50 Years After Attica, Activists Are Still Fighting To End Coerced Prison Labor

Storming the Gates: Fifty Years After the Attica Prison Uprising

Fifty years ago this week, September 9-13, 1971, incarcerated men at the Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York took control of the state prison to demand humane treatment and better living. The revolt captured the nation’s attention, with journalists, historians and political analysts calling it a pivotal moment in the national prisoners’ rights movement. 

Now, after the murder of George Floyd inspired renewed protests across the country demanding accountability around law enforcement, corrections and criminal justice, the WNYC Race and Justice Unit sought to reexamine the 50th anniversary of the Attica uprising, what has changed in New York State’s prison system to improve the quality of life for inmates, and what remains unaddressed half a century later. 

In September 1971, L.D. Barkley stood before a group of reporters inside the Attica Correctional Facility. The 21-year-old and his fellow prisoners had recently taken over the maximum security facility, and they wanted the public to hear their demands. “We are men! We are not beasts,” his voice rang out, “And we do not intend to be driven or beaten as such.”  

“We want to apply the New York state minimum wage law to all state institutions. We want a stop to slave labor here,” he said.

Days later, Barkley was one of the 29 prisoners and 10 hostages killed when state police and correction officers fired 2,000 rounds as they stormed back into the facility.

After the uprising and the bloodshed that ended it, state officials agreed to several of the inmates’ initial 27 requested reforms. Authorities ultimately recognized Muslim prisoners’ right to recieve religious texts and eat meals free of pork, and gave prisoners more frequent access to showers. But one of the prisoners’ key demands, ending forced labor, was never realized. 

A bill before Congress could finally change that. The “Abolition Amendment” would expand the anti-slavery protections in the 13th Amendment to ensure that prisoners are no longer forced to work against their will.

“The 13th Amendment is understood and purported to have abolished slavery,” said Bianca Tylek, an activist with Worth Rises, one of dozens of prison reform organizations behind the campaign. “Unfortunately, there is an insidious exception in the 13th Amendment that allows for the use of slavery and involuntary servitude as punishment for crime.”

One former New York prisoner, who was released from prison in 2018 after serving nearly 20 years for a murder conviction, said some correction officers would treat them like slaves. The former inmate named Mark said one of his first jobs included wiping down prison cell bars at the Upstate Correctional Facility in Malone, New York.

“The officer would have us doing things like wiping the bars down, but there was no dust in the bars because the jail was brand new,” said the 43-year-old parolee, who requested that his last name not be used to avoid stigma at his new real estate job. “He would sit back in his chair. He was just having us do these little odds and ends. And he would find joy in watching us do those things.”

The former prisoner claimed that if he protested or fought with the guard about the assignment, officers would put him in “keep lock,” a punishment where a prisoner is locked in his cell for 23 hours a day.

“The more we talk about it, the more it does remind me even more of slavery because in physical slavery, they would physically break you,” he said. “But, in Upstate, they couldn't really physically break you because of all the security measures that were there. But they would mentally break you.”

But not all reform activists agree with ending involuntary forms of prison labor. 

“I’m kinda torn on that,” said John Dukes, another former New York state prisoner, who now provides social services to parolees with an organization called “Speak Ya Truth.” 

“Though I’m definitely a strong advocate for a lot of my brothers and sisters who are locked up, I also know there is such a thing as structure, and a lot of us do need that in our lives because a lot of us are coming from broken homes, broken systems,” he said.

Dukes argued that work could be one of the better parts of incarceration, especially if it was better compensated and designed to give prisoners opportunities to develop skills and follow their interests.

“Most of the time when you go in there to inquire about something that you might be a little bit interested in, you don’t get those jobs,” he said. “That’s already one of the reasons why most people won’t wanna go.”

To pass the Abolition Amendment, activists would need two-thirds of the House and Senate to vote for it, and then three-quarters of state legislatures to ratify it.

Tylek acknowledged that ratification of a constitutional amendment is a tall order, but noted that Colorado, Utah and Nebraska banned coerced prison labor with bipartisan support. 

“In 2021, we have to be able to say, ‘No slavery, no exceptions,’” she said. 

A spokesperson for the New York correctional system declined to comment on the proposed amendment.