The Attica Rebellion: A Proposal Of Reform
On September 9, 1971 some 1200 prisoners at Attica Prison in upstate New York seized control of half the prison taking hostages of which 38 were prison guards. The Attica Rebellion was the most well organized prison uprising in US history. Notorious for treating prisoners as less than human Attica was 54% were black, 9% were Spanish and 37% were white. Once the inmates of Attica prison took over they demanded to be treated like human beings and not like animals. A committee of inmates came up with a practical proposal of reform for the prison. They wanted the state minimum wage to be a law within all state prisons and for the slave labor to stop. They wanted unrationed toilet paper and more showers. They also wanted religious freedom,