Soros Justice Fellowships

University of North Carolina

Heather Ann Thompson will write a book on the 1971 Attica Prison uprising and its legacy. Drawing from detailed archival research and a careful examination of previously undisclosed materials, this book will offer an untold story of the Attica rebellion and connect this dramatic event to the evolution of American justice policy and racial politics. The investigation and public presentation of the uprising in the hours, weeks, and years after officials regained control of the prison had significant political, ideological, and policy consequences. Thompson’s narrative style will bring to life the extraordinary human drama that lies at the heart of the Attica revolt. It will also serve to renew public interest in justice issues, and will provide readers with an important new context within which to evaluate current penal policy and the state of today’s criminal justice system.

Thompson is a native of Detroit who received her MA from the University of Michigan and her PhD from Princeton University. She is now an Associate Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Thompson’s first book, Whose Detroit? Politics, Labor and Race in a Modern American City (Cornell University Press, 2001), explores the turbulent political landscape of the Motor City between 1945 and 1985, focusing on the reshaping of this major U.S. metropolis by the African American struggle for greater equality that exploded on city streets, on shop floors, and in civil as well as criminal courtrooms. She is editing a volume that assesses various American struggles for rights and recognition in the 1960s and 1970s for Prentice Hall. Thompson serves on the National Boards of the Urban History Association and the La bor and Working Class History Association, and was recently appointed to the Advisory Board of the “African American Life Series” at Wayne State University Press.

Charlotte, NC  |  One Year |