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commUNITY spotlight: Attica uprising 52 years later through the eyes of professor Celes Tisdale

Celes Tisdale was brought into Attica to teach English to prisoners. What they wrote is now compiled into a book.

BUFFALO, N.Y. — It was 52 years ago when the Attica prison uprising took place at the maximum security prison in upstate New York.

Over 1,200 of the prisons 2,200 inmates took control. In the end 42 prison staff were taken hostage, 32 inmates and 11 corrections officers were killed.

Professor Celes Tisdale, author of When the Smoke Cleared was commissioned to go into the prison to teach English to the prisoners.

He said he did a writer's workshop with the men as a  a "rehabilitative measure." 

It worked because according to Tisdale, "it changed their mindset in many ways. One thing was many of them who were not calm became calmer."

The men wrote poems. "They made a political statement," in what they wrote. "It told us that they were deep thinkers,"  he said.

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