In September 1971, Frank “Big Black” Smith became the Attica Prison uprising’s "chief of security,” negotiating with officials and protecting his fellow incarcerated men.
But once guards took back control of the prison, what they did to him was horrifying.
Guards stripped Smith naked, laying him out on a table. They burned his skin with cigarettes and threatened him with castration, beating him between the legs. Balancing a football on his throat and a gun to his head, they even made him play Russian roulette - if the football fell, they’d shoot.
“I dream about it, I think about it, I get nervous sometimes,” Smith said decades later. “If we talk about it now, I’ll just cry.”
Smith passed away in 2004. But in 1973, he was released on parole - and he wasn’t done with Attica. He helped lead the Attica Defense Committee - making it his mission to help legally defend people who had been charged with “crimes” during the revolt. He even hired a bus and distributed box lunches so everyone could testify!
They did - and won.
No matter how white history chooses to remember it, the incarcerated people who rebelled at Attica were fighting for freedom against a violent government and prison system. And like Smith proved, the power of standing up with and for our community can never be taken away.