Welcome to the 55th Memorial of the Attica Prison Uprising

An online interactive exhibition of the 1971, Attica Prison Uprising; curated by Donald “C-Note” Hooker and Minister King X Pyeface

In late August 1971, following the killing of Black Panther leader George L. Jackson by guards at San Quentin, hundreds of Attica prisoners staged a silent, disciplined fast—refusing food and wearing black armbands to signal both mourning and solidarity. This nonviolent demonstration revealed the inmates' collective organization and heightened political consciousness, but the administration met their peaceful calls for basic human dignity with heightened hostility and routine crackdowns. Frustrations reached a breaking point on September 9, when an altercation escalated into an armed rebellion, with prisoners seizing D-Yard, holding forty-two staff hostage, and organizing an elected council to protect the captives and demand sweeping reforms, including basic sanitation, medical care, and complete amnesty.

Talks between state officials and an outside Observers Committee deadlocked when Governor Nelson Rockefeller refused to grant amnesty or visit the prison to de-escalate the standoff. On the morning of September 13, Rockefeller ordered state troopers and correction officers to retake the facility by force; following a helicopter tear gas drop, law enforcement fired thousands of rounds indiscriminately into D-Yard, killing twenty-nine incarcerated men and ten hostages in under ten minutes. While the state initially manufactured claims that the hostages had been murdered by inmates, independent autopsies proved that every single hostage who died during the raid was killed by state gunfire, exposing the lethal extent of state violence and making Attica an indelible turning point in the modern prisoners' rights movement.

Donald “C-Note” Hooker, walking free in the heart of Black August 2026 after thirty years of wrongful imprisonment, immediately stepped into curating attica55.com to shape the living memory of the 1971 Attica Prison Uprising. Celebrated globally as the King of Prison Hip Hop and the world’s most prolific prisoner-artist, C-Note produced hundreds of acclaimed paintings, paintoems, plays, and performances under severe carceral constraint, creating work exhibited from Alcatraz to Berlin. As the recognized Black August Artist, his creative focus on human liberation directly mirrors the revolutionary spirit of Attica, transforming the platform into an urgent multimedia testament to carceral abolition.

His artistic vision is rooted in firsthand direct action, having joined the historic 2011 California statewide hunger strikes in solidarity against indefinite solitary confinement—an ordeal that fundamentally galvanized his political art. In late 2025, while incarcerated at Lancaster, he launched the groundbreaking “Hunger Striking for True Freedom” protest, recognized by legal observers as the first hunger strike in United States history waged exclusively for parole justice and against unverified confidential files. Bringing decades of creative discipline and uncompromising sacrifice, C-Note infuses this memorial with the living reality of carceral resistance.

Minister King X Pyeface, also known simply as Minister King X, is an Oakland-based activist, community organizer, and hip-hop artist prominently involved in prisoners' rights and abolitionist advocacy across California. A formerly incarcerated organizer, he played a central role in organizing the historic 2011–2013 California statewide prison hunger strikes, which challenged indefinite solitary confinement in Security Housing Units and prompted significant policy reforms. He has also been a vocal proponent of the Agreement to End Hostilities, working to eradicate racial division and retaliatory violence among incarcerated populations.

Beyond his grassroots organizing within the carceral system, he directs California Prison Focus and leads K.A.G.E. Universal, using cultural production and hip-hop to commemorate Black August and campaign against mass incarceration. Working alongside organizations such as Legal Services for Prisoners with Children and All of Us or None, he continues to challenge state restrictions on formerly incarcerated organizers through active community campaigns and civil rights litigation.

Co-curating this interactive memorial together, Donald "C-Note" Hooker and Minister King X Pyeface unite over two decades of shared history, prison organizing, and cultural resistance. First meeting in 2005 while locked in administrative segregation at High Desert State Prison—where C-Note joined Minister King X’s nascent movement K.A.G.E. (Kings and Queens Against Genocidal Environments)—both men are core members of the Artivist Cadre movement spearheaded by Minister King X, bringing unparalleled authenticity, political brotherhood, and frontline bona fides to the living memory of the Attica rebellion.