What really happened during the Attica Prison Rebellion - Orisanmi Burton

Dig into the Attica Prison Rebellion, where prisoners took control of the facility in response to inhumane living conditions, and the violent retaking that followed.

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On September 9th 1971, a spontaneous uprising began in a New York State prison. A group of prisoners overpowered guards, broke windows, started fires, and captured supplies, sparking the Attica Rebellion. Soon, over 1,200 prisoners had assembled with 42 hostages to demand better treatment and better living conditions. Orisanmi Burton details the revolt and deadly retaking of Attica prison.

Lesson by Orisanmi Burton, directed by Tomás Pichardo-Espaillat.

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Thank you so much to our patrons for your support! Without you this video would not be possible! Hiroshi Uchiyama, Mark Morris, Misaki Sato, EdoKun, Boytsov Ilya, SookKwan Loong, Bev Millar, Lex Azevedo, Noa Shore, sarim haq, Kyle Nguyen, Jason A Saslow, MJ Tan Mingjie, Dawn Jordan, Prasanth Mathialagan, Samuel Doerle, David Rosario, Siamak H, Manav parmar, David Lucsanyi, Anthony Kudolo, Ryohky Araya, Mayank Kaul, Eduardo Briceño, Christophe Dessalles, Heather Slater, Yuh Saito, Fabian Amels, Sandra Tersluisen, Zhexi Shan, Bárbara Nazaré, Andrea Feliz, Victor E Karhel, Sydney Evans, Latora Slydell, Noel Situ, emily lam, Sid, Kent Logan, Alexandra Panzer, Jay M, Constantino Victor Delgado, Andrea Galvagni, Andrew Tweddle, Laurel-Ann Rice, Fernando A. Endo, Courtney Marcott, Anna-Alicia Brooks, Mustafa and Helen Lee.

[PramkLuna]

I love that TedEd can post things about stuff I've never heard about, but still make it interesting and leave with even more questions

[roheemolaiya]

Something that wasn't mentioned in the video was that the prisoners didn't attack guards that treated them with respect (There weren't that many), so even when the prisoners were in power, they still had mercy unlike the majority of the prison guards.

[noeldenever]

This case is an argument for why empathy is humanity's best quality. You can't create a good community without viewing situations from different people's perspective, without imagining yourself in others' shoes. You can't build a good society by treating some part of it as less valuable. It's just a time bomb waiting to explode in a social uprising.

[matheusGMN]

Damn... it's incredible how often nixon pops up and sets himself out to be a bad person

[spiderpooldevi]

"We revolt simply because, for many reasons, we can no longer breathe"
- Frantz Fanon

That's so deep

[anotherordinaryguy]

Absolutely inhumane of how they treated those prisoners like animals. They're human, and seeing them being abused with is unholy.

[bigcucuman]

“I am dying here little by little” damn.

[VikramVaidyanathan]

nixon seems to have so many blemishes to his name. vietnam war, watergate, the pentagon papers, and now this

[seventeencarattrash]

This is the type of history I wanted to learn in school. Raw history. But no, I learned about the civil war every single year from 7th to 12th grade (barely at that) 🙃

[temsias]

The quote in the start gave me some air...

[Skippa]

I would've never have known about this if it wasn't for Dog Day Afternoon.

[Alia-bcrc]

If it wasn't for Al Pacino screaming the name in Dog Day Afternoon, this important piece of history would still be buried forever. Thank you TED for bringing it up to an even wider audience.

[phamkhoa]

And they say that only communism hide bad history and only taught kids the "good" history. I am a Vietnamese and during my secondary school history lessons, my history teacher, a very senior teacher often told us her experience during and after the Vietnam war along with the normal topic in the book. From those lessons I learn that there is no good guys during the war. The American government often commit war crime such as burning down village, using chemicals weapon, napalm and bombing large cities. Meanwhile the NVA often torture Americans prisoners in the name of "justice", hiding among the civilian and conduct assassination of high ranking South Vietnamese officers and their family. After the war, there are the Khemer- Rouge incident and the border conflict with China along side the exterminating operation of the highlands minority. I also learnt that the whole thing could be avoided with the Americans not supporting the French in 1946. If the Americans had supported us to be independent in 1946, Vietnam would possibly be a democracy. We sided with the USSR because they were the only one willing to help us gain independent after WW2.

[conbiniii]

I had never heard about the Attica rebellion before this video. Thank you for this information and a huge round of applause for the animation.

[ExtremelyAnonymous]

The art direction in this video is amazing, not any less amazing than the topic itself, thank you TedEd for opening our eyes.

[jeremyweese]

I was in NY prison and every year on September 9th inmates refuse to go to the mess hall and programs are canceled in remembrance of the prisoners who changed the system in Attica.

[Grdc]

I had no idea about this, had never heard of it. Thank you for educating thousands of people with this videos

[emmaura]

Yeah, thanks Ted Ed for educating me about this bit of us history we never learn about in the public education system and even college

[hooman]

1 roll of toilet paper for month? That's worse than it was at the beginning of quarantine!

[harryli]

i love the animation. it is really unique and fits the style and mood of the topic