding of the conditions here, what was being did to them by the administration. So behind this we would hold meetings in the yard. We’d hold open house and whoever wanted to come and listen to our political ideology were welcome. We didn’t bar anyone. This was frowned upon by the institution and they would break it up. If we congregated too big, this wasn’t allowed. In order to reach everyone, we had to set up some sort of communications. We had to get along with the different factions here: the Muslims, the Fiver Per-centers, and all the other factions to become one solid movement, rather than just be separate parts here trying to accomplish the same things, better conditions for the inmates.”2
These informal gatherings provided a forum for prisoners to debate and discuss the social and political issues of the day. The McKay Commission found that these prisoner-created spaces politicized and radicalized inmates and contributed to a series of protests in the summer of 1971.
In July 1971, the Attica Liberation Faction presented a list of 27 demands to Commissioner of Corrections Russell Oswald and Governor Nelson Rockefeller. This list of demands was based on the Folsom Prisoners’ Manifesto, which had been crafted in support of a November 1970 prisoner strike in California. Carl Jones-EL offered this description of the genesis of the manifesto and the prisoner’s motivations:
“We wanted to do things, let’s say, diplomatically. We were seeking reform. Although, many were not in favor of reform, because they didn’t believe that the people would listen. So, five of us had gotten together. This is how we started. We met in the yard and we’d draw up drafts as to proposals we should make. And we sought support from the entire population, the four different blocks. And the only way we could accomplish this was that by us not being able to see everyone in different blocks, we, more or less, had to get on the traveling list. In other words, if you were a baseball, a football, a softball official, and you were in a position to travel and get around to different blocks. So we did this. One of us would go to different blocks, and there we would set up an educational program, and bring to their attention what the manifesto was going to be about. So we got a lot of support on this. Then we moved on it. Everyone was not in favor of signing their names to it though, because they didn’t want to spotlight themselves. So five of us did.”3
Commissioner Oswald did not act on the demands. Instead the warden of Attica, Vincent Mancusi, responded “by increasing the frequency of cell searches, censoring all references to prison conditions from news sources, and announcing that there would be no prizes awarded to the winners of the upcoming Labor Day sporting competitions (Bernstein, p. 69).”
The next month, August 1971, Black Panther activist George Jackson was killed by correctional officers at San Quentin Prison. His killing sparked protests including work stoppages at prisons across the U.S. At Attica, the different prisoner factions, who had previously found it difficult to unify in order to strengthen the likelihood that their demands would be enacted, were mobilized by the killing of Jackson. Donald Noble, one of the founders of the Attica Liberation Faction, explained it this way:
“What really solidified things was George Jackson’s death. This had a reaction on the people, one that we were trying to accomplish all along, to bring the people together. We thought, ‘How can we pay tribute to George Jackson?’ because a lot of us idolized him and things that he was doing and things that he was exposing about the system. So, we decided that we would have a silent fast that whole day in honor of him. We would wear black armbands. No one was to eat anything that whole day. We noted that if the people could come together for this, then they could come together for other things.”4
Why are we talking about this now?
On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Attica Prison revolt, we felt that it was a good time to both reflect on the conditions that precipitated the rebellion and to examine its legacy. First and foremost, we want to honor those who gave their lives to this struggle then, and those who continue to give their lives now. We want to honor those currently incarcerated, to whom this struggle belongs today. Many of the most heroic stories of resistance and radical organizing are still unknown to us, but Attica is a piece of the history of resistance that has thankfully been well documented.
The situation of incarceration today is both similar and different to the situation when the Attica Rebellion occurred. In 1970, there were 48,497 people in federal and state prisons in the U.S.5By 2009, there were 1,613,740 million individuals locked up in our federal and state prisons.6 This exponential growth of the prison population means that the events of Attica are as relevant today as they were in 1971, perhaps even more so.
During the last year, separate prison strikes and protests have started and spread statewide in Georgia, California and Indiana. In Georgia, a statewide strike in December 2010 demanded fair wages for prisoners and pointed out that prisoners’ unpaid labor is a form of modern-day slavery. The Georgia strike, which lasted six days, also called for educational opportunities, decent health care, an end to cruel and unusual punishment, decent living conditions, nutritional meals, vocational and self-improvement opportunities, access to families, and justice in parole decisions. Georgia prisoners are now attempting to win justice through civil suits against the prison system.
In California, a July 2011 hunger strike involved nearly 7,000 people in thirteen facilities. The five core demands of the strikers asked for fair policies in punishment within prisons, an end to long-term solitary confinement, adequate food, and more programs and privileges to allow prisoners to “engage in self-help treatment, education, religious and other productive activities…”
In Indiana, an August 2011 protest was the result of a unilateral crackdown on prisoners after a single violent incident. Similar to the protest in California, prisoners demanded that large groups not be punished for the actions of individuals.
Outside solidarity with these strikes and protests is one of the ways we can support current movements to reform and shut down prisons (see Resource section for more information). It is also important that we know our history, and know that prison organizing on the inside has been happening for decades.
Attica marks an important, dramatic point in our collective history and in the history of anti-prison struggles. We hope that the story of Attica will inspire you to continue to act in your own ways, and in your own communities, to fight the PIC.
Voices From Inside: 7 Interviews with Attica Prisoners (1972).
Edited transcription of separate interviews with nine of those the prison administration had isolated as “leaders” of the rebellion taken from interviews conducted by Bruce Soloway of Pacifica Radio, WBAI, in February 1972. In “We Are Attica: Interviews with Prisoners from Attica” published by the Attica Defense Committee.
Edited transcription of separate interviews with nine of those the prison administration had isolated as “leaders” of the rebellion taken from interviews conducted by Bruce Soloway of Pacifica Radio, WBAI, in February 1972. In “We Are Attica: Interviews with Prisoners from Attica” published by the Attica Defense Committee.
Donald Noble, interview, in Prisons on Fire: George Jackson, Attica, and Black Liberation, audio CD (San Francisco: Freedom Archives, 2001).
Langan, Patrick A. Race of prisoners admitted to state and federal institutions, 1926-86. NCJ-125618. U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics (May 1991).
Numbers for both years 1970 and 2009 exclude the jail population.
An important case demands our support. Crishaun “CeCe” McDonald, a young Black transgender woman faces two counts of second degree murder for defending her friends and herself from physical attacks by a group shouting ugly racist and homophobic insults.
Attica had been on a slow boil throughout the summer of 1971. In June 1971, five Attica prisoners established the Attica Liberation Faction (ALF). Carl Jones-EL, one of the five founders, suggested that the ALF was created “to try to bring about some change in the conditions of Attica. We started teaching political ideology to ourselves. We read Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Malcolm X, de Bois, Frederick Douglass and a lot of others. We tried a reform program on ourselves first before we started making petitions and so forth. We would hold political classes on weekends and point out that certain conditions were taking place and the money that was being made even though we weren’t getting the benefits.”1
“These five – Frank Lott, Herbert X. Blyden, Donald Noble, Carl Jones-EL, and Peter Butler – were among the most experienced activists in Attica. Blyden had participated in a rebellion at the Tombs prison in New York City the previous year, helping to write the rebels’ list of demands. Others had been involved in a sit-down strike at Auburn prison. Blyden is credited with demanding that the prisoners be transported to a non-imperialist country as a condition of ending the takeover. While deemed impractical by one of the outside observers, this demand grew logically from the political education many inmates received while in prison. Blyden and Jones served on the negotiating committee during the takeover. Blyden was a member of Attica’s Nation of Islam community, and Carl Jones-EL and Donald Noble were members of the prison’s Moorish Science community. (Bernstein, p.67-68)”
“The education department, the school system that they have, it only goes so far, far as trying to give a man an education. We more or less have to educate ourselves. When we came here [Attica] we knew the conditions and we felt that people should come together and get a better understanding of the conditions here, what was being did to them by the administration. So behind this we would hold meetings in the yard. We’d hold open house and whoever wanted to come and listen to our political ideology were welcome. We didn’t bar anyone. This was frowned upon by the institution and they would break it up. If we congregated too big, this wasn’t allowed. In order to reach everyone, we had to set up some sort of communications. We had to get along with the different factions here: the Muslims, the Fiver Per-centers, and all the other factions to become one solid movement, rather than just be separate parts here trying to accomplish the same things, better conditions for the inmates.”2
“We wanted to do things, let’s say, diplomatically. We were seeking reform. Although, many were not in favor of reform, because they didn’t believe that the people would listen. So, five of us had gotten together. This is how we started. We met in the yard and we’d draw up drafts as to proposals we should make. And we sought support from the entire population, the four different blocks. And the only way we could accomplish this was that by us not being able to see everyone in different blocks, we, more or less, had to get on the traveling list. In other words, if you were a baseball, a football, a softball official, and you were in a position to travel and get around to different blocks. So we did this. One of us would go to different blocks, and there we would set up an educational program, and bring to their attention what the manifesto was going to be about. So we got a lot of support on this. Then we moved on it. Everyone was not in favor of signing their names to it though, because they didn’t want to spotlight themselves. So five of us did.”3
“What really solidified things was George Jackson’s death. This had a reaction on the people, one that we were trying to accomplish all along, to bring the people together. We thought, ‘How can we pay tribute to George Jackson?’ because a lot of us idolized him and things that he was doing and things that he was exposing about the system. So, we decided that we would have a silent fast that whole day in honor of him. We would wear black armbands. No one was to eat anything that whole day. We noted that if the people could come together for this, then they could come together for other things.”4