And former Attica prison inmate Frank “Big Black” Smith has died at the age of 70. He became a chief spokesperson of the prisoners during the uprising. In 2000 he and other inmates won a $12 million agreement with the state of New York.

During the uprising he forced to lie on a table while officers beat and burned him. He was also threatened with castration and death. The federal judge in the Attica settlement Michael Telesca said of Smith, “He was a real peacemaker in the Christian sense.” His attorney Elizabeth Fink said “He persevered all of the years because he believed in what we were doing and because what happened to him in the (prison) yard changed him.”