New York prisons lift ban on book about Attica uprising

By MAYSOON KHAN
Associated Press/Report for America

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York state prison authorities have lifted a ban on a book about the 1971 Attica uprising following a First Amendment lawsuit. Author Heather Ann Thompson, a historian and professor at the University of Michigan, sued the state’s prisons in March in Manhattan federal court over the censorship of her book “Blood in the Water: The Attica Uprising of 1971.” Prison official said last week in a letter to a Manhattan federal judge that they would dismiss the ban, but will cut out a two-page map from all copies for security purposes.