Blood in the Water The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy

There's a book by Heather Ann Thompson that won a Pulitzer Prize. It's called Blood in the Water, and it details these stories of these these people who fought for basic human rights. And it's supposed to be really incredible.

His latest book, Prison Riot, describes the circumstances and prison politics behind an actual riot he was involved in at Solano State Prison.

My guest today is Heather Ann Thompson, a professor at the University of Michigan and author of Blood in the Water, the Pulitzer Prize-winning book about the history of Attica.

In our series, we looked at the four-day standoff at Attica, but also the chaotic siege that ended the standoff.

So I wondered if we could focus on that day, those hours. And I was wondering if you could describe as best you can in detail what happened when the New York State troopers stormed the prison.

But I am kind of embarrassed and kind of appalled at how little I knew about it and how I had no idea what I was getting myself into, no idea what I, really how it would change my life.

I mean, I've never in my life written about something for which the trauma was so still personally lived by so many people, but also that the implications of it for the nation in terms of the fallout on mass incarceration, it was a journey that I had never even begun to appreciate when I started it.

If you'd like to learn more about the Attica prison uprising, we recommend the book Blood in the Water by Heather Ann Thompson.