Lawyers are working to contact those who were plaintiffs in the suit—as many as are still alive—to weigh in by a February 14 deadline on whether they accept the settlement. It will average around $20,000 per person compensation for injuries and disabilities suffered by inmates who were beatened and tortured by New York state police and national guardsmen. The military force violently retook the prison on September 13, 1971. A separate payment of $4 million will go toward lawyers' fees.

Arthur Harrison, a former inmate at Attica and plaintiff in the suit, said that he feels a sense of relief and closure, but not justice. "The government didn't admit it did anything wrong. All the inmates wanted was to be treated like human beings. Many died for this. The government didn't want to resolve it peacefully. They wanted to show their strength.

"The uprising at Attica wasn't a planned thing," continued Harrison. "The leadership came out of the struggle, and that's going to keep happening today. The whole world is an Attica situation. It's a class thing, and more and more people are realizing that."

Demanding better conditions and an end to guard brutality, some 1,500 inmates took over a prison cell block and yard at Attica state prison on September 9, 1971. Well organized, and under a mostly Black leadership, the prisoners sought to put before the public the dehumanizing conditions and the resistance to them within the prisons themselves.

This was occurring only a few years after the explosions in U.S. cities of Black workers and youth against police brutality and grinding social conditions. The list of prisoners' demands ranged from more sanitary food and bathing provisions, to being paid minimum wage for prison labor, to respect for all religions, and an end to censorship by prison officials. They demanded amnesty from prosecution for the rebellion and the firing of Attica warden Vincent Mancusi.

On September 13, New York state police, 1,000 strong, dropped tear gas from helicopters and stormed the prison, firing indiscriminately and killing both hostages and prisoners. Police lies about prisoners slitting each others' throats quickly unraveled as autopsies revealed that all deaths were from gunshots at the hands of the rampaging state troopers.

In other developments, prisoner lockdowns at two maximum security prisons in New York state, Sing Sing and Green Haven, ended on January 14 when it was revealed that live ammunition discovered at Sing Sing on December 24 had been planted by a prison guard. For those three weeks, almost 4,000 prisoners had been confined to their cells for 23 hours a day. The lockdowns took place at the same time that some prisoners had been circulating a leaflet calling for a statewide prison strike over onerous parole restrictions.  
 
 
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