------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Aug. 19, 2004 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
FRANK "BIG BLACK" SMITH DIES: REMEMBERING THE HEROIC ATTICA PRISON REBELLION
By Ellie Dorritie
Frank "Big Black" Smith, one of the leaders of the 1971 rebellion at Attica Prison and a fervent community activist and paralegal struggling for justice in the criminal and civil- rights trials that followed, died in early August after a long battle with cancer. He was 70.
A memorial celebration will be scheduled for the fall in New York City.
Big Black was chosen by his brother prisoners as Chief of Security during the intense days of the rebellion at Attica, in which 1,500 prisoners held the state of New York in a standoff Sept. 9-13, 1971.
The standoff ended when 1,000 state troopers, sheriff's deputies and prison guards armed with automatic weapons and gas stormed the prison, under orders from New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller. They killed 29 inmates and 10 guards held as hostages, while wounding at least 86 other people.
News outlets across the country reported official lies as if they were objective facts, proclaiming that the rebellious prisoners slit the throats of the hostages when the troopers began their assault. Only when autopsies later revealed that no throats had been cut did authorities admit that the state did the killing.
After they'd charged in shooting, troopers and guards proceeded to beat and torture those prisoners who were still alive. The wounded were left without medical care. The troopers singled out Frank "Big Black" Smith because of his leadership role.
He was released from the prison in 1973. He became a leader of the Attica Defense Committee, which defended prisoners charged with crimes during the rebellion. He also worked as a youth and drug counselor in New York City.
INMATES WON CIVIL LAWSUIT
Along with attorneys, he was a key coordinator of a 26-year civil action lawsuit brought by Attica inmates.
Their efforts made possible the release of more than a million Attica- related files that state authorities claimed did not exist. In the end, prisoners won a $12 million settlement.
Today, with prisons in this country overflowing with over 2 million working-class youths, overwhelmingly Black, Latin@ and Native, and with conditions inside worse than ever--it's worthwhile to look back to Attica.
When the prisoners took over D Yard at Attica Prison, they provided an example of class solidarity, unity, and worker consciousness that is more relevant than ever today. They showed that the workers, including the most oppressed-- those literally in chains--have the potential to shake the ruling class and fight the system.
Rockefeller--grandchild of John D. Rockefeller, the most notorious robber baron of them all, and himself a direct representative of the billionaire ruling class--ran the state prisons as forced labor camps.
During the rebellion, all the prisoners, Black, Latino, Native, white, stood united. They presented a list of 27 demands covering legal rights and repression, work, food and hygiene, and other crucial issues.
Four key demands went to the crux of the rebellion--and demonstrated the prisoners' high political consciousness. They demanded that the warden be removed. They demanded that all participants in the uprising receive full amnesty. They demanded union recognition.
And they demanded safe passage out of the United States to a non- imperialist country.
Fully aware that the state authorities were enraged and preparing to crush the rebellion, the prisoners then called for an observers' committee to come to Attica.
The year before the Attica uprising broke out, a group called the Prisoners Solidarity Committee had been organized by Youth Against War and Fascism, the youth arm of Workers World Party. The PSC was formed in response to a request for help from prisoners at Auburn, N.Y. When the Auburn 6 went to trial, PSC members had demonstrated in support of them, even in blizzard conditions.
When the Attica rebellion broke out, the PSC moved quickly to raise money and rent buses so prisoners' relatives could get to the prison compound.
When the Attica brothers in D Block called for formation of the observers' committee, they requested a PSC representative be part of it. Prisoners trusted the PSC delegate, Tom Soto, to get their messages to their families and friends. PSC organizers helped give voice to the prisoners' demands. While Soto was inside with the prisoners, a PSC delegation was outside demonstrating unconditional support for the prisoners' demands.
Also in the observers' committee were representatives of the Black Panther Party, the Young Lords Party, New York State Assemblymember Arthur O. Eve, lawyer William Kunstler and others.
Prisoners are the most oppressed, most ill-treated, most brutalized segment in this racist society. But Attica proved that revolutionary people can change the world.
For five days in 1971, thanks to the brothers at Attica, workers and oppressed people got a glimpse of what could be possible, if the workers could take over in a struggle with the ruling class: working to create a humane society, unity and class solidarity, rejection of racism, and workers' control.
After living through the horror of the Attica bloodshed and its traumatic immediate aftermath during which guards tortured him for hours with cigarettes, hot shell casings, threats of castration and death, a glass-strewn gauntlet and Russian roulette, Frank Smith looked back with complete clarity. "Attica was about wants and needs," he said in an interview three decades later. "Attica was a lot about class and a lot about race."
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