Ever since I read the Pulitzer Prize winning book "Blood in the Water" by Heather Ann Thompson I've had a keen interest in the Attica uprising in 1971. Since reading that book in 2019 I've watched a documentary and two movies about it. Today was the second documentary I've watched. The first documentary titled "Attica" was done in 1974. It was only three years after the melee and has more interviews from the victims. It is probably the best film on the matter being that it was done so soon after the event and memories of it all were so fresh.
"Ghosts of Attica" is a current day documentary (2001) that recaptures the four day uprising capped by a brutal takeover and the eventual settlement the surviving prisoners got. Their settlement put them back in the news again in 2001 thereby making this follow up documentary relevant.
"Ghosts of Attica," unlike the documentary "Attica," shows a bevy of stomach-turning photos. These pictures were clear evidence of the indiscriminate use of force by the state of New York to retake the prison. This documentary also mentions, for the first time, how the state screwed over their own employees. Those guards that were injured or killed during the takeover weren't compensated with anything but peanuts in the aftermath. Finally, this documentary gives a fuller look at the length of time the legal battle went on and the legal games the state of New York played to avoid culpability.
Documentaries like this are always necessary. They circulate the truth of events especially when there is a multi-billion dollar institutional machine in place to dictate what the "truth" is. The Attica slaughter was a travesty and a pock mark on the face of U. S. history. I will always appreciate documentaries such as this that expose the skeletons hidden in the closet of America's legal and "justice" system.
