Project Description
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST, NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK FOR 2016, NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE BOSTON GLOBE, NEWSWEEK, KIRKUS, PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, MORE
Dr. Heather Ann Thompson, Detroit native and Professor at the University of Michigan, is an award-winning historian who has written extensively on policing, mass incarceration and the current criminal justice system. Her recent book, Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and its Legacy, was named a finalist for the National Book Award, appears on more than a dozen Best of 2016 lists, and is also included on the list of Best Human Rights Books of 2016. Thirteen years of research in the making, Blood in the Water tells the civil rights story of the Attica Correctional Facility uprising and the thirty-nine prisoners and hostages who died when the state of New York retook the prison by force. Thompson has served as a board member and advisory for a number of organizations such as the Prison Policy Initiative, and has shared her work with government officials at home and abroad including Switzerland, Germany, Ireland, and the UK.