Samuel Melville (Part 2 of 2)

In 1969, Sam's shinanigan's finally got him arrested. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison, but the term was reduced to 15 years within his first year. He spent time in state and federal prison's, being transferred around. In his first year in prison, he made two escape attempts. neither attempt was successful, although in one attempt he beat up a guard, tied him up with his own belt, and continue running before being caught by another guard. Because of these attempts of escape, he was transferred to Attica. Attica is a very high security prison in New York. Here is one of his correspondences from prison:

"I think the combination of age and a greater coming together is responsible for the speed of the passing time. It's six month's now since my arrest and i can tell you truthfully few periods in my life have passed as quickly. i am in excellent physical and emotional health. there are doubtless subtle surprises ahead but i feel secure and ready. i read much, excercise, talk to guards and inmates, feeling for the inevitable direction of my life."

In prison, Sam played an enormous amount of chess. he even had a game of chess going with his son, and every letter they sent to each other, they made one move. Here is Sam's advice on chess: "In chess, contrary to popular thinking, the bold aggressive stroke, the brilliant sacrifice will almost invariably triumph over the devious, prudent maneuver. great regis! a lesson for the revolution."

Sam spent his time in prison, mainly reading Marx, Lenin and various revolutionary publications of the 1970's. The guards were very skeptical about letting Sam read this material, and often they took it away from him. But he was a revolutionary at heart, and his diet required a great deal of Marx. Sam kept in contact with his lawyer that defended him in his trial. He was hoping to use the lawyer to take up action against the penetentiary system, and get better rights for prisoners. When this did not happen, Sam got involved in the Attica prison riots of 1971.

Before the riot, the prisoners were given one shower per week and one roll of toilet paper per month. In response to a prisoner at another penetentiary being killed, the prisoners of Attica rioted. 1000 of the 2200 prisoners in Attica rioted taking 33 corrections officers hostage. They had 27 demands which they wanted the authorites to give into. The police on the outside, were willing to grant the 27 demands, however they would not grant amnesty for the prisoners invovled in the riot (they wanted to add more years to the sentences of the prisoners). Therefore, the prisoners refused to end their upheaval.


(Here is a picture of the prisoners in Attica during the riot. They spent a lot of time in the main yard. Many of the prisoners were Black Panthers.)


The prisoners held the prison for 4 days, before the state police were sent in to regain it. They fired tear gas into the main-yard, and then fired their shotguns into the smoke non-stop for two minutes. They eventually succeeded in regaining the prison, at the expense of killing nine of the hostages and 28 inmates. Sam was one of the inmates that was killed, willing to die rather than let the state guards re-take the prison.



All Sam knew was revolution. Karl Marx was his Jesus Christ. And every opportunity he got, Sam dedicated to revolution in whatever form possible. I found one quote of Samuel Melville on the topic of Che Gueverra, which is very relevant to the topic of this post. Sam said "While che may be an internationalist revolutionary his thoughts were always anchored to latin needs of liberation from yankee imperialism. his political line was humanist only after it was socialist. che never dealt with a post industrialist society, not that i heard of".