Families, Survivors Commemorate Anniversary of Attica Uprising

photo credit: Bronayur at the English language Wikipedia

Nearly forty years after the Attica prison riot, survivors and families of those who died are gathering at the prison in upstate New York today for their annual memorial service. In total, 43 people were killed at Attica — 11 corrections officers and 32 inmates — with 39 of those deaths on Sept. 13, 1971, when state authorities stormed the prison. As the Village Voice noted in introducing a package of first-person remembrances on the occasion of the uprising’s 30th anniversary, there followed a 27-year legal battle at the end of which New York State distributed $8 million in compensation among 502 injured prisoners and relatives.