Word: attica
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...didn't realize how greatly the police and guards hated and feared the inmates, nor how deeply the inmates mistrusted the state. Governor Rockefeller condemned their radical action, but his condemnation rang hollow. He had effected no prison reform since he came to office in 1959, and not until Attica did the state promise change. Of the 28 reforms the state agreed to in the process of bargaining at Attica only three--the creation of an ombudsman's office, a grievance procedure, and allowing political activity--were real changes. The rest were either hedged promises conditional on legislative action--modernizing...
GOVERNOR ROCKEFELLER refused to grant amnesty. He didn't think he had that constitutional power, and he was convinced it would be wrong anyway--it would "undermine the basic tenets of our society," that is, "equal application of the laws." This was Rockefeller's answer to the Attica Brothers, many of whom were in prison because of the unequal application of the laws--this, from one of the most "equal" men in a nation where all too many are more equal than others...
...Wicker tried to convince Rockefeller to come to Attica, so that he could see the awful chances for bloodshed. But the governor refused to come and refused to give the observers more time. Wicker says the "order of things" was more important to the governor than lives...
...order of things have buried 39 people and two issues--prison reform and basic human decency--in the cemetery reserved for all the dirty little stories of American history, most of which share the same themes: racism and violence. New York Congressman Herman Badillo provided the epitaph for Attica's tombstone: "There's always a time to die. I don't know what the rush...
...Wicker has ot disinterred the bones. No one can do that. He only promised us a "time for anger," and four and a half years after Attica, his book screams quietly--a stark gravestone rubbing to remind us of the grave and what is buried there, lest we forget...