Rebellion in the Air: New York State Prisons in the 1970s

Although the historiography on the civil rights movement is vast, including a recent surge in black power studies, and the field of scholarship on the history of the American prison is growing, there is surprisingly little work on how the movement and the institution informed one another. “Black Nationalism Behind Bars” examines the ways in which black nationalism in New York State prisons affected prison culture and administration in the late-1960s through the early-1980s. Evidence suggests that the growth of black nationalist consciousness behind bars, contrary to administrators’ claims that it incited racial tensions, may have served to depress intra- and even inter-racial/ethnic physical and sexual violence within the prison for a time. Cross-racial solidarity among inmates, epitomized in the uprisings at Auburn and Attica in the early 1970s, was fractured by the end of the decade with the proliferation of ethnic and racial gangs in the prison, gangs that somewhat ironically invoked black nationalist rhetoric. This paper considers how prison administrators, driven in part by a reaction against black nationalism, may have contributed to the development of a racially antagonistic prison culture that has had widespread and enduring effects, dominating correctional facilities today and reaching beyond prison walls. Administrative records from New York prisons, publications from the correctional officers’ union, and interviews with individuals who worked or were incarcerated in the prisons, shed light on how relationships among prisoners and between inmates and guards changed and were changed by growing black nationalism and the prison administrators’ responses to this politicization. By investigating both male and female prisons, this paper explores the ways that gender and penal institutions shaped by gender may have complicated the experience and impact of black nationalism behind bars.