Cover of the Attica Book, illustration by Antonio Frasconi.

“In 1972, the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition (BECC), in partnership with the organization Artists and Writers Protest Against the War in Vietnam, published the culmination of their swift response to the September 1971 rebellion at Attica State Prison—the Attica Book. The publication featured black-and-white reproductions of works commissioned from forty-eight artists affiliated with these organizations and their allies. This robust set of ruminations on the event ranged from images of suffering and isolation (Vivian Browne, Mary Frank, and Benny Andrews) to sparse abstract works on paper (Irving Petlin and Jack Sonenberg) and clustered prints indicating bars, chains, and crowds (Melvin Edwards and Jacob Lawrence). One collage work by Rudolf Baranik makes use of the type of blurred aerial footage that suffused the media’s coverage of the rebellion. A collection of texts by incarcerated writers, mostly poems, was assembled in…