Graterford State Correctional Institution during construction in 1931. | Photo courtesy of The Library Company of Philadelphia
Graterford State Correctional Institution’s 1981 escape attempt and hostage incident was unremarkable compared to the Attica Prison Revolt and San Quentin Riot in 1971, the Huntsville Prison Hostage Siege of 1974, and the New Mexico State Penitentiary Riot in 1980. As detailed by the report released in 1982 by then Pennsylvania Governor Thormburgh’s seven-member panel, “No lives were lost. No blood was shed. Damage to the institution was minor.”
The escape attempt and five-day standoff followed two decades of predominantly race-driven frustrations, violence, and overcrowding that flowed from the 1960s into the early 1980s. In each case, the main cause of each standoff highlighted several instances of ignorance of inmates’ requests and comments leading to violence. For its part, SCI-Graterford’s riot laid the pathway to improvements and extensive prison reforms effectively end-capping the era.
The failed escape attempt, along with interpersonal stories spanning decades, serve as one of many that the Graterford Archive and Graterford Index hope to preserve as not only a time capsule but to give a authentic image of the lives of incarcerated individuals.
Graterford was built in 1929 and served as the largest maximum security prison in Pennsylvania. Established as Eastern State Penitentiary’s “Farm Branch,” prison officials had a unique vision and layout designed in line with the Auburn System of Incarceration. The prison was designed with plenty of space, light, and air between cells. Inmates participated in recreational and educational activities and a mix of duties that included working the farm, workshops, and other tasks to make the prison self sufficient and labor-intensive.
Inmates at Graterford during a jazz jam session. Date unknown. | Photo courtesy of RG 15, Department of Justice State Correctional Institute, Graterford Records, 1933 – 2015. Pennsylvania State Archives, Harrisburg
The auditorium and unique layout facilitated a “third space” that enabled personal interactions among the prisoners. After the prison reforms of the 1980s, programs such as the Long Incarcerated Fraternity Engaging Release Studies (LIFERS) worked on legislation for the parole of individuals serving life sentences. In its Restorative Justice Program, Mural Arts used art education to develop bonds among inmates.
Donnell Saadiq Palmer, previously incarcerated at SCI-Graterford until his transfer to SCI-Phoenix, is currently the chairperson of Right 2 Redemption (R2R) and a member of the Coalition to Abolish Death by Incarceration (CADBI). This coalition is working toward ending life-long sentences without parole, which is Palmer’s status at SCI-Phoenix. His is one of the many stories that Palmer and former inmates, staff, and family members connected to Graterford shared with the Graterford Archive and the Graterford Index to ensure that were not lost after the prison closed its gates on July 15, 2018.
Other stories and connections that will be preserved include the Latin American Cultural Exchange Organization (LACEO) that focuses on Latin Americans’ cultural awareness, pre-release preparation, and employment opportunities, Villanova University’s Graterford campus that traces its origin to the earlier Villanova University Alumni Association Graterford Chapter (VUAAG), the well-known NAACP and Urban League, and a variety of religious, personal development, and programs that foster personal and drug rehabilitation and decrease recidivism upon release.
Organizations like the Youth Art & Self-Empowerment Project, Right to Redemption, Human Rights Coalition, CADBI, and others founded between 2000s and 2010 can trace their roots to one of the many programs once available at Graterford. For visitors, both the Archive and Index will bring to light the stories of activism and achievement that would normally be ignored due to the stigma of the incarcerated.
A Philadelphia Inquirer article from 1991 features Graterford boxer and inmate Jeff Gant. | Image: Newspapers.com
The creation of the online resource began after Akeil Robertson-Jowers, co-founder and creative director of the Graterford Archive, recounted his experiences while incarcerated at the prison to Professor Gustavus Stadler of Haverford College. Robertson-Jowers, who was involved with Haverford’s Imagining Abolitionist Future (2022), which forms as the basis of the archive, found it imperative to share these stories and connections to help humanize and dispel misconceptions about the former and current inmates.
Robertson-Jowers, said stories about Robert Johnson, the first Black superintendent of Graterford, Civil Rights activists that were imprisoned there, and Black guards working with Black prisoners and pushing back against white guards are the origin of the reforms that came later.
In 2022, a $2.5 million Mellon Foundation afforded the archive to be expanded to include staff and the creation of a curriculum available to students at Haverford, Bryn Mawr, and Swarthmore colleges. Formed in collaboration with R2R and various educators, the curriculum includes Prison Memory and Carceral Narratives (Visual Studies), Against Death: Art, Abolition, and the Struggle to End Capital Punishment and Death by Incarceration, and Technical Citizenship: Incarceration, Redemption, and Abolition.
Community archivist Wynn Eakins’ time attending Drexel’s Masters in Library Science program in 2020 resulted in the creation of a LibGuide for academics, scholars, and parties who are interested in supporting “deeper research and historical analysis of SCI-Graterford.” Eakins said the archive was created as a hub for all information floating around, but not yet organized. The Graterford Index is convenient for anyone who wants to continue to work on it at a later date. Unfortunately, a large number of files related to Graterford were abandoned instead of being archived during the transition to SCI-Phoenix. Eakin hopes that this dormant information becomes accessible soon.
Bernard Hopkins, a mural by artist Eric Okdeh, was painted inside the gymnasium at Graterford in 2005. A reproduction is featured in the new exhibition Rising Up: Rocky and the Making of Monuments at Philadelphia Museum of Art. | Photo courtesy of Mural Arts
The database’s project manager, Kali Silverman, said empowering the Graterford diaspora by supporting their storytelling will hopefully turn into “a teaching tool for students and others to learn the history of community organizing.” Pursuing this goal will be hindered by the loss of living resources as the elderly inmates who were politically active during the 1960s and 1970s are in their twilight years.
Palmer believes that SCI-Phoenix’s smaller and more restrictive layout, compared to SCI-Graterford, is pushback against the success of the programs. On reflection, he recalled how unique and open Graterford was and how it had a community that may only continue to exist in the history and stories of the former prisoners’ interconnected lives. He hopes that individuals and groups that contribute to both the archive and index will rehumanize them in the eyes of the general public.
Staff and volunteers of the archive are currently producing a short film about the Graterford Boxing Program which was part of the Pennsylvania State Prison Boxing Program. It will be featured in the current Rising Up: Rocky and the Making of Monuments exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art by way of a screening and panel discussion on Sunday July 26. “Our film will unearth the history of boxing in the Pennsylvania state prison system, tell the story of its fighters, and feature the muralists that celebrate this legacy,” said Robertson. Some of the highlights of the film will include champion boxer Bernard Hopkins who was also incarcerated at Graterford. A mural of Hopkins was painted by inmates at the prison, which has been reproduced by muralists currently incarcerated at SCI-Phoenix and included in the Rising Up exhibition.
Great article
I wonder about the current trend of political inaction across many stations in America. I get that there are people doing the work. You’re doing the work. This article IS the work. But I wonder about the ways “pushback” against the work has evolved. I have a friend in prison in NH. He tells me that 8 out of 10 people in his pod take Suboxone instead of coffee. I wonder how we got here. Where the incentive to check out–and checking out can look like that (Suboxone in prison) or it can look like heightened political divide, what is a divide, if not two large groups agreeing not to have meaningful discussion, to live in there own bubbles, that’s not politics. It’s certainly not abolition. God, I wonder. Thanks for writing. Great work.
back in 1985 I volunteered in Graterford as part of the Paren-Child Resource Center Program. The Inmate Staff was trained to help children visiting their father’s in prison have a creative, fun interaction with their parent during the visit. I have saved many of the materials from the program from the beginning workshops with the Lifer’s. In the 1990 it became the Family Resource Center. The program included Staff, outside creative volunteers and inmates.Would like to donate my records to the archive.