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.
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-unreformed-the-story-of-t-107005437/
episode 2: Episode 2: The Arrival
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.
Unreformed has been nominated for two Signal Listener's Choice Award. Voting is open through October 5, 2023, you can vote for the show under "Best Host" and "History" in the Limited Series and Specials category. Link to vote is here.
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