"this is a special presentation of american experience." "major funding for american experience with captioning is provided by the alfred p. sloan foundation." "national corporate funding is provided by liberty mutual and the scotts company." "american experience is also made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by:" "funding for the re-release of eyes on the prize made possible by:" "and:" "♪ i know the one thing we did right ♪" "♪ was the day we started to fight ♪" "♪ keep your eyes on the prize ♪" "♪ hold on, hold on ♪" "♪ keep your eyes on the prize ♪" "♪ hold on. ♪ only our brother, martin luther king, exhausted a means of nonviolence with his life being taken by some racist." "what is being done to us is what we hate, and what happened to martin luther king is what we hate." "you're darn right, we respect nonviolence." "but to sit and watch ourselves be slaughtered like our brother?" "we must defend ourselves, as malcolm x said, by any means necessary." "man:" "at this point i question the whole purpose of the black panther party." "in my thinking, they were necessary." "it was a shock treatment for white america to see black men running around with guns just like black men had saw white men running around with guns." "yeah, that was a shock treatment." "it was good in that extent, but it got a lot of black people hurt." "there was no joke about what was going on, but we believed with our hearts that we should defend ourselves, and there were so many that did do that." "narrator:" "by 1968, the black panther party was part of an increasingly volatile political scene." "that summer, the national democratic convention in chicago was disrupted by violent clashes between demonstrators and police." "i've never seen anything as horrible in my whole life." "♪ we shall overcome ♪" "♪ we shall overcome... ♪ narrator:" "the war in vietnam polarized the nation and the political and racial upheaval at home soon became an issue in the presidential campaign." "this is a nation of laws, and as abraham lincoln has said:" ""no one is above the law, no one is below the law."" "and we're going to enforce the law, and americans should remember that if we're going to have law and order." "i think it's fair to say that in..." "as the nixon administration came into office, as we came into office in 1969, there certainly was a strong perception of radicalization." "narrator:" "in chicago, and in other cities, f.b.i. director j. edgar hoover expanded surveillance of organizations in the black community, especially the black panther party." "( buddy guy's "the day i met the blues" playing ) narrator:" "directives issued by f.b.i. headquarters a few weeks after the elections called for:" ""imaginative and hard-hitting counterintelligence measures aimed at crippling the black panther party."" "on chicago's west side, the panthers had just opened their first office in illinois." "well, the thing that i really loved about the black panthers is that they refused to be ignored." "uh, it was very easy to ignore black people back then because everybody figured, well, it's just a lot of talk and they're not going to do anything." "they'll just go on and on and on moaning and groaning about how terrible everything is and they, of course, at best, they just might get involved in some acts of nonviolence, but that's about it." "and then they just kind of, you know, business as usual." "you couldn't have business as usual with the black panthers." "the black panthers were definitely going to be heard." "so we're saying, we always say in the black panther party, that they can do anything they want to to us." "we might not be back-- i might be in jail, i might be anywhere, but when i leave, you'll remember i said, with the last words on my lips, that i am... ( crowd responds ) a revolutionary." "and you're going to have to keep on saying that." "you'll have to say that "i am a proletariat."" ""i am the people."" ""i'm not the pig."" "you've got to make a distinction." "and the people are going to have to attack the pigs." "the people are going to have to stand up against the pigs." "that's what the panthers are doing all over the world." "narrator:" "fred hampton, a former n.a.a.c.p. youth organizer, became, at age 20, chairman of the illinois chapter of the black panther party." "the panthers' program drew mixed reactions in chicago's black community." "many black people initially was very, very afraid of the black panther party." "i understood where they were trying to go politically and felt that they had to change things." "and when i talk about fear, i was afraid they weren't going to do it right, and i was always trying to cool them out and say, "that's not the right way to go."" "they were too direct." "you could tell that this was a movement that was very meaningful to them." "and none of them was suicidal, so it wasn't like they were out there trying to figure out a way get killed, but they did honestly and truly believe in power to the people-- i mean, that was their slogan." "here you found some brothers and sisters saying first, you know, look, the united states constitution guarantees us the right to bear arms and to protect ourselves." "and we understand that we need protection in the black community, and it's our responsibility to protect black women and black children, not the police, because the police is not here to serve and protect us, only to continue to enslave us." "it is our responsibility to see to it that our people have a decent place to live, decent food to eat, and quality health care, not the system." "so that frightened a lot of people." "i mean, they didn't think that it could happen." "they didn't think it was right." "people learn by example." "i don't think anybody has an argument with that." "i think that what huey p. newton said, that people learn basically by observation and participation, i think that everybody caught on to that." "so what we're saying is simply if they learn by observation and participation then we need to do more acting than we need to do writing." "and i think the black panther party is doing that." "we didn't talk about a breakfast-for-children program." "we've got one." "panther:" "come on in, little brothers, come on in, little sisters, y'all can sit down and get something to eat." "y'all take off y'all's coats." "( animated chatting ) sit down, man." "y'all can eat as much as y'all want to." "narrator:" "the new breakfast- for-children program soon attracted the attention of the f.b.i." "claiming the program served to indoctrinate children, the bureau directed field offices to "formulate specific counterintelligence techniques to disrupt this nefarious activity."" "the f.b.i. stepped up its efforts to recruit blacks to infiltrate the black panther party." "my recruitment by the f.b.i. was very efficient, very simple, really." "i'd stolen a car and went joyriding over the state limit, and, um... they had a potential case against me and i was looking for an opportunity to work it off." "and a couple months later that opportunity came when f.b.i. agent roy mitchell asked me to go down to the local office of the black panther party and try to gain membership." "i think everyone that was in the black panther party kind of understood, it was a given, that we would have wiretaps, that we would be followed, that we would be harassed, we'd be locked up," "that we would even be beaten by the police." "narrator:" "in the winter of 1969, law enforcement agencies launched efforts to undermine an attempted coalition between the black panther party and the blackstone rangers, a chicago gang." "saffold:" "the panthers were pursuing an ideology that said:" "we need to take these young minds, this young energy, and turn it into part of our movement in terms of black liberation and the rest of it." "and i saw a very purposeful, intentional effort on the part of the police department to keep that head from hooking up to that body." "it was like, you know, do not let this thing become a part of what could ultimately be a political movement." "because that's exactly what it was." "narrator:" "f.b.i. agents wrote an anonymous letter to jeff fort, the leader of the blackstone rangers, warning rt that the panthers have "a hit out for you."" "the bureau knew that the information was false, but believed that fort might take "retaliatory action"" "against the panthers." "meanwhile, city officials announced a crackdown on gangs." "reporter:" "would you say that street gangs can do no good?" "is that what you would say?" "no, i wouldn't say that." "i think that the energy of youth, properly directed, could be a tremendous betterment, could lead to a tremendous betterment of our city and to individuals' progress themselves." "i'm complaining about the misdirection." "i'm complaining about the fact that 620 out of 693 shooting victims are black themselves, and i think that's a tragedy." "that is where black genocide is occurring here." "narrator:" "the chicago police expanded their anti-gang campaign to include the black panther party." "in late may, fred hampton was sent to prison." "he had been convicted on a charge of stealing 71 dollars' worth of ice cream bars." "we tried to develop negative information to discredit him, just like we did everybody else;" "we, meaning the f.b.i." "i tried to come up with signs of him doing drugs or something, and never could." "he was clean, he was dedicated." "i've had private conversations with him." "we got along pretty well." "narrator:" "while fred hampton was in prison, a police raid on the panther office turned into a shoot-out." "five policemen and three panthers were wounded." "( several conversations going on at once ) nobody was up there except the police when the fire started?" "panther:" "right on." "frank, you want to come...?" "panther:" "get a picture of that door." "check that door out, man." "they fired a shotgun." "rush:" "they shot up the door at the office there, arrested some panthers." "and just to show you the nature, uh, uh... of the raiding officers there, they burned boxes of cereal that we had on the third floor." "they deliberately set fire to that." "they didn't set fire to the second floor." "they set fire to the third floor where all the, you know... that was kind of indicative of what they were thinking and how they were moving." "man:" "the idea on the part of the police was to psych the community out." "they call me up the next day;" "i says, "is the office open?"" ""well, no, the police boarded the place up."" "i say, "open it back up-- you got the lease to the place."" ""what?" i says, "open it up!" "take all that boarding down, paint that place."" "and the black panther party members started working for a couple of days, the next thing you know, the community started bringing wood, paint and everything, and opened that black panther party office right back up." "and, of course, this was an attempt to terrorize us out of existence." "at the same time, if we would close down, it would leave the black community saying, "well, they stopped them."" "narrator:" "in a report made public in the summer of 1969, f.b.i. director hoover declared the black panther party the number one threat to the internal security of the united states." "i think, frankly, that he overstated the concern-- the real concern-- that the black panthers were to the country." "i think it was legitimate for him to state that they were a violent and unlawful element, but referring to them as the most dangerous, or most important-- and i don't remember exactly the words he used" "the greatest threat to the united states at that time, i think was an overstatement." "the police community has sort of a built-in reward and punishment system of its own." "and you get a lot of rewards when you go after who the boss says is the bad guy and you get him." "and i think what j. edgar hoover was able to do was to give police officers the impression that it was okay, it was open season." "you didn't have to worry about the law." "you didn't have to worry about the difference in the executive branch of government and the judicial branch of government." "i think what he, in effect, said is "it's our ball game, guys." ""we've got the authority, we have the capacity." "let's crush 'em."" "narrator:" "panther leader fred hampton was still in prison, but efforts were underway to appeal his conviction." "♪ free fred hampton, free fred hampton ♪" "♪ we need our warrior beside us. ♪ we were successful, and we got him out of jail towards the end of that summer because a supreme court justice in the state of illinois looked at what kind of a person he was," "looked at the kind of case it was and gave him an appeal bond." "that's the first time i saw fred hampton." "and i was a young, white student in a predominantly black church, full to the rafters, welcoming fred hampton back." "okay, you can put your hands down now." "we say all power to all people." "( audience repeats ) we say white power to white people." "( audience repeats ) brown power to brown people." "( response ) yellow power to yellow people." "( response ) black power to black people." "( audience repeats ) brown:" "we'd go out, we'd drive along to some schoolyard or something and there were like 200, 300 people waiting there for fred to show up." "and the phenomenal part was that, i mean, these are all people from the streets, i mean, who were not going to get up and go to work or anything else and never had no discipline and never would," "but there they were, it was 6:30 in the morning-- freezing chicago weather." "and fred would have them out there doing push-ups and jumping jacks and getting themselves energized for the day's work, which included making the breakfast, which included selling papers, which included working in the medical clinic" "which included a bunch of stuff." "it was a very day-to-day kind of a thing, the black panther party." "and you'd have fred out there rallying them." "and he'd say, "all right, all right, all right." "power to the people."" "everybody said, "power to the people."" "he'd say, "now, i'm not going to die on no airplane."" "everyone would say, "no."" ""i'm not going to die slipping on no ice."" "they'd say, "no."" "he'd say, "i'm going to die for the people because i'm going to live for the people."" "he said, "i'm going to live for the people because i love the people."" "he'd say, "i love the people-- why?"" "and they'd say, "because we're high on the people."" "and that was fred hampton." "when you saw this-- this was 21 years old-- it was unbelievable." "you could not not be moved by fred hampton." "narrator:" "in the fall of 1969, chicago was the scene of a controversial trial." "the defendants were leaders of the anti-war demonstrations that had taken place during the democratic party convention." "national panther chairman bobby seale insisted on speaking in his own defense." "on october 29, trial judge julius hoffman ordered seale bound and gagged." "this is a symbol to every one of us." "black men in our courts are gagged." "black men in our courts do not feel as though there is any justice." "black men in our courts, whenever case they come, feel that judges do not understand and are without mercy." "narrator:" "two weeks later, a gun battle on chicago's south side further escalated tensions." "a former panther and two policemen were killed." "the deaths provoked a response from informant william o'neal's f.b.i. contact." "mitchell became more specific during that time." "um... he wanted to know the locations of weapons caches." "he wanted to know if we had explosives." "um, he needed to know who was staying at what locations, who spent the night where." "his information didn't change so much as he requested more detail, and i knew why." "the shoot-out on the south side had pretty much laid the foundation within the party, within the black panthers, we knew that the police would react some type of way." "narrator:" "expecting police action, the black panthers had fortified their office." "f.b.i. informant o'neal was now head of panther security in chicago." "we're very confident that nobody's coming in the front door-- nobody." "no gas." "nobody getting on the roof there." "i want you to know that." "nobody getting on the roof." "we believe in, what is it-- fire-- cover and fire?" "yes, we do defend our offices and we do defend our homes." "this is a constitutional right everybody has, and nothing funny about that." "the only reason they get mad at the black panther party is for the simple reason that we're political." "and they don't want to admit that there's a lot of young organizations around but we are a political organization." "we are an organization that understands that politics is nothing but war without bloodshed, and war is nothing but politics with bloodshed." "narrator:" "on november 19, f.b.i. agent roy mitchell drew a floor plan of hampton's apartment based on information supplied by informant o'neal." "on december 4, at 4:45 in the morning, 14 policemen-- nine white and five black-- raided the apartment." "deborah johnson, eight months pregnant, was asleep in the back bedroom, next to fred hampton." "the first thing i remember after fred and i had went to sleep was being awakened by somebody shaking fred while we were laying in bed, saying, "chairman, chairman, wake up, the pigs are vamping."" "this person that was in the room with me kept shouting out, "we have a pregnant sister in here." "stop shooting."" "eventually the shooting stopped and they said we could come out." "i remember crossing over fred and telling myself over and over, "be real careful." ""don't stumble." ""they'll try to shoot you." ""just be real calm." ""watch how you walk." ""keep your hands up." ""don't reach for anything." "don't even try to close your robe."" "when i was in the kitchen, i heard an unfamiliar voice say:" ""he's barely alive" or "he'll barely make it."" "then the shooting started back again." "then i heard the same unfamiliar voice say:" ""he's good and dead now."" "i knew in my mind... i assumed they were talking about fred and i knew when i left out of there i couldn't look towards the room." "narrator:" "party leaders mark clark and fred hampton were killed in the raid." "four of the seven surviving occupants of the apartment were wounded." "all were charged with assault and attempted murder." "johnson:" "when they locked me up at the police station, i kept begging them for a call, to make one call." "i called, i think, the office-- the black panther office-- and i spoke to bobby rush." "he told me that fred was dead, fred had been killed." "i remember walking out of the office and looking through a little clearing over on the next block, which was right in front of the monroe street address and seeing a lot of police cars over there and at that time, bobby rush came to the office." "he had just come from over there or maybe the coroner's office." "we walked back over there and we both were speechless." "we just walked through the house and saw where... what had taken place and where he died and it was shocking." "and then i was, you know, i just began to realize that the information that i had supplied leading up to that moment had facilitated that raid." "i knew that, indirectly, i had contributed, and i felt it and i felt bad about it." "and then i got mad." "you know, i had... and then i had to conceal those feelings, which made it worse." "i couldn't... i couldn't say anything." "i just had to continue to play the role." "narrator:" "f.b.i. headquarters authorized payment of a $300 bonus to informant william o'neal for "uniquely valuable services which he rendered over the past several months."" "they came in our communities like a thief in the night and they just snatched fred's life, just like that." "and it's just like, why?" "this brother has done nothing to none of you all." "the only thing that this brother has done was to instill a sense of pride and dignity and self-determination in his people." "narrator:" "state's attorney edward hanrahan gave an official account of the raid to the press." "as soon as sergeant daniel groth and officer james davis, who were leading our men, announced their office, occupants of the apartment attacked them with shotgun fire." "the officers immediately took cover." "the occupants continued firing at our policemen from several rooms within the apartment." "thereafter, three times sergeant groth ordered all his men to cease firing and told the occupants to come out with their hands up." "each time, one of the occupants replied, "shoot it out"" "and continued firing at the police officers." "the press at the beginning had taken hanrahan's line." "this was a shoot-out." "200 shots were fired." "the panthers fired half of them." "nobody was really challenging that except a young sun-times reporter by the name of brian boyer, who went down there, and he saw the evidence." "it didn't take a genius to look at what was there and see that all the bullets were going in one direction and all those bullet holes were pointing towards fred hampton's bedroom and the middle bedroom where verlina and doc satchel and everyone was." "narrator:" "conflicting descriptions of the raid made headlines in the chicago papers." "the account that we made public yesterday gives a detailed explanation of what happened in that apartment." "i stand wholeheartedly behind it as absolutely accurate." "reporter:" "there is one inconsistency." "well, for example... i do not intend to quibble out thaaccount." "do you intend to get at the truth?" "the account that we gave of the events is the truth." "narrator:" "state's attorney hanrahan supported his account with photographs intended to prove the panthers had fired at the police." "we went, took those pictures and saw they weren't what they appeared to be." "the back door, the circles around the bullet holes turned out to be nail heads." "we went and we saw that they were nail heads, because we had possession of the apartment." "that the panthers were supposedly firing into, that turned out to be the bedroom door." "it was the door that the police had made into swiss cheese with their machine gun bullets." "narrator:" "the controversy grew." "this blatant act of legitimatized murder strips all credibility from law enforcement." "in the context of other acts against militant blacks in recent months, it suggests an official policy of systematic repression." "the black panthers preach every day: hate;" "kill whitey;" "kill the police;" "kill the pigs;" "hate, hate, hate." "that's all you hear from them." "did they expect those police officers to walk into that apartment with peashooters?" "you've seen the guns that were there." "what were they there for?" "johnson:" "members of the black panther party were taking people from the community through the apartment so they can actually see what was going on." "people were able to go through the house and they were lined up all around the block in the cold, in the wintertime, to see what actually happened." "panther:" "don't touch nothing, don't move nothing, because we want to keep everything just the way it is." "don't touch no walls." "this is the room where the first brother, mark clark, was murdered." "even if they wanted to take somebody to jail, it would have been a simple matter of just shooting some tear gas in here to draw everybody out." "this is where our chairman had his brains blown out as he lay in his bed sleeping at 4:30 in the morning." "taylor:" "i think that the police waited till december 17 to actually seal that apartment, so it was open for almost two weeks." "and we spent the better part of those two weeks getting that evidence out of there." "and so we would be talking to people when they went through." "while we were working, people were walking through constantly and i'll never forget-- i don't know what day it was or what, but i just remember some older black woman coming through there, shaking her head" "and going, "it's nothing but a northern lynching."" "the people who had just come purely out of curiosity were saying, "this is atrocious."" "even law-and-order people were saying," ""this is unlawful and it's disorderly." ""and it's obviously not part of what i want to condone" ""in terms of my law enforcement or my taxes, to be protected." "this is not the police function here."" "people realized that there had been a trial, a conviction and an execution in that house." "you know, it can happen to any of us." "and that was, that was fear, shame, you know, sorry... what could we do?" "how could... why couldn't we have protected fred?" "woman:" "♪ i wish i knew how it would feel to be free ♪" "♪ i wish i could break all the chains holding me ♪" "♪ i wish i could say all the things that i should say... ♪ clements:" "i had a mass for fred and i was just shattered, i was devastated." "and in the midst of this mass, i was trying to explain to our children-- because we had all the schoolchildren there, all 1,300-- and i was trying to explain to them the importance of fred." "and i wasn't getting through, at least i felt like i wasn't getting through." "and in the midst of my explanation i just burst into tears." "and the next thing i knew, here was one of our eighth-grade boys." "he jumped up and he said, "i am fred hampton!"" "and then a girl in the sixth grade, she jumps up, "i am fred hampton!"" "and another kid in first grade, "i'm fred hampton!"" "and before you knew it, the whole church, kids were all shouting, "i am fred hampton!"" "and wow, i just felt so wonderful." "i felt like, gee whiz, this death was not in vain at all, because these kids are saying that they are willing to get up here and speak out for liberation, for first-class citizenship." "narrator:" "in the weeks that followed, public pressure led to a series of investigations." "an f.b.i. ballistics expert established that all but one of the more than 90 shots had been fired by the police." "all charges against the panthers were dropped." "no police were indicted." "but the families of hampton and clark and the survivors of the raid sued the government for violation of their civil rights." "years later, the case was closed when federal and local governments and the police agreed to an out-of-court settlement of $1.8 million." "the scope of the f.b.i. counterintelligence program, cointelpro-- began to emerge in 1971 after political activists broke into an f.b.i. office in media, pennsylvania." "stolen f.b.i. files documented extensive f.b.i. operations against u.s. citizens and organizations, including traditional civil rights groups." "amid growing criticism of the counterintelligence program, president richard nixon reaffirmed his support for the f.b.i." "during graduation ceremonies at the bureau's national academy." "i am honored to be here to break into your graduation ceremony to reassure you, and all of the men in law enforcement throughout the country, of the support you have at the very highest levels in government for your work." "and i am honored to speak for the entire nation in saying to you, "congratulations,"" "wishing you well in seeing that this nation is one in which we will have respect for law, in which the american people can have freedom from fear." "we had talked about police brutality." "the black panther party talked about the police as an occupying force in the community." "but we had not really understood the extent to which the whole criminal justice system-- the police, the courts, the prison system-- is very much intertwined with the economic oppression of black people." "narrator:" "blacks and latinos filled the nation's prisons in disproportionate numbers." "at attica correctional facility in upstate new york, they comprised more than 60% of the inmate population." "most came from poor inner-city neighborhoods." "man:" "i think the system was damaging to the people that came in." "the only inspiration anybody could have not to go back, or desire not to go back to a place like that, is because of what a horrible place it was." "there's always the tendency to push prisons to the fringes of our awareness so that we don't have to deal with what happens inside of these horrifying institutions." "conditions in 1971, before the rebellion, uh... was bad." "you know-- bad food, bad educational programs, very, very low, low wages." "we were called slave wagers." "myself, i was working in the laundry and i was making like 30 cent a day being the warden's laundry boy." "and that was the title you had with my job-- "warden's boy."" "and i'm far from a boy." "we always thought of the jails as a kind of explosive resource for revolutionary change." "certainly people like malcolm x had come out of prison and the nation of islam had done a great job of transforming a lot of people who had been in prison." "and some people in prison had been in the panthers." "so we saw revolutionary activity as a means of transforming prisoners into revolutionaries." "narrator:" "one of the most impassioned voices to emerge was george jackson's." "his published letters from prison had reached a wide audience." "on august 21, 1971, jackson was shot to death in san quentin prison in california." "at attica, the news of his death greatly affected the inmates." "when it really hit me is going to breakfast that morning." "everybody was quiet and nobody wasn't picking up no silverware." "when you go in the dining room, in the mess hall, you had to pick up a knife, spoon and fork and when you come out, you had to have that." "nobody was picking up, nobody was talking." "i don't know that i can describe in words how it affected me, because george was, in effect, my mentor." "i remember his going to court in shackles and the brother would stand erect, you know, proud black man that he was." "and they had not broken his spirit." "and these are the things that dr. king and malcolm talked about-- the breaking down of the black man's spirit." "narrator:" "three weeks later, a fight between inmates and guards at attica sparked a prison-wide uprising." "violence swept through the institution." "reporter:" "an estimated 1,000 prisoners took over four cell blocks at attica state prison about 9:30 this morning." "blyden:" "the general chaos was such that even i was taken aback, because you had 40 or 50 correction officers who no longer, it appeared, had control of the institution." "so order had to be made out of this disorder and at that point, the muslim contingent in the yard-- i think there were 35 muslim brothers-- saw to it that there was no further injuries to the hostages." "narrator:" "the newly established inmate leadership released 11 injured guards, but still held hostage 39 prison employees." "commissioner of corrections russell oswald agreed to negotiate." "accompanied by advisers and a local television crew, he entered the yard where 1,200 inmates were in control." "inmate:" "take it as you walk, take it as you walk." "make sure you get that roof over there." "narrator:" "the news team was permitted to talk to the hostages." "reporter:" "have you been treated all right?" "yes, i have so far been treated very good." "narrator:" "the meeting with commissioner oswald quickly focused on inmate fear of reprisals for the rebellion." "inmate:" "in view of the fact now that the sheriff's department, the various counties, and the state troopers has taken over-- because it has been declared now a state of emergency-- you couldn't guarantee no reprisal anyway." "this is now out of your hands, isn't it, commissioner?" "no, it is not." "you still control the state troopers?" "absolutely." "you want to put your "no reprisals" in writing?" "yes." "i talked as rationally as i could with them and listened to them for some period of time." "and ultimately, they said they had an agenda of what they wanted." "and i said, "well, give me the agenda."" "narrator:" "the agenda included demands for improved conditions." "the inmates called for educational programs, an end to censorship of letters and magazines, adequate health care and hiring of black and spanish-speaking guards." "distrustful of state officials, the inmates also asked for outsiders to observe negotiations." "...assemblyman arthur o. eve of buffalo;" "the prison solidarity committee of new york;" "minister farrakhan from the muslims;" "we want huey p. newton from the black panther party... narrator:" "in all the inmates requested 13 observers." "i felt good." "you know, i felt relieved." "i felt, i guess, liberated that i didn't have to worry about the bar in the front of me." "even though i felt and knew that i was in prison, and that's the reality, but that visible thing wasn't there no more." "you know, the walls was there, but that bar wasn't really in the front of me, that visible bar-- it was more invisible then." "inmate:" "wait, wait, wait, wait, wait until you get the cue!" "come on, it's on now." "all of us here realize that wherever there is that struggle, there is sacrifice." "narrator:" "the next morning, commissioner oswald returned to the yard, still seeking a negotiated solution to the crisis." "oswald:" "i talked with the governor's legal counsel yesterday and he told me the same as mr. schwartz told me and that is, that the governor, nor no one else has the power to grant amnesty for the commission of a crime" "and that's the, the..." "falls within the purview of the local law enforcement authorities." "mr. oswald, mr. oswald-- now, you and i know that that's a lie." "amnesty was very important to the inmates because it to a great degree would determine what happened to them after the state took over;" "whether or not there was going to be a peaceful kind of takeover and subsequently, how they would be treated." "narrator:" "the talks had reached an impasse." "tensions in the yard increased." "we have been asking for over 29 hours for food and water." "we haven't got none." "we're going to keep mr. oswald, russell g. oswald, here until we get the food and water." "( inmates cheer ) i'll see as soon as i get back there that food is brought into this yard." "narrator:" "protected by the inmate security force, commissioner oswald left the yard." "the hopes of both sides now rested on the outside observers who arrived in attica later that day." "man:" "we were led down a long corridor which had been trashed and burned out in the initial rioting." "the first feeling of shock, i think, for sort of a sedentary, middle-class person like me was the feeling of being out of reach of the law that one ordinarily thinks protects you-- that sort of protection we all take for granted" "until you don't have it." "and all of a sudden i realized that there wasn't anything in there to protect me except these other inmates whom it's all too easy to think of, you know, as murderers and thieves and so forth." "and that is a somewhat scary feeling, there's no question, but very shortly after that, we all got down to business to try to, you know, work out the problems there." "the inmate leaders got into some very fervid oratory." "they were great orators." "we are men, we are not beasts, and we do not intend to be driven or beaten as such." "the entire prison populace has set forth to change forever the ruthless brutalization and disregard for the lives of the prisoners here and throughout the united states." "what has happened here is but the sound before the fury of those who are oppressed." "inmates ( cheering ):" "right on!" "the moment i saw him speak on television, i said to myself, "elliott, what have you done?" "what are you doing?"" "because i felt that they would make him pay for that and pay dearly." "narrator:" "the first meeting of observers and inmates lasted almost till dawn." "a public address system set up in the yard kept the 1,200 inmates informed." "eve:" "there was a sense of hope that for the first time there were some outsiders;" "people would now begin to listen and hopefully some changes could be made." "narrator:" "on saturday, the third day of the uprising, troopers surrounding the prison yard waited for a decision by the state." "using a video camera, they recorded the activities of the inmates." "trooper:" "and there is the ugliest, blackest negro gentleman i have ever seen in my life in that blackout." "boy, when they painted him, they painted him dark." "the man doing the speaking is wearing a bright red robe." "he's just gotten several very loud responses from the... the crowd." "typical rabble-rouser type talk." "( inmates cheering speaker )" "frank smith:" "it was a good feeling, you know, and especially after we start dealing and start organizing, and start talking about the conditions and start talking about why we were out there and start talking about the grievances and start talking about why we were rebelling" "and why rebelling was necessary the feeling became more and more and more into me and i start feeling a part of it more." "ain't nothing dead about us." "we ain't gonna die-- we will not die in here." "it was almost a community within a community." "and it was somewhat..." "very, very impressive that they had said, "this is our home and we're now going to make it as livable as possible."" "and there was a tremendous amount of discipline there within the yard." "narrator:" "families and friends of the hostages gathered outside the prison walls, waiting for news." "relatives and supporters of the inmates demonstrated nearby." "protesters ( chanting ):" "the rich set the bail, and the poor stay in jail!" "narrator:" "that evening, the mood in the yard changed." "william quinn, a guard hurt in the initial takeover, governor nelson rockefeller and commissioner oswald had earlier agreed to most of the demands concerning prison conditions, but rebelling inmates could now face murder charges unless amnesty was granted." "the next day, state troopers moved into position to retake the prison, if ordered." "trooper:" "the time is 1:55 p.m." "we're on the roof of c-block looking at a detail of 270-marksmen with instructions to ki... clear the catwalks upon command." "wicker:" "we thought that the situation had reached crisis, that in fact there was about to be an attempt to retake the prison." "we thought that there would be a lot of bloodshed." "that if that happened, there would be a massacre." "and his response was, basically, that he sympathized with our position." "he felt that everything had been done that could be done." "he was very... anyone who remembers governor rockefeller will remember his effusive manner." "he thanked us for our efforts and that sort of thing." "but the net effect of it was that he felt everything had been done that could be done." "he could not grant amnesty and in fact said, "even if i could, i wouldn't do it."" "narrator:" "with negotiations deadlocked, inmates requested black and latino reporters and a member of the establishment press." "it was an attempt to speak directly to the public." "y'all dudes running around here shooting that dope, running around here shooting that dope, getting high, raping them sisters, them white folks, justifying it in the cause of revolution-- well, we're gonna die here in attica, today or tomorrow." "and we ask you to get together, get our people together, and unite." "the people in here are treated like dogs." "not only the blacks-- the puerto ricans and the whites." "and we're gonna get what we demand, or we're gonna die trying." "and i want you brothers to get together, because we together here." "and these people think we shucking and jiving, but we is for real." "all these dogs up there with all those rifles are trying to kill us." "but we ain't gonna quit." "you know why we're never going to quit?" "because we're one-- we're one unit." "we're tired of being beaten;" "we're tired of being oppressed." "we gonna get this if we all have to die-- all of us." "inmates:" "we are ready to die!" "gonna die, all of us." "eve:" "the hostages appealed to the state not to come in, not to kill;" "that the inmates' requests were right." "on that last day we were there it was a very emotional kind of exchange from the hostages and from everyone." "i just hope that the commissioner and the other people in the committee that they've gathered together can come up with a solution to solve these people's problems-- and ours." "man:" "i'll tell you what i got to say:" "we've stood out here since thursday." "and my son is in there." "michael smith is one of the hostages." "i've talked to several of the other people here that have husbands in there, and some of the fathers." "and i can't speak for all of them, but my feelings are this:" "you can only pacify a kid with a pacifier so long." "at 3:00 this afternoon, we was led to believe that there was going to be a definite decision." "they was going to bring them out." "now, damn it all, do it!" "narrator:" "monday morning, day five." "commissioner oswald demanded the immediate release of the hostages." "in response, the inmates positioned eight of the hostages on the catwalk." "by their side stood inmates armed with knives and clubs, threatening to kill the hostages in case of an attack." "michael smith:" "i was led blindfolded to the top of the catwalk." "and i can recall, when that helicopter flew overhead, besides being able to hear it, you could actually feel the concussion of the propellers from the helicopter overhead." "( helicopter rotor ) frank smith:" "we knew that they were going to come in, but we never knew that they were going to come in there that way." "that was really a big surprise, the way that they came in the yard." "we thought they were going to come in there and bust some heads open, and that kind of way." "and once we start seeing the helicopters and they start shooting the gas pellets and i start seeing people getting opened up with shotguns, then i knew that they were really coming in there in a violent, violent way." "( sustained gunfire )" "voice from helicopter:" "just all lay down!" "surrender peacefully!" "you will not be harmed!" "it's an awful scene." "william kunstler has said that people are dying in there and... i agree with that." "i think that people are dying in there and the scene is...i'm going to cut this off." "helicopters are still flying overhead." "it seems there was an announcement from the helicopter right above me to the inmates below that they should put their hands on their heads and come out." "i don't know whether anyone has died inside and i'm upset." "this is unfortunate, what has happened here." "whatever happens, after the situation here in attica, the penal system here in the united states and the people who are kept inside of them will never be the same." "narrator:" "as the inmates surrendered, they were herded into an adjacent yard." "( roar of rotors and orders from helicopter ) voice from helicopter:" "you will not be harmed!" "blyden:" "we were made to strip, lay in the mud face down and crawl to a guard 10 to 20 feet away from the guard that had you stripped." "at that point, that guard would mark an x with white chalk on the back of select inmates who were then removed from the mud physically by two additional guards, placed in a line, to run a gauntlet of correction officers" "to be beaten all the way to another cell block." "frank smith:" "you know, you got to let me explain it this way." "you know, it was very, very barbaric, you know, very, very cruel, you know, and i... and i really feel it, you know, what they really did, you know." "they ripped our clothes off." "they made us crawl on the ground like we were animals, you know, and they snatched me, and they... they lay me on a table, you know, and they beat me in my testicles and they burned me with cigarettes" "and they dropped hot shells on me and then put a football up under my throat and they kept telling me that if it dropped, they was gonna kill me." "and i really felt, you know, after seeing so many people shot for no apparent reason that they really were going to do this." "armed rebellion of the type we have faced threatens the destruction of our free society." "we cannot permit that destruction to happen." "it has indeed been an agonizing decision." "wicker:" "we had predicted the day before that it was going to be a massacre." "herman badillo turned to me and said," ""i don't know what the hurry was."" "he said, "there's always time to die."" "and i don't know what the hurry was, either." "you know, those guys weren't going anywhere." "they were inside 30-foot walls." "it was september, it was getting cold up there, the food was running out, the sanitary conditions were bad, the place smelled awful." "i mean, that sense of freedom that the guys had had to begin with, just being out of their cells-- that was beginning to wear away in the reality of their situation." "i don't know what the hurry was." "they could have waited two days, three days, four days." "those guys would have given up." "they didn't have to go in and kill them all." "but, they did." "narrator:" "39 men were killed in the assault:" "29 inmates and 10 hostages." "among the dead, inmate leader elliott barkley." "89 men were seriously wounded." "hostage michael smith was shot four times in the abdomen." "three inmates were found stabbed to death, killed earlier by other prisoners." "initial reports by state officials that the hostages had died of slashed throats were refuted by the medical examiner." "the first eight autopsies were on the cases identified to us as hostages." "all eight cases died of gunshot wounds." "narrator:" "the medical examiner's finding was significant." "the inmates had no firearms." "gunfire by state troopers and prison guards was responsible for all the deaths during the retaking of the prison." "reporter:" "what did you do during those moments when the assault was actually taking place, the order had been given?" "well, i kept in touch by phone, and i'll never forget the moment when the report was given that 14 guards had come out alive." "and while i was on the phone with bobby douglas, he said, "now it's 15, now it's 16, now it's 17."" "he said, "now 18"" "and we went up to 21, and i want to tell you i was... i just was absolutely overwhelmed." "i just didn't see how it was possible with 1,200 men in there, armed with electrified barricades, with trenches, with a pledge which they said that they would all go right down fighting to the last man," "how it was going to be possible." "reporter:" "what does this tell you about the prisoners, governor?" "pardon me?" "what does this tell you about the prisoners?" "the fact that so many men did emerge unharmed." "are you talking now about... well, i think what it tells is that the use of this gas is a fantastic instrument in a situation of this kind." "governor, after that order had been given, did you pray?" "not after it-- i prayed before." "narrator:" "in towns near attica, people gathered to mourn the dead hostages." "in the cities, families and friends carried the bodies of the dead inmates to their graves." "in a country troubled by unrest, the call for law and order remained popular." "but many wondered:" "was the nation well served by law enforcement used to silence voices of dissent?" "and was america willing to maintain order, no matter what the cost?" "marvin gaye:" "♪ mother, mother, there's too many of you crying ♪" "♪ brother, brother, brother ♪" "♪ there's far too many of you dying ♪" "♪ you know we've got to find a way ♪" "♪ to bring some lovin' here today ♪" "♪ yeah ♪" "♪ father, father, we don't need to escalate ♪" "♪ you see, war is not the answer ♪" "♪ for only love can conquer hate ♪" "♪ you know we've got to find a way ♪" "♪ to bring some lovin' here today, oh ♪" "♪ picket lines and picket signs ♪" "♪ don't punish me with brutality ♪" "♪ talk to me... ♪" "captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org" "there' is provided by the alfred p. sloan foundation." "national corporate funding is provided by liberty mutual and the scotts company." "american experience is also made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by:" "funding for the re-release of eyes on the prize made possible by:" "and:"