You're Wrong About - Trailer: Unreformed

Episode Date: January 17, 2023

Extry! Extry! New podcast by Josie Duffy Rice!—In 1968, five Black girls escaped from the Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children, a so-called “reform school” outside of Montgomery, Alabama. These girls were not the first children to run away from the institution, which everyone called Mt. Meigs. Children tried to escape all the time, desperate to get away from a place described by many as a child’s prison. But this time was different. This time, a girl named Mary Stephens chose to tell someone her story. It was a decision that would change everything.Unreformed: The Story of the Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children, hosted by Josie Duffy Rice, is an investigative podcast chronicling the history of Mt. Meigs, an institution that began as a safe haven for black youth before mutating into a “modern-day slave plantation” rife with torture and abuse. It tells the story of the man who decided to blow the whistle on the corruption and brutality that flourished at Mt. Meigs, and the repercussions he suffered as a result. And it traces the histories of the now-adults who were trapped there as children in the 1960https://www.iheartmedia.com/press/iheartpodcasts-and-school-humans-announce-unreformed-story-alabama-industrial-school-negroSupport the show

Hey, everyone. This is Sarah Marshall. I just wanted to share with you that our friend Josie Duffy Rice has a new show out premiering this week on Wednesday, January 18th, called Unreformed. I'm so thrilled to get to help direct you to it. I think it's really important. It's wonderful. It's brilliant, just like everything Josie does. And go check it out. In 1968, five black girls dressed in oversized military fatigues were picked up by the police in Montgomery, Alabama. I was tired and scared and just didn't want to take it anymore. The girls had run away from a reform school called the Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children, a place known as Mount Meigs. And they were determined to tell someone about the abuse they'd suffered there. Picture the worst environment for children that you possibly can.

I believe Mount Meigs was patterned after slavery. It was a penal colony for children. That's exactly what it was. I didn't understand why I had to go through what I was going through and for what. He tells us there is no escaping now. I'm one of the most violent persons that you would ever have met. And those characteristics was killing me in Mount Meigs reformaturing. Mount Meigs was founded by the daughter of a slave as a safe haven for black children. But by the 1960s, it had turned into a nightmare.

I'm writer and reporter Josie Duffy Rice. And for the past year, I've been investigating what was happening at Mount Meigs in the 1960s at the height of the civil rights movement in the deep south. And I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever. This is the story of how this reform school derailed the lives of thousands of black children in Alabama. And what happened after those five girls found someone who was willing to blow the whistle? From I Heart Media and School of Humans comes a new podcast, Unreformed, the story of the Alabama Industrial School for Negro children. No one have never really told a true story about me.

Listen to Unreformed on the I Heart Radio App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts coming January 18th. Unreformed