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In 1968, police arrested five Black girls dressed in oversized military fatigues in Montgomery. The girls were runaways, escaping from a state-run reform school called the Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children in Mount Meigs, Alabama. The girls were determined to tell someone about the abuse they’d suffered there: physical and sexual violence, unlivable facilities, and grueling labor in the fields surrounding the school. It was, as several former students called it, a slave camp.

Peabody-nominated UNREFORMED is the story of how this reform school derailed the lives of thousands of Black children in Alabama for decades and what happened after those five girls found someone willing to blow the whistle. Host Josie Duffy Rice investigates the history of the school at the tail end of the Civil Rights movement in Alabama and speaks to former students who are still haunted by their experience but had the will to survive.

Unreformed: the Story of the Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Introducing: Unreformed: the Story of the Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children

Reporter Josie Duffy Rice travels to a small town outside Montgomery, Alabama, and tries to visit a juvenile reform school, once called the Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children or Mt. Meigs. The school opened in the early 20th century as a safe haven for Black kids, but by the 1960s, it had become something else entirely.
 
Then one day, in 1968, five Black girls ran away, determined to find someone to help. We hear from one of those girls, Mary, and juvenile probation officer Denny. We also hear from Lonnie, now a world famous artist who was sent to Mt. Meigs at age 11, among others. In Unreformed, Rice investigates this institution, and what happened after someone blew the whistle. It looks at the lasting impact Mt. Meigs has had on their lives and juvenile justice in Alabama.
 
If you or someone you know attended Mt. Meigs and would like to connect with us, please email mtmeigspodcast@gmail.com. 
 
 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode 1: The Lucky Ones

Survivors of Mt. Meigs share how they ended up in the juvenile justice system and what happened once they went down the long road to the reformatory. Lonnie and Johnny meet the foreboding superintendent EB Holloway, while Mary and Jennie must deal with the girls’ matron, Fannie B. Matthews. 
 
If you or someone you know attended Mt. Meigs and would like to connect with us, please email mtmeigspodcast@gmail.com. 
 
 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode 2: The Arrival

By the 1960s, the Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children was an early prototype of the for-profit prison. But it wasn’t designed that way. In this episode, we go back to the early 20th century when a Black woman and student of Booker T. Washington named Cornelia Bowen founded Mt. Meigs. She envisioned a safe haven for Black kids who weren’t being served by the state of Alabama and believed in reform through industrial education. She often was successful, and without her, America might not have had one of its most legendary Black athletes, baseball player Satchel Paige. 

If you or someone you know attended Mt. Meigs and would like to connect with us, please email mtmeigspodcast@gmail.com. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode 3: Cornelia's Dream

Since the 1920s, notices started appearing in the local newspapers near Mt. Meigs. They said things like "Six armed negroes escaped Mount Meigs Industrial School” or “Police seeking escape artist in burglary." 
 
In this episode, we hear about the tradition of running away at Mt. Meigs. Lonnie tells us about his experience running away and the harrowing consequences that led him to spend months on the rock pile. 
 
If you or someone you know attended Mt. Meigs and would like to connect with us, please email mtmeigspodcast@gmail.com. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode 4: The Runaways

Mary Stephens and four other girls escape Mt. Meigs and are determined to tell someone about what's happened to them. Probation officer Denny Abbott must make a decision. 
 
If you or someone you know attended Mt. Meigs and would like to connect with us, please email mtmeigspodcast@gmail.com. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode 5: When Mary Met Denny

Denny Abbott enlists the help of lawyer Ira Dement to sue the state of Alabama. What ensues is a years-long battle, multiple lawsuits, personal turmoil, but also...a glimmer of hope for the kids at Mt. Meigs. 
 
Special thanks to Denny Abbott and Douglas Kalajian for the use of their book, They Had No Voice: My Fight for Alabama's Forgotten Children.
 
If you or someone you know attended Mt. Meigs and would like to connect with us, please email mtmeigspodcast@gmail.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode 6: Scallawags and Carpetbaggers

Many people who were incarcerated at Mt. Meigs as children ended up spending their entire lives tethered to the criminal legal system. Many were sentenced to life in prison. Many others were sentenced to death. This episode traces the lives of two of those people: Jesse James Andrews and Johnny Mack Young. 
 
If you or someone you know attended Mt. Meigs and would like to connect with us, please email mtmeigspodcast@gmail.com. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode 7: The Aftermath

Hey folks, Josie here! We wanted to share a show that we think you might like. It's called 5-4, and it's about how much the Supreme Court sucks. 5-4 is all about how the Supreme Court DOESN'T provide justice, and we think that will resonate with Unreformed listeners. 
 
If you like it, you can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
 
About 5-4: A podcast about how much the Supreme Court sucks. It’s a progressive and occasionally profane take on the ideological battles at the heart of the Court’s most important landmark cases and an irreverent tour of all the ways in which the law is shaped by politics. 
 
Listen each week as hosts Peter, Michael, and Rhiannon dismantle the Justices’ legal reasoning on hot-button issues like affirmative action, gun rights, and campaign finance, and use dark humor to reveal the high court’s biases. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Unreformed presents "5-4: Tanner v. United States."

In the final episode, we look at where Lonnie, Mary, Johnny, Jennie, Johnny Mack, and Denny are fifty years after leaving Mt. Meigs. We also look at how juvenile justice in America has evolved and how other juvenile reform schools that mistreated their students have atoned for their wrongs. And lastly, we get a glimpse into the current state of Mt. Meigs. Has it changed? Or is it the same place it was more than fifty years ago?
 
If you or someone you know attended Mt. Meigs and would like to connect with us, please email mtmeigspodcast@gmail.com. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Unreformed presents "5-4: Tanner v. United States."

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