Attica Prison Riot - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

• At least three TV movies of the riot have been produced: 1980's Attica, with George Grizzard, and Morgan Freeman, 1994's Against The Wall, with Samuel L. Jackson, Kyle MacLachlan and Clarence Williams III, and 2001's The Killing Yard, by Euzhan Palcy with Alan Alda.

• In the 1975 film Dog Day Afternoon, Al Pacino's character, Sonny, who is holding eight bank employees hostage, starts a chant of "Attica! Attica!" at the massed police outside, evoking the excessive police force used in response to the Attica riot. The chant "Attica! Attica!" has since been parodied or used for comedic effect in everything from children's cartoons to crime procedurals.

• The incident is directly referenced in several songs: Tom Paxton's "The Hostage," which was included by Judy Collins on her 1973 album True Stories and Other Dreams, John Lennon's "Attica State" on his Some Time In New York City album and Paul Simon's "Virgil," on his 1997 album Songs from The Capeman. The Attica riot also inspired the Charles Mingus composition "Remember Rockefeller at Attica", and jazz saxophonist Archie Shepp's 1972 composition "Attica Blues" from his album of the same name. Rapper Nas mentioned Attica in his collaboration song with Lauryn Hill, "If I Ruled the World (Imagine That)". Nas raps "I'd open every cell in Attica, send 'em to Africa". In the song "C.I.A. (Criminals in Action)," by KRS-One, Zack De La Rocha, and The Last Emperor: "I flip the shit like Pacino and it's your Dog Day Afternoon / Attica, Attica, drug agents you bring your static-a."

• In 1972, avant-garde composer and pianist Frederic Rzewski wrote two pieces connected to the Attica riot, both for percussion ensemble and speaker. "Coming Together" sets text by Sam Melville, a leader of the uprising and one of the people who lost their lives as a result of it, from a letter he wrote in 1971. The second and shorter piece, "Attica", is set to the statement made by inmate Richard X. Clark when he was released from the prison: "Attica is in front of me now." The two pieces was recorded in 1973 for the Opus One label by the Blackearth Percussion Group, with Steven ben Israel of the Living Theater as the speaker.

• The song Rubber Bullets by English band 10cc is about the Attica prison riot.

• The poem Hadda Be Playing on the Jukebox by American poet Allen Ginsberg makes a reference to the Attica prison riot. This poem was also subsequently performed as a song by political rock band Rage Against The Machine.

• In the episode "A Date with the Booty Warrior" of the popular animated series The Boondocks, the episode's titular character takes Tom hostage with a shank, inciting a prison riot. After the convicts had taken the guards hostage, they were deciding what to do next. The other convicts were disgruntled to learn that the Booty Warrior's only demands were "to get some booty". One of the other convicts (voiced by Clifton Powell) remarked "I thought this was supposed to be some Attica-type shit!".