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Dear Friends,<br>
<br>
Just a short note to let you know that our beloved brother, Frank
Big Black Smith, passed away last night, July 31, 2004, at the hospital
in Kinston, North Carolina.<br>
<br>
More information on the funeral and other plans to follow as soon
as available.<br>
<br>
Attica is All of Us.<br>
<br>
Michael E. Deutsch <br><br>
<img src="cid:6.1.0.6.2.20040801091208.02c4c6b0@66.103.156.66.0" width=1 height=1 alt="2e9328.jpg"> <br>
<b>INTERVIEW WITH FRANK "BIG BLACK" SMITH From 2001<br><br>
Why did Attica happen? What were prison conditions like in 1971?<br>
</b>Attica was about wants and needs. Attica was a lot about class and a
lot about race. Let me give you an example. The 4th of July was a big
day; the corrections officers opened up the four prison yards. Well,
corrections had a "black ice time" and "white ice
time." That meant that corrections called the white inmates to get
ice for their Kool-Aid or their drinks, then they'd call the blacks. It
wasn't just, "Alright, ice time!" Corrections had that kind of
separation. The football teams had separation. The jobs, there was
separation. Basically, the white inmates had the white-collar jobs:
working in the package room, around the warden or assistant warden. The
labor part of prison was basically for minority people in 1971. Then if
corrections saw four or five blacks standing around talking, they'd make
you bust up. But if it was four or five whites, corrections didn't say
nothing to them. Basically, 80 to 90 percent of the people in Attica
State Prison were, and are, coming out of the New York City area. You put
that urban attitude and class of people with corrections officers and
their upstate rural attitudes, class, and behavior, and you automatically
create a conflict.<br><br>
<b>During Attica's four-day takeover, you were named chief of security.
At the start, you were apolitical. What changed you?<br>
</b>There was a lot of change. Corrections brought in big-time
educational programs and started going up on wages. Corrections started
letting more religious practices into prison and started conjugal visits.
You might have a little more time out of your cell, where you can breathe
better. Even the medical things started changing.<br><br>
But that's not enough to create a different value system and outlook in
life. You need to address the human behavior thing, how you react and
interact as a human being. You're not going to accomplish that if the
corrections officers don't have any of that themselves, if all they do is
look down on you with no humane concern and call you some form of an
animal. So you can't have all the programs for the inmates and not have
any kind of training for the keeper.<br><br>
Society is so aggravated with crime and the punishment of crime, they
don't see the revolving door. A person goes in, and he or she is going to
come out. Something in between that has to be put in place.
Rehabilitation and reform have to become a force, because prison doesn't
know what to do. All they know is how to turn the key and lock the door.
You have to do meaningful things while you're there: job training,
rehabilitation, heavy drug treatment, broad educational programs. The
average person who goes there doesn't have a high school diploma. It
should be mandatory to get a high school diploma. If someone goes there
and does drugs or some kind of addiction, it should be mandatory that
they get into a program. It should be mandatory that when they come out
that they continue the program. The court has got to set guidelines for
this when it is issuing the sentence. If you had parole officers who
really acted as helpers, instead of sitting around and just telling you
to look for a job, that would help. They have work relief programs, but
if you take someone from the city who's in Attica and let them out for
work relief, they don't know anybody upstate. Their family's down here,
and they're the folks who might help them get set up and start life
again, maybe talk to someone about giving them a job. They should send
those people to a downstate facility for work relief.<br><br>
A lot of the reforms are gone now. There are no educational programs
anymore, no life skill programs, or training for jobs. The Governor
stopped all of those programs about a year ago. Cut backs. They figure
it's better to have more prisons than more educational programs. You had
15 state prisons then, now you have 70 or 80 [in New York]. And they're
still building. A lot of them have double bunks, and they have young kids
in state prison with adults. That's a big problem.<br><br>
<b>Why should people care about Attica today?<br>
</b>Attica is not just an isolated prison. Attica is attitudes and
behavior, crime and punishment, education. It's about communication, it's
about alleviating racism as much as we can, it's about the criminal
justice system. It's about how the police can do what they want to when
they want to do it. It's about how court-sentencing guidelines should be
different. People should learn from and remember Attica, just like they
learned from Kent State and other such events. People need to see they
are part of the problem and part of the solution. Attica is all of
us.<br><br>
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