Biography
Frank Big Black Smith was a 300-pound African-American prisoner at Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York who became the principal internal security organizer of the September 9-13, 1971 Attica prison rebellion — still the bloodiest prison uprising in U.S. history. With 1,281 of Atticas approximately 2,200 prisoners, he took control of the prison and held 42 prison staff as hostages over four days, demanding political and human-rights reforms. After negotiations broke down, New York State Police retook the prison on Governor Nelson Rockefellers orders on September 13, 1971; 43 people died — 10 prison staff and 33 prisoners — almost all by state-police gunfire.
In the immediate aftermath he was singled out for retaliatory torture by guards: he was stripped naked, forced to lie on a table for hours with a football placed under his chin and was told that if he dropped the football he would be killed. He was burned with cigarettes and beaten. He was held in solitary confinement for six months. He was released on parole in 1973 after 8.5 years of a 10-15 year sentence for an unrelated New York City dice-game robbery. After his release he became a longtime substance-abuse counselor and the lead plaintiff in the 26-year class-action civil-rights lawsuit by Attica survivors that eventually settled for $12 million in 2000. He died in 2004, age 70.
