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Bold thinking is an essential part of Dukes approach to scholarship, and three ongoing projects show the unexpected results.

Adriane Lentz-Smith, Gabriel Rosenberg, and Aarthi Vadde have been named 202021 National Humanities Center Fellows. They will spend a year away from their regular teaching duties as resident scholars at the Research Triangle Parkbased center, researching and writing new books. Chosen from 673 applicants, they join 30 other humanists from the U.S. and four foreign countries working in 18 different disciplines.

Here are the books theyre working on.

In 1985, a Black San Diego resident named Sagon Penn was pulled over by the police. The encounter quickly turned violent. Fearing for his life, Penn shot and killed one officer while wounding another and a civilian who was riding with them.

Penn was charged with murder, and his trial highlighted the rampant racial tensions of 1980s southern California, which would explode with the assault of Rodney King six years later. Though he was eventually acquitted, Penns life deteriorated. He was later arrested on charges of domestic abuse, among other things, and, in 2002, he committed suicide.

Adriane Lentz-Smith, associate professor of History

The basic story itself is riveting and heartbreaking, said Adriane Lentz-Smith, whose project, The Slow Death of Sagon Penn: State Violence and the Twilight of Civil Rights, centers around the case. It has you think about the ways in which state violence becomes more personalized types of violence and travels throughout a community, touching all kinds of folks.

By writing about Penns life in the era of Black Lives Matter, Lentz-Smith, an associate professor of History, hopes to provide historical context to now familiar debates about policing and racism. The Civil Rights Movement didnt begin with Brown vs. Board nor end with the Voting Rights Act, she said. She will use Penns experience to connect individual victims of state violence to the national history of policing, border policies and white supremacy, showing how the struggles of the Civil Rights Movement continue today.

Approaching the topic this way also allows Lentz-Smith to humanize the issues. When you make it not an abstract debate, but a life that we see destroyed, that takes his loved ones and his children with it to see it as tragedy, and not just an individual tragedy but Americas that seems significant, she said.

Gabriel Rosenberg, associate professor of Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies

According to Gabriel Rosenberg, associate professor of Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies, if you want to understand why eugenics and race science were widely popular in the United States in the early 20th century, you cant just look at intellectual debates over the theorys scientific merits (or lack thereof). The actual answer, he says, can only be found on farms.

There are really intriguing and interesting institutional ties between eugenic organizations and the livestock breeding industry, Rosenberg explained. This is a well-known empirical fact about the history of eugenics, but its often sidelined as a peculiarity.

Rosenberg aims to make it central, because thats what it was at the time. In the early 1900s, most Americans lived in rural areas, surrounded by farm animals. In fact, in 1900, the nations livestock was worth more than the countrys railroads combined. The only asset worth more at the time was land.

As a result, eugenics the practice of selectively mating people with specific hereditary traits was a familiar idea, Rosenberg argues. Many accepted the theory because it mirrored the way they bred their livestock. All that was needed was to apply the same logic to humans with horrific consequences.

By placing farming practices into the history of eugenics, Rosenberg is also making broader arguments about the forces shaping our world. The practice of making meat at these truly world historical levels is reformulating human social relations with each other, fundamentally restructuring human societies, he said. Were creating a new ecology that confines and conditions our own social relations. In other words, the supply chains and husbandry practices that define how we treat animals and nature also define how we treat ourselves.

Is fan fiction a form of literary criticism? Should people who love literature care about self-published novels, Instagram poetry or the millions of words written, read and shared on digital platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr or Reddit?

Aarthi Vadde, associate professor of English

By turning to popular digital forms of writing, associate professor of English Aarthi Vadde is taking questions typically asked by scholars of Internet culture and examining them with a literary lens. The new perspective raises the very question of what makes writing literary, asking what impact its form and venue of publication have even the device on which its read.

Vadde points out that while curling up with a good book is still many readers ideal way to consume literature, its not the predominant mode of reading in the 21st century. I didnt feel like enough people were talking about the actual sociological circumstances of the way literature is consumed today, Vadde said. You cant assume that people are reading the physical book. And if they are reading the physical book, you still have to take into account the ecology that the book exists in.

That ecology is defined by the Internet. We spend most of our reading time on digital devices, reading not just news articles and e-books, but social media posts, reviews and other kinds of everyday writing. And writing them ourselves. Writing is eclipsing reading as a literacy skill, Vadde said. Its so important to write in all areas of work and play these days. Thats something that is very different than the old idea of the reader and writer having a very clear boundary between them.

Titled We the Platform: Contemporary Literature after Web 2.0, Vaddes project examines how the social web is changing the relationship between literature and literacy, or the broader understanding of how people read and write today. She will examine works of literature that probe the conditions of reading and writing, make creative use of digital platforms and reflect upon the computing technologies shaping our interaction with all kinds of art, including Teju Coles Twitter fiction, Jarett Kobeks self-published satire I Hate the Internet and more.

In doing so, Vadde will analyze how the principles and rhetoric of Web 2.0, alongside its tech, influence the form and circulation of literature.

Learning to use digital tools is not enough, she said. Humanists should more pointedly address the philosophies behind those tools. We the Platform will show how literary works and humanistic criticism can play key roles in the dialogue on responsible computing.

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The Police State, Livestock Breeding and Web 2.0: Research by 3 Duke Professors - Duke Today

[He provided] Russians with Austrian military secrets. He also doctored or destroyed the intelligence reports which his own agents were sending in from Russia with the result that the Austrians, at the outbreak of the war, were completely misinformed as to Russias mobilization intentions.

U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) spoke these words in the 1950s in the midst of the second Red Scare. He would go on to assert that there were somewhere between 50 and over 200 known communists in the State Department despite offering no evidence. McCarthyism, as it would come to be known, would stifle much of the gains made by the working class since the Great Depression.

Just like the first Red Scare, which occurred three decades earlier in response to domestic labor activism and the Bolshevik Revolution abroad, McCarthy was utilizing the fear of communism, which he referred to as a well-placed fear, to combat democratic populism illustrated in the labor and civil rights movements. A half century later, the mass mobilization of individuals in Occupy, Black Lives Matter, Yellow Vests, #MeToo, Eco-Justice, Democracy Spring, and more, coupled with the populist rejection of neoliberalism expressed in the Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders campaigns, helped foster a Third Red Scare. Although the playbook is the same, this Red Scare differed in that it treated Russia, not communism itself, as the boogeyman. Trumps populist campaign, which co-opted economic anxiety for electoral victory, followed by his unexpected presidency, primed the American liberal class for a Third Red Scare.

Starting in 2016, the corporate media published false stories about how the Russians had obtained compromising content on Trump, altered the 2016 election with social media ads, made Trump into a Manchurian candidate, hacked a Vermont power-grid, and more. The Russia hysteria continued through his presidency with the press inflating the number of intelligence agencies investigating Trump from 4 to 17; The New York Times falsely reporting that Maria Butina was a Russian spy who traded sex for favorable policy; theWall Street Journalmaking the baseless claim that international intelligence serviceswere withholding intelligencefrom the U.S. because Trump had been compromised; and CNNfabricating the notion that Trump was in constant contact with Russians known to U.S. intelligence. Buzzfeed went further, printing the origin of much of these unsubstantiated stories, an opposition research dossier paid for by Republicans and the Hillary Clinton campaign, the Steele Dossier, from British Intelligence Office Christopher Steele. The speculative reporting continued with minimal retractions and suspensions. In fact, many of the discredited articles are still online. In addition to the press, the Third Red Scare was perpetuated by members of the intelligence community and Democratic Party such as United States Navy senior chief petty officer and media commentator Malcolm Nance, NSA employee John Schindler, former U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY), and House of Representatives minority leader Adam Schiff (D-CA). These crest of the speculative red scare wave broke when the Mueller Report revealed that much of the Russia hysteria was baseless. Nonetheless, the Democratic Party, assuming that the Third Red Scare was responsible for their electoral victories in 2018, shrouded their impeachment of Trump in Russian hysteria.

In 2020, Democrats have viewed Bernie Sanders and his supporters as the only thing standing in their way from electorally removing Trump and reestablishing their neoliberal hegemony. However, it would be challenging to completely discredit Sanders considering that he was the most popular candidate in 2016 and 2020, was polling best among voters of color, and captivated the coveted youth vote with a message of replacing the current system with democratic socialism. Therefore, a comprehensive, multifaceted attack was implemented by Democratic leadership and their corporate media enablers. In addition to a months-long blackout of his campaign and repeated manipulation of graphics and math regarding his support, the media and party establishment turned the Third Red Scare on Sanders and his supporters. For example, two days before Sanders landslide victory in the Nevada caucus, The New York Times ran an article titled Lawmakers are Warned That Russia is Meddling to Re-elect Trump. A day later they ran an article titled Russia is said to be Interfering to Aid Sanders in Democratic Primaries. On the same day, the Washington Post ran an article, with a headline, Bernie Sanders Briefed by U.S. officials that Russia is Trying to Help his Presidential Campaign, which obfuscated the not insignificant/crucial detail that the briefing offered no evidence. On the day of the Nevada primary, The New York Times published an op-ed titled, Same Goal, Different Playbook: Why Russia Would Support Trump and Sanders. The 24-hour news networks echoed the newspapers Russian hysteria with a guest on CNNs State of the Union claiming that the real winner in Nevada was Russian president Vladimir Putin. As it turned out, the articles content was based on anonymous sources making baseless claims.

However, despite the lack of evidence, red-baiting against Sanders persisted. In addition to newspapers such as USA Today, and The New York Times doing it, Dan Pfeiffer on NBCs Meet the Press and Rahm Emmanuel on ABCs This Week claimed that Putin was aiding Sanders in the primary to ensure a Trump victory in the general election; The Daily Beast opined that Russia was helping Sanders because Biden was the Kremlins most feared candidate; CNN Host Michael Smerconish compared Sanders candidacy to the spread of the coronavirus; now disgraced MSNBC commentator Chris Matthews likened Sanders win in Nevada to the Nazis invasion of France and suggested that if the Reds had won the Cold War, Sanders might have been found cheering on hypothetical executions in Central Park; NBC news anchor Chuck Todd cited a comparison of Sanders supporters to a digital brownshirt brigade; and not to be outdone, former adviser to the Clinton campaigns, and MSNBC contributor James Carville claimed that Sanders was a communist aided by Putin. Just as the Red Scare helped prevent the electoral success of Eugene Debs and Henry Wallace, it is safe to assume it stifled Sanders campaign.

In addition, the Third Red Scare has been instrumental in protecting Joe Bidens neoliberal candidacy from legitimate critiques. For example, in 2020, after hearing stories from other accusers, Tara Reade, a former staffer to Biden, accused the former vice-president of sexually assaulting her in the 1990s. In response, the very same Democratic Party that rightly rallied around Dr. Christine Blasey Ford had little interest in Reades story. Furthermore, not only did Times Up, the non-profit representing victims of sexual harassment after the 2018 public campaign against media mogul Harvey Weinstein, refuse to represent Reade because she was accusing Biden, it turns out that the managing director of Times Ups public relations firm is Anita Dunn, who is also the top adviser to Bidens presidential campaign. Worse, party leadership and loyalists in the media dismissed her story because they argued that, wait for it that it was a Russian conspiracy.

The Third Red Scare has served to marginalize legitimate critiques of the neoliberal establishment and hamstring the agenda of progressives. The reality is that Sanders agenda is not even radical. In fact, it is in line with Franklin Delano Roosevelts Second Bill of Rights proposal (constitutional right to employment, food, clothing, leisure, fair income, freedom from unfair competition and monopolies for farmers, housing, medical care, social security, and education). So, like FDR, Sanders is more of a New Deal Democrat, not a socialist or communist, simply as a matter of historical fact. Furthermore, the U.S. is unique in its derision for socialism. Most of the rest of the world has socialist policies and parties. Nonetheless, the seemingly endless propagation of the Russian interference and Red Scare narratives continue to inflict damage upon and hamper democratic populist politicians and movements. The time has come to discard this canard, putting it where it belongs once and for all into the dustbin of history.

Dr. Nolan Higdonis an author and lecturer of history and media studies at California State University, East Bay. Higdon sits on the boards of the Action Coalition for Media Education andNorthwest Alliance For Alternative Media And Education. His most recent publication isUnited States of Distractionwith Mickey Huff. He is co-host of the Along the Line podcast, and a longtime contributor to Project Censoreds annual book,Censored. In addition, he has been a guest commentator forThe New York Times,San Francisco Chronicle, and numerous television news outlets.

Mickey Huffis director of Project Censored, president of the Media Freedom Foundation, coeditor of the annualCensoredbook series from Seven Stories Press (since 2009), co-author ofUnited States of Distraction(City Lights, 2019), and professor of social science and history at Diablo Valley College where he co-chairs the history area, and lectures in communications at California State University, East Bay. He is also the executive producer and co-host of the weekly syndicated Pacifica Radio program, The Project Censored Show, founded in 2010.

Emil Marmol is a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto/Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE). As an interdisciplinary scholar with experience in professional film and radio production, he has published on critical media literacy, censorship, Cuban society, the impact of neoliberalism on higher education, repression of Latinx in education, standardized testing, labor struggles, and film. He is currently writing his doctoral thesis as an autoethnography/testimonio about growing up as the son of Latino immigrants in Orange County, California. His most recent publication is inCensored 2020: Though the Looking Glass, chapter 8, Fake News:The TrojanHorse for Silencing Alternative News and Reestablishing Corporate NewsDominance.

Learn more atwww.projectcensored.org

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The Third Red Scare: Neoliberal's Effective Framing of 21st Century Populist and Progressive Movements - CounterPunch

As social distancing to end the spread of COVID-19 continues to impact the ability of black congregations to engage in their traditional forms of interaction, conversations about the future arise. Undoubtedly, recovery from the coronavirus pandemic will create economic hardships that will impact the work many churches are doing on all fronts. Additionally, the pandemic and its rising death toll present unique theological issues that contradict messages heard on Sunday mornings; the COVID-19 crisis has created a black church crisis, on many fronts. Yet, many leaders see this as an opportunity to reflect on the solvency of black congregations and how they must emerge from this moment to remain a viable institution.

Six leaders, spanning generations and influence, recently came together to discuss the state of the black church.

When asked to grade the church, as an institution, on its overall performance in the community, no leader assigned a grade higher than a B+. Some pastors noted the sustained impact the church continues to make in the community, noting the many programs and initiatives that directly support communities at large. I have seen our churches do everything from provide free groceries and transitional housing to sending young people off to college and burying members without life insurance, said M. Keith McDaniel, senior pastor of Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church in Spartanburg, S.C. Yet, even as leaders celebrated the works of the church, they honored that its failings have led many away. I think people have lost faith in the institution but not in a black God, said Porsha D. Williams, pastor to Youth and Children in Newark, N.J.

Among those failings remains a fundamental lack of inclusion and care. From a full reckoning with its gender and sexuality politics to a wake-up call regarding the real needs of black communities, many leaders believe churches must address these issues or face its demise. An irrelevant black church is nothing more than a social club lacking the transformational power of the Spirit, said Irie Lynne Session, co-pastor of The Gathering, a Womanist Church in Dallas, Texas. Earle Fisher, senior pastor of Abyssinian Missionary Baptist Church in Memphis, Tenn., agreed, naming racism, sexism and xenophobia as sins for which the black church must atone. Their presence in black congregations, he believes, speaks to the pervasive power of white supremacy. According to Fisher, these forces have compromised the efficacy and potency of black religion in America.

As black congregations wrestle to remain relevant, many believe an institutional resistance to technology and innovation makes it difficult. The immediate aftermath of the COVID-19 crisis showed just how unprepared many congregations were for a digital shift. Some churches are antiquated in their ministry approaches and are quickly realizing that what worked before may not work now, said McDaniel. Mikael Elam, of the Osofo Ministry in New York City, agreed and noted that technology has long been misunderstood among church leadership. Not only are these platforms providing greater access to information; theyre also providing different forms of self-expression. Elam believes these different expressions only work to enhance the churchs mission. Greater access to different forms of thought allows us to have even broader theological conversations that can include everyone.

Admittedly, diversity and inclusion become complicated when cisgender, heterosexual black men are still the dominant face of leadership in black churches. Many have been trained to honor and excuse all things male, said Brianna K. Parker, curator and founder of the Black Millennial Caf. Session agreed, further suggesting that black congregations have benefited greatly from the disrespect black women have experienced. We have internalized a patriarchal mindset, she said. In short, because of the treatment black women have experienced at the hands of black men outside of the church, it often causes them to romanticize the black men found within it. According to Parker, when males dont meet the standard in our personal lives, we often want our black male leader as the star of our fairytales.

The unwillingness to shift in leadership was no more evident than in the days following the protests in Ferguson, Missouri after the death of Michael Brown. It illuminated a clear divide between the theological positions of millennials and those of previous generations. Many saw it as a missed opportunity for older church leadership to learn from younger leaders and activists. McDaniel said that instead of celebrating that Black Lives Matter found its genesis outside the church, many churches and pastors attacked it because they couldnt control it. Parker agreed and believes that churches also didnt embrace the decentralized models of leadership that emerged but found new voices to embody old ways. Once it was over, the church stopped fostering relationships with millennials who did not rise as stars as a result of the protests, she said.

The chasm between the generations continues to grow when many consider the Churchs unwillingness to revisit teachings on sex and sexuality. We lack any understanding of sex and sexuality outside the context of sin, Williams said. Fisher agreed, saying it is in part because black clergy refuse to admit the Bible is a bad place to get our sexual education. For Elam, the way black pastors infantilize congregants when it comes to human sexuality remains a problem. These are adult conversations and we need to stop having adolescent views and responses to them. Elam, along with others, believes this is one area that black religious leadership must consult with professionals and experts.

The shift black churches must take in their theology and approach, though difficult, is not impossible. Elam believes the first step is that clergy have to be honest about church hurt and trauma. Even if a particular pastor did not participate in harmful behaviors, Williams believes all pastors just have to apologize on behalf of the collective. We have to be honest that it is not perfect and repent for the toxic space church has been for so many people, she said. Even as leaders are honest about the harm inflicted by the church, they still grieve the fact many wont return because of it. The church owes people who left it the freedom to leave without being castigated and the freedom to return as if they never left, said McDaniel.

Despite all the church must do to become its best self, many celebrate that it has come far. There are pockets of black churches all over the world disrupting and dismantling patriarchy and other forms of social injustice, Session said. Elam said that his church has begun to recognize the feminine side of God. We could not have that conversation twenty-five years ago. As the voices of women and queer-identified persons continue to be lifted in the church, many remain hopeful. We owe the best and brightest of ourselves to God and our community, said Fisher.

The COVID-19 crisis has placed many black congregations in an extreme state of uncertainty. The painful truth is that it remains to be seen how many will be left standing when all is said and done. What is also true is that pastors and leaders are thinking ahead, beyond the challenges that arise as a result of the coronavirus, to ensure that the church is as viable and as healthy as it can be.

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The Coronavirus Crisis Forces Pastors to Examine the State of the Black Church - The Root

NEW YORK (AP) They were skeptical. The name was weird. The concept was a little crazy but it was intriguing.

Oscar-winner Christoph Waltz and rising star Stephan James each overcame initial reluctance to become pioneers in Quibi, the mobile phone-only platform that offers installments of movies and TV in 10 minutes or less.

When they told me about the whole endeavor, I said, Really? Have attention spans come down that far? Its now below 10 minutes? jokes Waltz.

Now on the other side, both film actors are firm believers in the process that transforms their art into something snack-sized. It was kind of ingenious and Im honestly glad I took the risk, says James. As the times change, well change with it and we should.

Quibi launched last week with a staggering 175-plus programs planned for this year, including Punkd, with Chance the Rapper and Chrissys Court, with Chrissy Teigen administering justice in small claims cases.

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Two of the more prestigious scripted shows are Waltzs Most Dangerous Game co-starring Liam Hemsworth as a man who becomes hunters prey and James #FreeRayshawn, the tense story of a man set up by police in New Orleans.

The actors say nothing on their Quibi film sets was different from being on a regular Hollywood one, with no dilution of quality or corners cut. You wouldnt have done anything different on a project that is shot for the theaters, says Waltz.

Waltzs show has 16 episodes and with each running about 10 minutes, the total entertainment time of Most Dangerous Game is what youd find at any film at the cineplex. Its just in chunks.

It would be a movie if you string them together except for the fact that they employed additional nifty, crafty dramatic twists and turns to chain the individual portions together, he says.

James was attracted to his Quibi show because it tackled race and policing in a very current way telling the story of a black man framed by cops, with references to Black Lives Matter and a nod to the power of social media.

Without question. I always believe that our power as artists is to make art that reflects life and society and to me the story of #FreeRayshawn is no different, he says.

Waltz, who has won Oscars for Django Unchained and Inglourious Basterds, says Quibi doesnt need to be compared to other types of filmmaking.

Just because its short doesnt mean its of lesser quality or value, he says. Its not the little cousin or the derivative or the smaller form of anything. It is Quibi. It is a thing in itself.

Waltz also doesnt believe Quibis launch points to the future of filmmaking or signals the death of traditional movies. Episodic films on phones are just going to be part of life from now on.

Just because you have miniature portraits doesnt mean anything for the future of landscape painting, he says. Just because you have a violin sonata doesnt mean it will change the world of the symphony once and for all. No. These are things that exist at the same time.

James sees Quibi as a refinement and technological evolution of something millions of people already do watch TV and films on our phones, via apps or YouTube.

To be honest, there are tons of people who, even before Quibi, were watching full-on shows on their phones, regardless of the platform. Now you have a platform that is literally made for your phone.

The actor, who had a breakout 2018 with roles in Amazon Studios Homecoming and Barry Jenkins drama If Beale Street Could Talk, says Quibis offerings could conceivably be reviewed like other shows and movies and be up for Oscars or Emmys one day.

Its hard to think that something like this cant conceivably be part of the future of Hollywood, that we can judge these things the same way we do other any piece of content, he says. Theres a lot of great, great work being put in on these shows so I dont see why not.

___

Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

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Quibi stars have no quibble with new phone-only filmmaking - Associated Press

Big Black: Stand at Attica Frank "Big Black" Smith, Jared Reinmuth, Ameziane

Archaia / Simon & Schuster

February 2020

We can hope that one day American schools will feature mandatory courses on racism. If we can teach history by region (European, World, American) surely we can also do so by theme. A course on American racism would help to complement existing courses on ethics and civics, for what is the point of those studies if not to teach the practical application of their subject? If America is ever to acknowledge and rise above the virulent racism that currently holds it in thrall, it will come from teaching history and empathy to younger generations in the hopes they may avoid at least some of the depravity and vice of their parents' world.

In this more enlightened future, one of the topics our American Racism course will cover is the Attica Prison Riot of 1971. Half a century past, the Attica Prison Riot of 1971 offers a tragic and yet stirring example of both the viciousness of white supremacist hate (and its virulent grip on US law enforcement) as well as the dignity, strength and resistance of imprisoned African-Americans. As we approach the 50th anniversary of this courageous and tragic event (9-13 September), efforts to preserve its memory have taken a variety of forms, most recently the beautiful and harrowing graphic novel Big Black: Stand at Attica.

The details of the revolt and its aftermath are now well documented, despite the efforts of white US officials to bury and confuse them after the fact. The revolt at New York State's Attica Correctional Facility (a maximum-security prison opened in 1931 that is still in operation) took place in the context of a wave of prison protests that swept the country in the early '70s. Prisoners and supporters sought to draw attention to the brutal and inhumane conditions of American jails, which then as now were filled with disproportionate numbers of African Americans.

Nation of Islam and other civil rights groups were organizing among inmates, and a self-organized group of inmates at Attica had already submitted a manifesto to the prison authorities. They demanded an end to slave labour, respect for inmates' civil rights, and a stop to the brutalizing treatment from guards. Authorities reacted strongly, hunting down signatories and punishing them with solitary confinement and other punitive measures. This only increased inmate solidarity, which they expressed in fasting as well as makeshift armband protests.

The 'revolt' itself began on 9 September 1971. Harsh crackdowns by the prison guards, coupled with rumours of beatings and murder that were given added fuel when a prisoner was murdered by guards in California, led a group of prisoners at Attica to fear they were being set up for a possibly fatal ambush when a guard accidentally locked them in a corridor. Fearing for their lives, they overpowered the guard and broke out of the corridor. When other prisoners saw this, they leapt into action, spontaneously overpowering guards throughout the facility. Soon the entire prison was in inmates' hands and 42 correctional officers and civilian workers had been taken hostage.

The inmates initially thought they were fighting for their lives, but once they were in charge of the prison, their concern became one of retaliation by the white correctional officers. A team of prisoners quickly organized a security squad, led by Frank "Big Black" Smith, to protect the hostages; they also formed a negotiation team and other administrative units. A list of demands, similar to the earlier manifesto, was drawn up, with the additional demand of amnesty for prisoners who took part in the occupation.

Robot by Thor_Deichmann (Pixabay License / Pixabay)

The prisoners spoke eloquently of their situation to reporters who visited the jail, and for four days negotiations dragged out, covered on national television and monitored by teams of civilian observers to ensure the safety of both sides. During this time, Smith recounts poignantly, inmates exulted in being able to sleep outside under the stars for the first time in many years.

The attempt to negotiate was only in good faith on the part of the inmates; correctional officers, with the approval of New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller and US President Richard Nixon, launched an all-out attack on the prison on 13 September. Helicopters bombarded the prison with tear gas, after which officers opened fire with shotguns and stormed the gates.

What ensued was a massacre. Correctional officers' ranks had been bolstered by volunteer police officers and local white supremacists, many of them armed with explosive ammunition and other weapons banned by the Geneva Conventions. They deliberately shot to kill, and proceeded to torture and murder prisoners who surrendered. Nor did they distinguish between prisoners and hostages. Authorities had already accepted that the hostages would likely be killed during the attack, and would blame inmates for their murders. By the time the dust settled, 128 inmates had been shot, and 29 prisoners and 9 hostages had been killed.

Larry Getlin describes the scene in a retrospective article in the New York Post:

"Some of the black prisoners heard the N-word screamed at them as they were shot, or taunts of, "White power!"

"For the victims of this abuse, no medical care was made available, in some cases for days or even weeks. One doctor was ordered not to treat a shooting victim with blood running down his face, and a guardsman was literally ordered to rub salt in another prisoner's wounds."

Smith, the narrator of Big Black: Stand at Attica, was one of those tortured. Ironically, the officers' desire to torture him for revenge might have saved his life, while other organizers were being deliberately gunned down in cold blood.

Although the police cover-up of what actually happened carried the day in national media the carnage and deaths were falsely blamed on the inmates themselves the truth eventually emerged. Activists, lawyers, investigative journalists, prisoners and their families all worked assiduously in the years that followed to bring forward the truth.

As word began to emerge of what had really happened, they organized protests and rallies. Lawsuits were filed against the State of New York for civil rights violations, and finally in the year 2000 after nearly 30 years of struggle the State settled with the former inmates (who in 1976 had been pardoned for their role in the occupation) for $8 million. (A separate $12 million settlement was made with families of the prison guard hostages who were murdered by their fellow officers during the attack).

Big Black Stand: at Attica does a marvellous and respectful job of telling this harrowing story. It takes the perspective of Frank "Big Black" Smith, who headed up the improvised inmate security team during the occupation and played a key role in protecting the hostages. Following his release, he overcame his drug addiction and became a substance abuse counsellor; he later studied to be a paralegal and worked as a legal investigator for defense lawyers. He also became a tireless activist for prison reform.

The book chronicles Smith's life from childhood, the son of a poor single mother and former sharecropper whose parents had been slaves. Sentenced to 15 years in a maximum-security prison for robbery (a disproportionate sentence for a first offense), he was well-liked by his fellow inmates, for whom he also served as football coach (he'd excelled at the sport in high school). Although he wasn't one of the instigators of the riot, he was approached by its leaders to take on the security chief role, since they figured inmates would listen to him and stay in line (both because of his level-headedness, as well as his massive physique). This made him a sought-after target for retaliation by the police and prison guards who carried out the slaughter.

The occupation and its horrific, brutal aftermath occupies the bulk of Big Black Stand. The violence is harrowing. It would be easy to lose oneself in despair as the outcome already known to the reader unfolds, but the authors work hard to ensure the carnage is complemented by the strength and dignity of the inmates, who repeatedly and courageously refuse to concede to their oppressors.

A special spotlight is also shone on the role played by Rockefeller and Nixon in the crisis. The authors make the two men's complicity in the violent and murderous outcome vividly apparent. Rockefeller in particular, an aspirant for the White House, is more worried about the occupation's impact on his campaign than the lives and safety of either inmates or hostages. Right up until the end, prisoners and their supporters hoped for the Governor's personal intercession in the crisis (when the helicopter appeared to commence the attack, prisoners initially believed it was the Governor coming to negotiate). Yet Rockefeller refused to intervene, and ordered the assault on the prison with full knowledge it would cost the lives of inmates and hostages alike.

He was later revealed to have shrugged off the deaths of hostages at the hands of their uncontrollable fellow guards in a phone call with President Nixon, brushing off their murders with the comment, "That's life." The book does an excellent job of underscoring Rockefeller's guilt, and takes particular relish in chronicling how the ensuing scandal dogged him for the rest of his days.

The book also dishes out scathing and deserved criticism to journalists covering the tragedy. They accepted at face value the story they were given by police, blaming the murders on inmates and even running the false rumour that hostages had been castrated, despite having no evidence whatsoever for either claim. The tendency of otherwise astute white reporters to swallow and regurgitate intact the claims of white police officers is one of the prevailing shames of modern journalism. It's only in the present moment that -- thanks to the work of Black Lives Matter organizers -- some journalists are starting to realize the scale of police dishonesty when it comes to racist violence enacted by the authorities. (See also: "'The View from Somewhere' Exposes the Dangerous Myth of 'Objective' Reporting".)

The authors spare no efforts to remind readers of this problem. In one panel, a guard shows off the dead bodies to reporters. "This one came at me with a knife. Barely got a shot off in time," he lies.

"The idiot reporters don't even realize that man was shot in the back," rages a nearby doctor to his colleague. "Damned lies and a coverup," responds the other. In reality, several of the medical responders were complicit in the racist violence, refusing to treat injured inmates.

While the story itself would suffice for a superb graphic novel, the artwork by French artist Ameziane deserves special notice. Each panel is a work of art in its own right; the detailing is remarkable. The book's setting is mostly uniform and grim a bleak prison of brick and steel. But Ameziane's detail is absorbing. Take, for example, a two-page panel depicting a visit to the occupied prison by Bobby Seale, co-founder of the Black Panther Party (and one of the observers who tried to help facilitate negotiations).

Seale speaks to the inmates, who are massed in the courtyard and perched on window ledges. Immensely detailed brickwork merges with intricately interlaced bars on the windows. The inmates are garbed in a myriad array of found items, for once able to express their personal style: some have on football helmets and makeshift armour; others opt for the flowing robes and Muslim headscarves of Nation of Islam. Seale and the prison warden go head to head in gorgeously expressive juxtaposition: the warden's racist disdain and worried grimace belie his effort to seem stern and threatening; Seale's gaze burns with a combination of passion and resignation, the firm set of his mouth expressing his own worry for the inmates' safety.

Ameziane's illustrations are versatile, too. Most of the comic art is realist in style, but occasional large vistas are depicted in abstract sketch format. The prison assault itself is depicted in variegated form over several pages: full two-page graphically realistic action spreads alternate with cartoon violence (a good way of ensuring the book doesn't risk losing itself in lurid voyeurism). The lush, full-colour spreads that appear throughout are mesmerizing. Indeed, if the narrative wasn't so horrific and fast-paced, forcing the riveted reader to flip pages rapidly, one could spend a significant amount of time simply appreciating the detail and style of each panel.

The book is the third of Ameziane's 'Soul Trilogy', which also includes Muhammad Ali (2016, Dark Horse Books) and the Angela Davis biopic Miss Davis (2020, ditions du Rocher, not yet available in English), both written by Sybille Titeux. Ameziane has also worked with the remarkable Mexican writer Paco Ignacio Taibo II to produce comic adaptations of his work.

Big Black: Stand at Attica was written by Jared Reinmuth, whose stepfather, Daniel Meyers, led the Attica Brothers Legal Team in the 26-year legal battle for justice. Smith, described by his co-author as "a wonderful storyteller", became friends with the family. He shared his story with Reinmuth in the late '90s; the aspiring writer, actor and director initially thought it could provide the basis for a screenplay. Following Smith's death in 2004, Reinmuth continued working with his widow, Pearle Battle Smith, to chronicle Big Black's story, which has finally emerged in graphic novel format. The book also features a moving introduction by Meyers.

Big Black: Stand at Attica is a superb graphic novel, excelling well beyond the standard fare of the now ubiquitous bio-pic. Written by contributors with personal ties to the events, the story it tells is one which is vitally important to remember. The narrative, illustrated with Ameziane's lush and magical artwork, is a stirring tribute to the strength and courage of those who died, and a powerful call to action in the ongoing battle against the systemic curse of white American racism.

* * *

Additional Works Cited:

Ameziane.

Clines, Francis X. "Postscripts to the Attica Story". The New York Times. 18 September 2011.

Getlin, Larry. "

The True Story of the Attica Prison Riot". The New York Post. 20 August 2016.

Rollmann, Hans. "'The View From Somewhere' Exposes the Dangerous Myth of 'Objective' Reporting". PopMatters. 18 October 2019.

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Graphic Novel 'Big Black' Is a Stunning Depiction of the Attica Prison Uprising - PopMatters