Upcoming Event: Conference on Attica, 40 Years Later

Doug Berman notes an upcoming conference commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Attica prison uprising:

40 Years After the Attica Uprising:
Looking Back, Moving Forward

University at Buffalo Law School, The Baldy Center for Law & Social Policy
Monday, September 12 & Tuesday, September 13, 2011

The first panel looks especially interesting, as it will bring together many who were there in 1971:

Looking Back: The Attica Uprising and Aftermath

Scholars of the Attica Uprising and individuals with first-hand experiences of the Uprising and its impact will recall the events leading up to the Uprising, reconstruct the historical timeline, specifically discuss their role in the events that followed the Uprising, and discuss the significance of those events to prisoners, corrections, and to communities four decades later.

Malcolm Bell, Former Special Assistant Attorney General (NYS Attica Investigation)
Arthur O. Eve, Former NYS Assemblyman & Negotiator/Observer
Melvin Marshall, 1971 Attica Inmate
Dee Quinn Miller, Director, Forgotten Victims of Attica
Herman Schwartz, Professor of Law, American University and Negotiator/Observer
Michael Smith, Attica CO in 1971 and Hostage
Heather Ann Thompson, Professor of History, Temple University
Teresa A. Miller, Professor of Law, University at Buffalo (moderator)

Other panels will include a wide range of academics, lawmakers, prison officials, and lawyers. The full schedule and registration is here.

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.

The Attica Prison Riot, Coming Soon to a Screen Near You

Variety reports that director Doug Liman (“Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” “The Bourne Identity”) will helm an independent film dramatizing “the bloodiest prison riot in U.S. history,” the four-day standoff in 1971 at New York’s Attica state prison:

The project is a deeply personal one for Liman. His father, Arthur Liman, was chief counsel to the New York State Special Commission on Attica Prison and co-authored the commission’s report chastising then-Gov. Nelson Rockefeller and prison authorities for their share of responsibility for the riot’s toll; 32 inmates and 10 hostages were killed, 39 of them in an assault by state police officers.