.jpg){kind=link}
If we want to know what it’s really like for Black people in the prison system, we need to listen to them when they tell us – not people who speak over them. In fact? We can arm ourselves today with the wise words of these four 1970s-era Attica prisoners.
Attica uprising survivor Joseph Little: “The jails are nothing but a reflection of the society. The society is going through a change and the jails are going through a change too, ‘cause we want to be treated like human beings, not like some animals institutionalized and programmed.”
21-year-old LD Barkley was televised saying this from the prisoners’ declaration before he was massacred: “We are men. We are not beasts and we do not intend to be beaten or driven as such.”
After being released post-uprising, a prisoner named Ron told the Liberated Guardian this: “We don’t need [B]lack guards. We don’t need nicer guards. We don’t need nicer jails. We just need a whole new system.”
Attica leader and torture survivor Frank Smith: “What’s happening in these institutions is the most cruel and unhuman punishment and treatment that any person can be exposed to … Death is now … That’s what’s happening in these institutions. Not just here. Everywhere … Wake up! Because the same thing that’s happening to me is happening to you.”