Wanted for Murder: Nelson Rockefeller - The Butcher of Attica

[Bronx]: The Bronx Coalition, [1971]. 8 ½ x 11 in. Offset. Single sheet, printed on recto only, illustrated with a photograph of Rockefeller.

A “wanted” poster produced by the citizenry and aimed at the state. This flyer attacked Governor Nelson Rockefeller for his handling of the Attica Rebellion and demanded justice for the murders and violence his management caused.

The Bronx Coalition was a short-lived New Left organization responsible for organizing white working people in the Bronx. They worked parallel to the Young Lords in improving health care access in New York, and participated in anti-war demonstrations and protests to free the New Haven Nine. The storefront women’s health clinic they started eventually grew into the first legal abortion clinic in the Bronx, and helped to form a rape crisis center, as described in organizer Mark Naison’s memoir. According to Naison, the organization began to lose momentum and grew apart at the end of 1970 and beginning of 1971, making this flyer likely one of the last pieces of ephemera produced by the group.

A rare flyer and an exceptional detournement of the state’s punitive violence, produced by an under-examined New Left organization in the Bronx.

Near fine.