When the national prison strike kicked off last month, it sparked something unusual: headlines in mainstream outlets. The New York Times, the Washington Post, NPR, Time magazine, USA Today — all devoted attention to the actions.

But the spotlight quickly dissipated amid the darkness of prison walls. A week after the strike’s official end date (September 9 — the anniversary of the 1971 Attica prison uprising), we still don’t know how many prisoners participated, the scope of repression they faced, or how many prisons were affected.

What we do know is based on information from organizers. Prisoners in at least sixteen states (and one prison in Canada) engaged in actions like work stoppages, hunger strikes, and commissary boycotts to protest a prison system that fails to “recognize the humanity of imprisoned men and women.” Authorities responded to the nineteen-day strike by locking down prisons, throwing people in solitary confinement, and placing prisoners in “dry cells” (cells that lack water or working toilets). Some prisons remain on lockdown.