Poet Nikki Giovanni, one of the leading voices in the black artist movement, talks about current affairs on the third anniversary of the Attica uprising. She was in Moorhead for a poetry reading on the Concordia College campus.
On third anniversary of Attica prison rebellion, Giovanni speaks at press conference, where she says that what the government did was wrong. She says the U.S. is in serious moral trouble; it's a very bad mentality to send poor people to prison and pardon rich people. Additionally, she commented that Rockefeller should answer for giving the order for the attack at Attica. Giovanni also says the government didn’t have a case in Wounded Knee; it was a lie from the beginning, and a political situation; that the government started sending the same message to blacks in the 1960s.
Transcripts
text | pdf |
DENNIS HAMILTON: Black poet Nikki Giovanni is heralded as one of the leading voices in the Black artist movement. She's in Morehead for a poetry reading on the Concordia College campus. And this being the third anniversary of the Attica prison rebellion, we asked Ms. Giovanni to comment on Attica and what it means to say Attica is everywhere.
NIKKI GIOVANNI: Being a New Yorker and having recently watched Gerald Ford appoint or designate Nelson Rockefeller as the vice president is very sad. I think it's probably sad to most New Yorkers, at least from the polls that I've read. That's wrong. Attica was wrong. I mean, to shoot people like that was wrong.
And then for Nelson Rockefeller to refuse to negotiate was wrong. And then for him to turn around and say that it was good of Gerald Ford to grant Richard Nixon a full and free pardon when he has been responsible, really, for killing those people is not good. United States is in serious moral trouble, to put it mildly, you know, aside from economic trouble and things like that.
It's the mentality. It's a very bad mentality that you send poor people to prison and you pardon rich people. That's what it amounts to. The larger the crime, the less likely you are to have to pay anything at all for it. If the people that do the little minor crimes, the little minor burglaries, things of that nature end up frequently paying for it with their lives, which happened in Attica.
Nobody pardoned those people. As a matter of fact, they're still trying to bring the prisoners up on charges who were shot at and not the guards. And, of course, Rockefeller was the one who gave the order for the attack. I think that he should have to answer for that. I would regret him becoming vice president. I regretted the designation. I don't think he's a nice person.
DENNIS HAMILTON: Miss Giovanni was also questioned about the recently dismissed Wounded Knee trial. She offered this assessment regarding the role of the government in that case.
NIKKI GIOVANNI: They didn't have a case. And I am one that's just tired of the government starting dumb cases that they know they can't win, that they know was wrong from the beginning, and then deciding to drop the charges. And then we're supposed to feel that we won something. A lot of time, a lot of energy was lost on the Wounded Knee case. They never had a case. It was a lie from the beginning. And I would like to see the people, the defendants sue the government.
DENNIS HAMILTON: She also stated that the governmental strategy in cases like Wounded Knee was to sap the resources of the minorities involved and added this.
NIKKI GIOVANNI: Again, John Mitchell admitted that he started suits that he knew he couldn't win just to do that to keep you busy from bail, to keep you busy for lawyers. John Mitchell said that. I didn't. And it's wrong, and it's wrong for us to consider that we have somehow won something because they started a lie and they finally said, OK, we withdraw the lie. And not even that we're wrong, just the sort of we withdraw it.
Because how do you pay people back for time? You can't. So why keep doing it? I mean, they knew from the beginning. Wounded Knee is just one of the many. They knew from-- the Berrigan brothers, the Panthers, they knew that they was wrong. So why keep doing it? I don't think that the point was ever that they thought they had a case against me. I think that they were trying to tell the Indians, we really don't like the way you're acting.
And if you aren't good, we're going to get mad. And it wasn't just the judiciary, its political system. Because if it had been done judicially, it would never have happened. They had no grounds. From the beginning, they had no ground. So we're talking about a political situation that they have been sending messages to minorities. They started, of course, sending messages to Blacks in the '60s, we don't like the way you're acting. Stop it.
DENNIS HAMILTON: Nikki Giovanni, poet, political and social activist, answering questions for the press. In Morehead, this is Dennis Hamilton.