Orisanmi Burton, "Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt"

Orisanmi Burton, "Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt"

Orisanmi Burton is the author of "Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt." As we commemorate the 55th anniversary of the 1971 Attica rebellion, Burton explores what he terms the Long Attica Revolt and the criminalization of Black radicalism in New York prisons and beyond that began in the 1970s.

Eyewitness at Attica: Reflections 55 years later

September 9-13, 2026, is the 55th anniversary of the Attica Uprising - the largest prison rebellion in U.S. history, which ended when New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller ordered the police to carry out a brutal massacre of the prisoners.

Tribute to the Attica prisoners’ rebellion: ‘Prisoners’ Paris Commune’

On Sept. 9, 1971, approximately 1,500 prisoners from across the Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York seized control of Cell Block D and its yard, after submitting a 27-point manifesto to the prison administration [...]