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Attica, the Oscar-nominated documentary by Stanley Nelson and Traci Curry, earned its place as a poignant chronicle of the harrowing events of September 1971. Ironically, Sunday’s Academy Awards presenter Chris Rock got more of an apology from the actor who slapped him than the Attica Brothers ever got from the State of New York.
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In a year when there is much debate about what history is, and how (and whether) we teach our children about our collective past, we see a struggle around its re-writing, re-learning, re-interpreting — and then forgetting again. It is clearly true that it is uncomfortable to revisit our country’s founding sin of enslaving Africans, but we don’t need to look that far back. The searing footage unleashed in a new documentary on an event in upstate New York half a century ago allows us – forces us – to visualize the slavemasters of the past and the Derek Chauvins of the present in one sweeping account of the massacre that ended the Attica Uprising.
The line that runs from chattel slavery, through Attica, to the murder of George Floyd (and others) is the belief that Black people in general, and Black people with conviction histories in particular, are less than human. The documentary produced by Stanley Nelson and Traci Curry illustrates the dictionary definition of dehumanization: “to deprive someone of human qualities…of dignity, to subject someone to inhuman or degrading conditions or treatment.”
Read the full story here.
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On March 10, Osborne awarded the Frederik R-L Osborne Prize to two of our most steadfast employees, Virginia Johnson, Substance Abuse Counselor, and Ben Tallerson, Senior Employer Specialist. Virginia and Ben have each been Osborne employees for nearly 15 years.
The annual award honors members of our staff who have directly experienced incarceration and who exemplify Erik Osborne’s qualities of compassion, generosity, and humor.
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AMNY reported on the March 23 open letter by twenty leading organizations responding to Governor Hochul’s proposed justice reform rollbacks. Osborne President & CEO Elizabeth Gaynes said, “We’ve spent years pouring over the data to get to a place to be able to reform the bail system so that it wasn’t wealth-based and wasn’t unfair and discriminatory, (a)nd yet there’s this response that says that before the budget is passed, let’s just mess with it.”
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On March 23, Osborne Court Advocacy Services Program Coordinator Kristin Hogan and OCJAG Policy Associate Wendell Walters offered testimony at the New York City Council Preliminary Budget Hearing Committees on Criminal Justice and Aging, respectively. Read Kristin’s testimony for the Committee on Criminal Justice here and Wendell’s testimony for the Committee on Aging here. |
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Join us, New York City Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams, and other groups to celebrate Trans Day of Visibility on Thursday, March 31 at Church of the Covenant. Osborne’s Grace Detrevarah will be a speaker at the event, which aims to raise awareness of issues impacting the TGNC community in New York City.
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Join us in our work to build a justice system that promotes healing, safety, accountability, and real opportunities to thrive.
Elizabeth Gaynes,
President & CEO
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