An example of this class struggle is exemplified in occurrences where the oppressed rise up in violent conflict against their oppressors. During the Nineteen Sixties and early Nineteen Seventies, these class struggles reached a boiling as evidenced by the massive prison uprising in Attica, New York. (Zinn, A People’s History, 514) “The prisons in the United States had long been an extreme r

eflection of the American system itself: the stark life differences between rich and poor . . . and the use of victims against one another.” (Zinn, A People’s History, 515) In any given year, there are over 1,600,000 people who enter the American penitentiary system, and a large majority of those are in the lowest economic class. (Zinn, A People’s History, 515) The death of George Jackson, a politically outspoken inmate from California, in August of 1971 at the hands of prison officials sent shockwaves throughout the prisons of the United States. (Zinn, A People’s History, 519) He had been the voice of the thousands of inmates, who witnessed firsthand the injustices of the American judicial system. On the morning of September 9, 1971 a group of prisoners broke free, and took 40 guards hostage in the main prison yard of Attica State Prison. (Zinn, A People’s History, 521) They could no longer tolerate a system in which they were not treated as human beings, and as a last hope had resorted to taking over the prison. Although their goal for complete reform would never be achieved through an uprising as such, it showed the American people just how divided the upper and lower classes were. Then governor of New York, Nelson Rockefeller put an end to the uprising five days later, as thirty one prisoners and nine guards l

Some topics in this essay:
People’s History, Nineteen Nineties, Founding Fathers, American History, Revolutionary War, Christopher Columbus, United Zinn, people’s history, Nelson Rockefeller, zinn people’s, California August, , zinn people’s history, american history, class struggle, lower classes, history united, upper lower classes, history 521, united zinn, christopher columbus, prisons united, people’s history 521, american history shaped, people’s history 515,