Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt

by Orisanmi Burton

A radical reinterpretation of "Attica," the revolutionary 1970s uprising that galvanized abolitionist movements and transformed prisons.
 
Tip of the Spear boldly and compellingly argues that prisons are a domain of hidden warfare within US borders. With this book, Orisanmi Burton explores what he terms the Long Attica Revolt, a criminalized tradition of Black radicalism that propelled rebellions in New York prisons during the 1970s. The reaction to this revolt illuminates what Burton calls prison the coordinated tactics of violence, isolation, sexual terror, propaganda, reform, and white supremacist science and technology that state actors use to eliminate Black resistance within and beyond prison walls.

Burton goes beyond the state records that other histories have relied on for the story of Attica and expands that archive, drawing on oral history and applying Black radical theory in ways that center the intellectual and political goals of the incarcerated people who led the struggle. Packed with little-known insights from the prison movement, the Black Panther Party, and the Black Liberation Army, Tip of the Spear promises to transform our understanding of prisons—not only as sites of race war and class war, of counterinsurgency and genocide, but also as sources of defiant Black life, revolutionary consciousness, and abolitionist possibility.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, Audiobook, American History, African American, Research

328 pages, Hardcover

Published October 31, 2023

Reviews

[Sunny Lu · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most important books ever written

[Zach Carter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heavily rooted in Fanon's theories on the psychology of oppression and decolonial practices, what Burton accomplishes here is nothing short of a masterpiece. To directly confront the accepted liberal/imperial epistemology, he [de]constructs the singularity of the Attica Revolt into its historical continuum. What's perhaps most compelling about this account is his insistence on not reducing revolt to the "rational and pragmatic" demands (present as they are), but to rather look at repression and reform as complementary war tactics. If we accept the prison to be the hypocenter of anti-Black war zones, then the prison rebellion is a guerrilla insurgency. No reforms or tinkering can ameliorate the base condition of this war zone, which is the branding as subhuman those considered dangerous to the existing order. In one sense, he's arguing that prisons are war as archive, in which the Black radicals cannot be contained.

And then there's the center of the revolt: Attica. That we know so little about Attica is no doubt a testament to its success. Beyond its formation as a response to anti-Black violence (the assassination of George Jackson), Burton describes it as "the result of a protracted accumulation of anticarceral struggle." The truly revolutionary organizing that took place on the inside had reverberations in the carceral state that are still felt today - we're well aware of the breadth and depth of COINTELPRO and how that generated an incredible number of political prisoners and martyrs, but perhaps we're less aware of the MK Ultra program as a complementary war modality, a response to the danger of guerrilla intellectuals and rebels who conceptualize resistance to racial-colonial domination and threatened state actors with the transformation of prisoners into revolutionaries.

Orisanmi Burton makes clear at the end that there is no temporal boundary of Attica. He says: "Attica is." Just as COINTELPRO ended in name only, modern iterations of state violence and the architectures of carceral violence include Cop City (for which Tortuguita was executed for protesting) and the GILEE program (intimately connecting domestic warfare with israel's technologies of apartheid and genocide). As ever, free all political prisoners!

[Ryan Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book blew me away. The connections he makes will both inspire you and scare the shit out of you with the implications made. If you consider yourself a revolutionary minded individual this is a must.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

In all likelihood the best book about prison I’ve ever read. Pure heat from root (defining the carceral state as “institutionalized counterinsurgency” and situating its emergence within a centuries-long campaign of racialized domestic warfare) to branch (its stunning archival work in both gathering firsthand testimony of Attica rebels and unearthing evidence of CIA-linked psychomedical torture of Black Muslim prisoners). Please read!!

[jen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Is not free of "In This Essay I Will"-Speak // indulges heavily in qualifying and analyzing the rhetoric of its own medium at times,, but near singular and very holistic atlas on the prison as a locus of war and really excellent/compelling critiques on programming, diversification + even modernization as reformist and ultimately counter insurgent techniques in battle for/amongst public consciousness + aggregating critical political mass within it.

[Arthur · Rating 5 out of 5]

really incredible, thank you mr. burton

[Aye Gomorrah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got this book after listening to Orisanmi talk on a podcast!! Decided to read blood in my eye before for context and that helped a lot. I think I’m not giving it 5 stars because it took me a long time to read it - but that’s probably my own fault because I was intimidated at first. It was extremely well written, and summarized throughout, which I appreciate. It made me sad, uncomfortable, inspired.

I feel sad when I read abolition literature and nothing truly blows my mind - i feel so disillusioned. Modern art as a psyop, crime and prisons as objects necessary for the function of a capitalist system of power….the image created of prisons as “havens of lazinesss” to PURPOSEFULLY misconstrue social support and the implementation of prison pacification as a behavior control technique to enhance state power…. I know these things to be true, and this book further assured me of their truth.

I was blown away however by the careful thought and research put into how Orisanmi carefully invites me as the reader to reimagine truth, standards of truth, and linear timeframes for strorytelling!! Wisdom from those before us is constantly pushed aside because of our inability to comprehend, patience to listen etc

“I have neither the capacity nor the interest to verify Casper’s claims according to positivist standards of truth. What matters most is that prisons are engines of anti human violence” - thats jaw dropping to me!!!

The idea of prison as “unbreakable” and “separate” is a safety net relied on because if the true nature of prison as a large torture chamber was widely accepted, its existence as a site of perpetual WAR would have to be accepted.

Totally relearned what Attica is and means to me, not only a revolt, but a true “production of an illegal freedom” - imagining Attica in those 4 days as a real example of community building and survival and as inspiration for what is possible - really powerful. What can I dream a world to be?

There is so much more I could talk about, so much well researched and further theorized ideas packed in here.

Takeaways:

Finished reading with newfound and further solidified desires to go vegan, and to continue my life’s dream work in abolishing probation, parole, and solitary confinement. Also reimagining the kind of prison work i want to do that doesn’t contribute to prison pacification - a dilemma i have a lot working in the nonprofit field.

Going to read some new political theory. Cringing at all the bullshit Plato garbage I was fed through a straw in college about the “governed” and the “governor” (male).

Some parts where i saw Orisanmi kind of correlate the lack of masculinity to be inherently “feminine” - which I disagree with. Interested in reading abolition work written by women next.

❤️

“What does it mean to be crazy, to be extreme, to be mad, amid a condition that is itself beyond “reason”?… it is the carceral environment that was crazy and extreme”

“Prisons are really an extension of our communities”

[Ethan Ostrow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best book I read in college—blew my mind about the prison as a revolutionary site and its continuity in colonial racialized violence

[Seth Wells · Rating 5 out of 5]

A call that we all need. An incredible book. An insistent reminder.

[Niklas Braun · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holy hell. What a read. This goes even deeper into the history of the war going on in prisons, much beyond New Jim Crow. Everyone needs to read this of course. Prisons in the US are a slave-society.

[Daphne · Rating 5 out of 5]

without a doubt the best book i’ve ever read

[Nate Haile · Rating 5 out of 5]

By far the most brilliant showcase of research and intellect I’ve ever seen written. Not only did this transform my thinking of the Black radical tradition but my own understanding of the Black struggle (which was stored in the minds of our Black elders) deepened beyond my imagination of the violence (and rape) that State and White Supremacy is capable of. I write this both awfully inspired and disturbed. Most importantly, deeply in solidarity and gratitude of the ones who came before us. Attica is.

[Tala Alfoqaha · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I’ve ever read. So many books that catalogue state violence feel voyeuristic or gratuitous; this book does not because it positions prisoners as revolutionary agents, whose horizons stretched far beyond the prison walls / the small concessions the state could offer them. Burton repositions the long Attica revolt as an ongoing battle in a longer war against racial capitalism & imperialism, and through following the past & present day narrations of the survivors makes clear that they understood it as such too. “Prison as a site of war” is the central thesis of this book, and through libidinal violence, ‘humanizing’ reforms, and other psycho-social techniques of control wielded by prison administrators, the war is waged against the revolutionary spirit as much as the body. The text lives & breaths through the letters, essays, and narrations of those who resisted their state of captivity & who teach us all the meaning of resistance. So much more to say but honestly just read the book.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

truly have not read a theory book so quickly in my life. it’s so well done and thoroughly researched and I love the approach Burton has when discussing archives. I feel I finally understand what people mean when they say Black Radical Epistemology.

My only critique is I feel there’s a rush to fold Attica into the project of “abolitionist world-making” (specifically in “Attica Is”). I would’ve appreciated more nuance there, especially when the person who blew up the chapel is on record saying he did it just because he wanted to… but compared to everything else the book offers this is minor

[Nick Barber · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best book about prisons I’ve read, perhaps ever: world-shifting work that has me reconsidering a lot of what I thought I knew about prisons. To put a finer point on it: the book reorganizes everything I know about prisons around a conceptual framework that has shifted my understanding of abolition.

Full review forthcoming in Public Books

[Mariam · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the sharpest, most transformative & best books I have read in my life. It completely transforms what we could view the abolitionist movement as - Button compels us to see it as something unboundedly and always revolutionary, anticolonial and impossible to co-opt, if waged with due acknowledgement of its origins & tradition. Through meticulously tracing the untold histories of the Long Attica prison struggle in the the 1960s & 1970s, Burton reminds us that abolition today comes from a tradition that is so firmly rooted in war & counter war, insurgency & counter insurgency. He shows us that in order for it to live on (and on both sides of the prison wall) abolition must constantly forged through revolutionary anticapitalism struggle not abstract theory that is limited to abolition as our interpersonal relations. Everyone should read this mind blowing book!

[Henry Eberhart · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an incredible project. Burtons archival range as well as their approach to the human beings they interview is generous and caring and beautiful. This book has completely shifted how I think about black radicalisms relationship to the prison and the ways in which imprisoned black revolutionaries truly have functioned as the “tip of the spear” for movements in our country. The analysis of US counter-insurgency that has been birthed through the prison movement was devastating, difficult to ready, and brutal. The terms Burton sets out are very clear and difficult to ignore. Reading this right before law school has certainly changed my relationship to the work I wish to do

[Teo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of important (though heinous) information here. 

The part about the Attica captives reworking what it means to be human and the death of the White Man was probably my favourite section, though it did feel lacking in examining the animality aspect that’s all tied into it. This was further exacerbated by the multiple times you hear about them being treated or viewed as 'animals,' but then it never comes into the conversation beyond that.
I feel like at a few other points it could've gone further with the analysis as well, but you'll have plenty to learn and to think over regardless.

[Perry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Details the war on Black people via imprisonment with a focus on the Attica prison rebellion. It seemed to be written somewhat in reaction to Blood in the Water by Heather Ann Thompson, which had been on my to-be-read pile for a long time. The conditions and treatment of the prisoners go beyond punishment. I wish a little more time was spent on how the prisoner coalitions were formed, but that did not seem the aim here. An interesting albeit academic read.

[Wissenville · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly a masterpiece — very excited to read whatever Burton has in store for us next.

[Inez · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a phenomenal, detailed book. I struggled not to underline every other sentence.

Burton directly confronts the (white) liberal perspective and understanding of prison reforms as good, positive things, and argues instead that prisons are a site of war and testing grounds for counterinsurgency research development (think, COINTELPRO and MK Ultra). No amount of reform can change what is rotten at its core and what reform is accomplished is simply a form of white counterinsurgency and anti revolutionary tactics. He details what he describes as the 4 stages of hidden war (often framed as positive reform): expansion, humanization, diversification, and programifcation.

"These strategies sought to encapsulate the rebel's demands within acceptable parameters, while convincing them, and the public, that the reforms were benign."

Unlike previous abolitionist texts and accounts of prison rebellions (especially Attica itself), Burton relies on direct, primary sources of Black revolutionary figures, many of whom were directly involved with the various revolts he details. These rebellions, Burton argues, were abolitionist actions in of themselves, and with them the rebels created new frameworks for abolitionist living, and were rooted in justice, equality, and mutuality.

"[Attica’s] maximum demands are not to be found in the formal negotiations between captives and the state for prison conditions, but in the living theories and practices of revolt itself… The self activity of the revolts engineers, organizers, and participants, marked the disintegration of authoritarian rule and the production of an illegal freedom. They liberated themselves from an acute zone of war, and for a time lived in a world of their own making. More the 50 years later, Attica remains a living example that collectively, ordinary people can be more than the sum of their parts.”

As Che Nieves, veteran of the Attica rebellion, said: "Listen, all I can say is, we brothers man. We need each other. It's not only you but me. That's what keeps us going. Exchange, it keeps the spirit going. And it keeps us moving towards freedom. The more you acquire the more I acquire, and without you, it's not me. You make me, and I make you."

Note: this is a highly academic and rather difficult text. Previous understanding of prison abolitionist theories and various prison rebellions is needed in order to fully understand Burton's ideas.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

This one was just OK for me. Interesting nuggets throughout -- sometimes so interesting that it would provoke me to pause the audiobook and say "whoa" out loud. But, the author spent a lot of time explaining what he was about to do/doing with the text to distract from the fact that there wasn't a lot of research to draw upon. Felt thin.

[Zach · Rating 4 out of 5]

A compelling, powerful recounting of Attica as an extended period of revolt. At times, I think if fails to elaborate and justify some if its stronger theoretical claim. I'm surprised someone who wrote a book this militant managed to get tenure lol.

[Martha · Rating 5 out of 5]

transformative in every positive way possible

[Erik Peterson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is full of really incredible research and important ideas but is made almost unreadable by overwrought academic prose style

[bedheaded · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first two chapters, which set up the "Long Attica Revolt" preceding the actual Attica revolt, are incredible, but the book lost me from there.
For as much research as went into this (nearly a hundred pages of this book are dedicated to references), and for as much effort as was spent analyzing Attica et al from different angles, "Tip of the Spear" ends up being nearly as reductive as the analyses it seeks to succeed. The central point of the book is simple: that the Attica revolt was about much more than, as previous authors and journalists had presumed, prison conditions and treatment by prison guards; that it was preceded by other prison revolts and subsumed in a colonial, capitalist, white supremacist, etc. context. Much is cited on this, many are interviewed, but also much is ignored. The entire timeline of the Attica incident is left undetailed, especially the negotiations between prisoners and the state, because it allegedly distracts more from the abolitionist and social context than it explains. Yet as a result the book itself (from the Attica chapter onwards) becomes more a series of anecdotes than an actual, developed interpretation of the Attica revolt.

Where the first two chapters examine and interpret the Branch Queens and Auburn prison revolts effectively, the remaining four look at Attica only as it is relevant to whichever concepts the author wishes to employ, rather than the other way around. Attica is anarchist because it "destroys" the prison's chains of oppression; Attica is utopian because it "creates" a society where prisoners can live peacefully and equally; Attica is an example of healthy masculinity and sexual tolerance (the incident in which homosexuality was forbidden is waved away as being about focusing prisoners' energy in "the right places"); Attica is internationalist because some of the prisoners wanted refuge in non-imperialist countries (plus the Soviet Union); most of all, Attica is a model for future black / third-world revolution, because if it isn't...?
What the author ignores in his chapter "Attica is" and in the following ones -- which delve into zombified Freudianisms ("A masculinity contest, a gender war, lay at the heart of their efforts to keep prisons under control...") and MKULTRA conspiracies -- is what Attica actually was: a prison revolt, and a massacre. Their point that Attica has a historical and social context is obvious and needs little justification, but to spin (however correctly) the revolt as a guidestone for all forms of socioeconomic change and cultural revolution, whilst ignoring the actual events of the Attica revolt, is at best naive. At worst, it does more harm to the movements which the author hopes will succeed than good.
Idealism without realism is a march into gunfire in the hope that God will stay the bullets. Attica was based in a lot of noble causes, but it was also deeply fractured and doomed to fail even if they got everything they wanted from the state. In neglecting a narrative of Attica in favor of a sampling of its ideas, "Tip of the Spear" misses the point.

[danny · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was brilliant, and easily one of the best nonfiction books I've read this year. As an abolitionist and someone who tries to write about prisons - albeit in different contexts and with different methodologies than Burton - I see this as a model for what radical, contestatory scholarship can look like. Burton's work challenges not only our way of thinking about Attica, but the relationship of the researcher to the subject of research.

I read Heather Ann Thompson's Blood in the Water when I was living in Alabama and working on a anti-carceral prison conditions legal case. At the time, I was deeply moved by the book both for its comprehensive recounting of what happened at Attica but also by its focus on the long legal journey that many of the Attica brothers engaged in to try to achieve some compensation and justice after the fact. It was, and remains, an impressive work of liberal but critical scholarship that I continue to think it's worth reading for its narration of the same moments of freedom and abolition geographies that Burton details here.

However, Burton's book has really changed my conception of what it means to tell a radical, politically principled history - not just of the few days of the formal Attica Rebellion but the much longer history of what he calls the Long Attica Revolt, a set of insurgent, revolutionary, radical practices that challenged the structure of prisons and policing in the 1970s just as those institutions were beginning to expand and reconstitute into what we know them as today.

Burton here is deft in weaving in different forms of epistemology - focusing on the widest aspirations of the Attica rebels rather than the narrower demands they ultimately articulated - as well as a careful study of the techniques of repression they both endured and precipitated. I really appreciated and felt challenged by his discussion of the gendered aspect of the revolt, even if I felt like some of those sections could have been explored even more.

Ultimately I would really recommend this book to anyone interested not only in the U.S. prison system and the rise of the current carceral state but also the efforts to repress the militant Black radicals of the 60s and 70s. This study does a better job than most in making the connections between U.S. domestic counter-insurgency and the rise of the prison-industrial complex. It also has a brilliant discussion of how reformist approaches are a central part of the prison apparatus itself, one that indicts so many people claiming to work on behalf of people in prison today. As we continue in this moment when carceral systems are again being exploited and expanded to repress political militancy (around Palestine, but not just around Palestine), reading this book is more urgent than ever and so yeah, everyone should.

[Lawrence Grandpre · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is excellent. In addition to being very well researched, it is an important corrective to the mainstream liberal narrative. The Attica prison revolt was not just about prison overcrowding and "human rights", a liberal/legalistic frame, and this text places it in its proper context, as an extension of a larger black liberation struggle.

The critique of "programification", the proliferation of prison programs that keep folks busy rather than engaging in revolutionary consciousness raising, sets the stage for an important larger critique of the non-profit industrial complex in general as an attempt to forestall black autonomous work in community. Simularly, his analysis of the "Rx" program raises important questions around the medicalized approach to behavior change challenging and notions of "public health" solutions to social problems in the black community. As this text shows, epidemiological analysis has often been used to pathologize Black community as a vector of radical contagion that needs to contained through medical intervention. This challenges contemporary notions that "public health" solutions to issues like violence, which often center on interventions like "cognitive behavioral therapy", are inherently liberatory, as they share DNA with these sorts of counter insurgency interventions.

Seeing the direct links of prison radicals to international liberation movements helps destabilize notions of prison revolts being spontaneous responses to acute act of violence toward intentional liberation struggle in line with a global movement.

Unlike nearly every text I've read from mainstream academics speaking on Black radicalism, this has extensive and diverse citation across a variety of disciplines with the black studies and larger critical theory umbrella. Some may see this as confusing or having internal contradictions, and also may be frustrated at the lack of concrete conclusion on "what do to", but those are the only reasons why I can imagine not liking this book, unless the content is too unsettling to you.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent resource for learning about the Attica revolt through a lens that is deeply informed by the Black radical tradition. While it utilizes official state reports and liberal interpretations about the rebellion, it acknowledges their limited, biased perspectives that describe Attica as either a violent and isolated anomaly or a limited, reform-focused action. As such, it elevates ignored, underemphasized, and discredited (by the state) sources to reveal the radical and wide-reaching strains present, not only in the few days during which the revolt took place, but also both preceding and following the revolt.

It applies a level of focus to Attica that serves to recover narratives and details that have been, if not intentionally buried, discarded as irrelevant by existing scholarship. I found the chapter examining the aftermath of Attica—how state powers twisted even small, reformist changes to increase the scope and intensity of the carceral state—illuminating. It highlighted that even well-meaning, unwitting non-prisoners brought in under the guise of teaching expanded programs for prisoners functioned to facilitate a carceral counterinsurgency.

The final chapter pieces together evidence and details that demonstrate a connection to MK Ultra and other “behavior modification” programs that were used on prisoners, with an intentional focus on those who exhibited radical understanding and potential. Very “disappointed but not surprised” energy reading it.

This quote from the epilogue is a good summary of what I’ve taken away from reading this:
“To see the prison as an institutionalized form of counterinsurgency is to apprehend how not only spectacular violence, but mundane
‘progressive’ and ‘humanizing’ reforms, are constantly being weaponized against the capacity for radical thought.”

[Abdullah T · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is another radical hood library pick. The book makes a well researched argument and narrative that prisons serve as war. I wasn't familiar with Attica, and it's wild how this story escaped me. The 4 day uprising has the highest amount of casualties, but it's super important to note as Orisanmi emphasizes that the casualities came from the states hand. It's a well researched academic text so it can be a little difficult to read, but he emphasizes why it was important to leverage academia in understanding Attica. I like that the book puts framework before and after the uprising. This movement is sooo important to study because this is an ongoing war that marks the race war that continues in the US today. I appreciate also how abolition becomes the clear solution instead of neoliberal reforms that don't actually solve the underlying etiology. The warfare doesn't end in just physical violence (it made me sick reading the sexual assault that comes from it) but the psychological one as well. Reading about the manipulation and how it was presented just boils my blood. It very much justifies the basis of armed struggle and violence. But that being said, there was even a part of the book when they kept hostages, and the way they treated their political prisoners is night and day in how prisoners are treated. "We might further theorize the rebels refusal to torture or execute the hostages as pedagogical strategy designed to educate state actors in the world that it was possible to develop a more humane way of treating those over whom one has power". The book makes you really think about what it means to be human. Attica needs to be remembered and told in a proper framework, and this book does exactly that.