The Art of History

Writing the Perilously Recent Past: The Historian's Dilemma

Heather Ann Thompson, October 2013
On the morning of September 13, 1971, horrible things happened. Within a mere 15 minutes thousands of bulletsdeer
slugs, hollow points, and shotgun pelletsrained down on a 50 by 50 foot enclosed yard, shattering bones, exploding
heads, ending lives. Many lives. And, as 29 prisoners and 10 guard hostages lay dead or dying, hundreds of others were
crawling in the mudscreaming and crying from gunshot wounds and the blows of combat boots, gun butts, and batons.
None of the dying or wounded men at Attica had firearms. All had been, up until the sounds of gunfire first rang out,
trying to negotiate their way to a peaceful resolution of what had been a fourday rebellion at the Attica State Correctional
Facility in upstate New York.
On August 8, 2004, just shy of three decades to the day that the New York State Police retook Attica, I found myself
sitting in a dimly lit living room on the outskirts of Albany, trying to interview a man who had survived this assault.
Truth be told, I had been nervous walking up to this former Attica inmate's small bungalow. After all, I had never
actually met anyone who had served time. But the person who greeted me at the door was just a persona polite but
worn-down man who had been only 18 years old back in 1971 when he landed at Attica for violating a minor parole
regulation and, thereafter, had been witness to the traumatic and infamous riot.
It was this event that I wanted to understand, so I plunged ahead, pulling out my notes, starting my digital recorder, and
launching into the interviewone question, two, then three. Suddenly, though, I found myself looking up, mortified
and completely unsure how to proceed. In trying to respond to my queries, this Attica survivor found himself back in
September 1971 and was reliving that terrible moment when over 500 state troopers clothed in garish yellow rain slickers
and thick gas masks stormed the prison with guns blazing. To be sure, I learned much about Attica in that first interview,
but I had not at all considered the consequences of asking someone to revisit their tortured past so that I might recover
it for my readers. As a clock ticked loudly nearby, I could only look on helplessly as the man before me, face now
contorted with unimaginable pain, wept uncontrollably.
At that moment, I knew that I was way out of my depth as a historian. Indeed, as I would be reminded time and again
over the next years, historians who seek to write about the recent past, and particularly about its uglier moments, are
presented with challenges and dilemmas that our graduate training simply does not prepare us to navigate. And yet, we
need to write these histories, not only because the recent past is so poorly understood, but because knowing it more
fully, warts and all, allows us to make better sense of the postwar period as a whole.
The reasons we know so little about some of the more tragic or ugly moments in our recent historythe Atticas, the
Wounded Knees, the Kent States, the Watergatesand why they remain almost mythical, are complicated. In part, we
have relied too readily on the recollections and interpretations of those who experienced those events first hand. We
have assumed, fairly logically, that people who were there a must have a pretty good handle on what went down and
why. But, of course, historians would never rely solely on what historical actors of, say, the 19th century said they were
doing. Our job is to bring myriad resources together so that we might not only reconstruct what actually happened, but
also interpret the meaning of what happened in the broadest terms.
One of the reasons we rely so heavily on eyewitness accounts is that we simply can't access the documents we need to
recover a given event. Those who made that pastsay the activists who launched a given protest or the local, state, and
federal officials charged with monitoring, managing, or shutting them downoften have powerful reasons to block our
access. I am not suggesting conspiracy here; I am pointing to pragmatism. There is no statute of limitations on a variety
of crimes, nor is there a time limit within which the Justice Department must launch a civil rights case. When it comes
to our recent past there is a great deal still at stake for many of the historical actors whose past we seek to illuminate
more fully.
We are trained to work in archives, but what if there is no archive? What if powerful people have declared that the "book
is now closed" (as Governor Hugh Carey did with Attica) and then sealed materials that are crucial to your project?
What if thousands of additional boxes of state files (trooper statements, ballistic reports, governmental memos, legal
proceedings, autopsies, etc.) are inaccessible to you because they are tucked away in remote storage facilities and there
is no finding aid to let you know which documents to request?
During the course of my research, two simple questions guided me to the seemingly inaccessible: "Who has the
original?" and "Who might have a copy?" These questions sent me to state agencies that I never imagined might be
relevant to a history of a prison uprising (who knew that workers' compensation files would be rich with evidence about
the uprising at Attica?). They took me into people's basements (who knew that renowned Attica observer William
Kunstler had written a personal letter to the wife of a slain hostage chronicling how he felt about the deaths at the
prison?). These questions also took me to locales that I never guessed would have had anything to do with a New York
rebellion (who knew that Attica observer Tom Wicker kept all of his vital accounts of what had happened in D Yard in
Chapel Hill, North Carolina?). Ironically, had the state archives been open to me, I would have missed a scandalous
portion of Attica's rich and still untold history.
Sometimes, though, we uncover long-held secrets that may be better left buried. And, thus, historians of the recent past
must also consider the ethics of the work that they do. We need not only to write a comprehensive account of the recent
past, but also to live with what we have written. During Attica, for instance, murders were committed and mayhem
happened. But we would not be historians if we accepted this passive construction. To a historian it
matters who committed these murders and who caused the mayhem. And, even if what we discover surprises, unnerves,
or disgusts us, we must, as objectively as possible, simply tell what happened.
But what if one's investigative prowess leads to discoveries of things that had been hidden because they were
explosivethings that if ever revealed might make history, not simply recount it? Indeed what if one's very skill at
uncovering what really happened in the past could set other things in motioncreate a new historical momentin
which the past and present blend in ways deeply disconcerting? Such research "finds" are on the one hand a historian's
dream. After all, they could net a scholar much press and sell many more of his or her books. But what if these same
"finds" about the past could also impact the present?
If one was to discover, for example, who in fact committed a terrible crime long ago, then it seems that one should
reveal that information. After all, Medgar Evers's murderer was finally brought to justice because old documents were
discovered and revealed. But what if "justice" in this case had also meant, say, sending a man to the electric chair? Or
what if, in another case, it led to vigilante justice? Yes, it seems right that one who commits a crime, even long ago,
should be held accountable for his actions. But what is a historian's role in this process? How fine is the line between
one's professional obligation to tell the past exactly as it happened, one's personal desire to see justice finally done, and
one's moral obligation not to commit harm?
As I first realized sitting in that small bungalow near Albany, watching a man shudder and weep as he recounted the
trauma of Attica, as I was reminded again when I so often found my access to the past blocked, and as I was reminded
most poignantly when, through sheer determination, I happened upon information I wasn't sure I really wanted to have,
researching and writing about the uglier and more tragic moments in our nation's recent past presents historians with
many dilemmasboth practical and moral.
We are taught to be dispassionate recorders and interpreters of historical information, but this also means that we have
spent woefully little time considering the ways in which our seemingly objective questions might cause others real pain.
Being encouraged to choose accessible research topics also means that we haven't amassed the skills we need to write
about topics that might shine needed new light on the postwar period precisely because recovering them is so difficult.
Being taught merely to chronicle the past also means that we have spent little time debating the ethics of knowledge.
Perhaps worse, being taught that we must neither protect historical actors nor throw them to the sharks, leaves us
rudderless when we find ourselves swimming in a sea of information that, if we were to disclose it, might alter the
course of history, not simply rescue it for posterity.
And yet, historians alone know how to uncover the true complexities of the recent pastwe have the patience and skills
needed to research this past most fully, and knowledge of the broader historical context needed to interpret this past
most meaningfully. Indeed, working hard to overcome the dilemmas posed by writing the perilously recent past also
presents us with many wonderful opportunities to make our work even better.

Heather Ann Thompson is associate professor of history in the Department of African American Studies and the
Department of History at Temple University. She is completing the first comprehensive history of the Attica Prison
uprising of 1971 for Pantheon Books and has published numerous articles on the history as well as contemporary
implications of mass incarceration in America.