0:08

School of Humans. This

0:11

episode discusses historical events

0:13

that include physical and sexual abuse

0:16

against children. Like

0:19

the rest of the South, Alabama

0:21

is a study in contradictions, a

0:24

region known for both warm hospitality

0:27

and gross and justice, swelling

0:29

with pride and stricken by conscience.

0:33

It's a tangle of racial, economic,

0:35

and geographic disparities. Lots

0:38

of America can be like this, sure, but

0:41

Alabama's complication is legendary.

0:44

On one hand, the state is deeply

0:46

conservative, teaming with good

0:48

old boys and Confederate flags. While

0:51

most of the nation is celebrating the Martin

0:53

Luther King Holiday each January,

0:56

Alabama celebrates King

0:58

Lee Day instead, a joint

1:00

observation of Martin Luther

1:02

King and Robert E. Lee.

1:05

So you'd be forgiven for thinking that a state

1:08

with this much of a racist history would

1:11

be pretty white. But

1:13

Alabama is not a white state.

1:16

I say this as a Black Southerner myself,

1:19

For me and my family and over half

1:21

of black people in America, the

1:24

South is home Over

1:26

a quarter of Alabama's residents are black,

1:29

almost twice the national average, and

1:31

Alabama has the fifth highest black population

1:34

of any state in the country.

1:37

In the nineteen sixties, the state's black

1:39

population was even larger, but

1:42

you wouldn't have known that looking at the crowd that surrounded

1:44

Alabama's capital on January

1:47

fourteenth, nineteen sixty three,

1:49

to see George Wallace sworn in as

1:51

governor after

1:54

an unsuccessful run as a moderate in nineteen

1:56

fifty eight. Wallace triumphed

1:59

four years later, in part by promising

2:02

never to integrate the state. It

2:04

was during this inauguration speech that

2:07

Wallace made a defining statement of the

2:09

era. Bag

2:20

White people have maintained power in Alabama,

2:23

not just back then, but today as well,

2:25

thanks to the law. It's

2:28

easy to think of the law as being an

2:30

objectively moral force, one

2:32

that is overwhelmingly fair and equal.

2:35

But the law isn't objective, nor

2:38

is justice blind, and the rule

2:40

of law is not about fairness or

2:42

consistency. It's about power.

2:46

The law mutates and remolds itself

2:48

to serve those who enforce it, who

2:50

make it, and who benefit from it. Everyone

2:54

else is at its mercy,

2:56

and no one knows that more than

2:58

black people in Alabama. I

3:02

say that to remind you that the children

3:04

were talking about in this po podcast were

3:06

technically legally criminals.

3:09

The law had made that determination and

3:11

so that's what they were, juvenile

3:14

delinquents, Negro lawbreakers.

3:17

Never mind that the laws that they were breaking

3:19

were laws designed for them to break, implemented

3:23

so that the state could deem them criminals.

3:27

These were children, often as

3:29

young as ten or eleven years old, suffering

3:32

trauma from being separated from their

3:34

loved ones, taken from their families

3:36

and handed over to the state. They

3:39

were children, but to the

3:41

state of Alabama, they were criminals

3:43

all the same. That

3:47

is the Alabama that Lonnie Holly, Jenny

3:50

Knox, Johnny Bodley, and Mary

3:52

Stevens, as well as countless other

3:54

young black children grew up in. We have

3:57

viewed with dismay the

3:59

tragically slow pace of the Negros

4:02

progress or a full emancipation

4:05

the state of Alabama, enforced

4:08

by the demogoguery of the racist

4:10

courses in the machinery of government.

4:13

These incidents in Alabama

4:15

were caused by outsiders

4:19

who came to this state seeking

4:21

trouble. I felt that I was

4:23

not being treated right then that I

4:25

had a right to retain

4:27

the sea that I had taken as a passenger

4:30

on the bus. The federal officers are armed

4:32

with a proclamation from President Kennedy, urging

4:34

the governor to end his efforts to prevent two

4:37

Negro students from registering at the university

4:39

who are committed to a worldwide

4:42

struggle to promote and protect

4:44

the rights of all who wish to

4:46

be free. You are ordered to disperse,

4:50

go home, or go to your church. This

4:52

march will not confett. Montgomery,

5:03

Alabama, in the sixties was

5:06

the most segregated place

5:08

on the planet. That's Denny

5:10

Abbott, a former juvenile probation

5:12

officer. If you look up

5:14

Mount Meg's, one of the first things that pops

5:17

up is a book called They Had No Voice,

5:19

written by Denny. In

5:21

it, he tells the story of the eleven

5:23

years he spent working for Montgomery County

5:26

Juvenile Justice System as a probation

5:28

officer. He's a big part of

5:30

our story, as you'll find out later. When

5:33

telling us about his childhood, he

5:35

told us that his father was an out

5:37

and out racist. I heard the

5:39

in word every day from him.

5:42

In fact, I think my fathers don't remember the clan

5:44

quite frankly, and growing up,

5:47

Denny lived a very segregated life. Elementary

5:49

school, middle school, high school, in college. I

5:52

never went to school with a black person, not

5:54

once. Didn't know the name of a

5:56

black person until I started

5:58

working after I graduated from

6:00

college, so I really had

6:03

no information about the black community.

6:05

Everything was rab After

6:07

graduating from Huntingdon College in nineteen

6:09

sixty one, didn't he found himself married

6:12

and broke. He was just twenty

6:14

one and he needed a job, any

6:17

job. I found out about an opening

6:19

as a probation officer with a montgomer

6:22

Juvenile court. His title was

6:24

actually boys Counselor and interesting

6:27

and actually what I find kind of disturbing

6:30

euphemism for probation officer. I

6:32

was one of like seven or

6:34

eight probation officers there, and just

6:36

a few weeks into his job, he had

6:39

to drive a black child to Mount Meg's for

6:41

the first time. What

6:45

I saw driving up to the

6:47

institution were black

6:50

kids working in the fields,

6:54

and they were wearing army

6:56

fatigue so well cast off army surplus

6:59

pants and shirts that were much too

7:01

large. They had to roll them up. Most

7:03

of the kids were barefooted and

7:06

that's what they did from sun up to sundown,

7:08

work in the fields. And

7:10

then I got to see a couple of the buildings

7:12

and they were all and increpit. I

7:15

do remember that there was a

7:18

train for a waste, human

7:20

waste that was just outside the door and window

7:22

that was open, and just the

7:25

conditions were hardle That

7:27

was Denny's first glimpse of Mount Meg's,

7:30

a place he eventually drove hundreds of

7:32

kids to a place he would come

7:34

to call a slave camp. I'm

7:40

Josie Duffie Rice, and this

7:42

is unreformed the Story

7:44

of the Alabama Industrial School for

7:46

Negro Children, Episode

8:17

two, The Arrival. If

8:24

you were a kid in nineteen sixties Alabama

8:27

and you were accused of breaking the law in

8:29

some way, one of two things

8:31

would probably happen. If

8:33

you were white and had the money and resources, you'd

8:36

probably get to go home, no charges,

8:39

no punishment. But if

8:41

you were one of the unlucky ones, you were

8:43

sent to one of three industrial schools.

8:46

There were two near Birmingham, one for white

8:49

boys and one for white girls, but

8:51

all the black kids, boys and girls

8:53

were sent to the Alabama Industrial

8:56

School for Negro Children, otherwise

8:58

known as Mount Meg's. And

9:01

in some cases you could be sent to Mount

9:03

Megs even when it wasn't clear

9:05

that you'd broken any law. If

9:08

they ran away from home, the

9:10

juvenile court would exercise jurisdiction.

9:12

If they were incorrigible, if they didn't listen

9:14

to their parents, they could be sent to

9:16

the juvenile court. That's Barry Feld.

9:19

He's a Centennial Professor of Law Emeritus

9:22

at the University of Minnesota Law School.

9:24

In addition, the children who were abused

9:27

or neglected or dependent

9:30

through no fault of their own but because of

9:32

their family circumstances would

9:34

also end up in juvenile court.

9:37

Some of these kids were sentenced to time at

9:39

Mountmegs, but other kids,

9:41

they didn't even see a judge. They

9:44

just got sent straight there, no

9:46

formal charges, no clear

9:48

sentence. Once we get

9:51

into the judges chamber, he

9:53

said, ma'am, I'm sentence in

9:55

you a year and six

9:57

months to the Mountmegs in Dukeshire

10:00

school. Huh what why?

10:04

What? I do you know? I

10:06

didn't do anything and I just

10:09

cried and cried and cried

10:11

and cried because I didn't understand. I

10:13

don't know. That's Jenny

10:16

Knox. Jenny was born

10:18

in October in nineteen fifty two. She

10:20

adored her mother, but Leona Montgomery

10:22

had her challenges. She had

10:25

many children, some of whom Jenny had

10:27

no connection to, mostly

10:30

Jenny had a relationship with her older sisters,

10:32

Geraldine and Ernestine, who were close

10:34

in age to her. She

10:36

lived with the two of them, her mother,

10:39

her three younger half siblings, and their

10:41

father, John Montgomery Senior, the

10:44

only father that Jenny ever knew. Life

10:47

with John as their father was comfortable

10:50

and the family lived in a nice home. But

10:52

we didn't have to worry too much about

10:54

anything when she was married. But

10:56

when Jenny was a young girl, John Montgomery

10:59

was shipped off or yet another military tour

11:01

abroad, and she and her siblings

11:03

lived alone with their mother, alcoholic

11:06

who struggled to parent. Something

11:08

had to give. She started drinking and

11:11

things stought happening. I just say life

11:14

stowed happening in

11:16

the process of life happening. To her,

11:19

it was at our experience as children.

11:23

When Jenny was around twelve, she

11:26

and her younger siblings were placed in a foster

11:28

home, and then a different one,

11:31

and then yet a different one. Eventually,

11:33

Jenny's aunt, Willie G. Robinson became

11:36

their legal guardian. Being

11:38

taken in by actual family seems like it would

11:41

have been a relief, but Jenny hated

11:43

living with Aunt Willie. She made

11:45

them work in the fields picking peas and cotton.

11:48

She isolated them from family and friends.

11:51

She controlled every aspect of their

11:53

lives. I really didn't want to

11:55

stay with their you know, because I didn't.

11:57

I didn't feel like I was being treated right. As

12:00

a matter of fact, I didn't feel like any of us was treated

12:02

right. So Jenny ran away.

12:05

She left Aunt Willie's house with a single goal

12:08

in mind. I just wanted

12:10

to be with my mom. Nothing else really

12:12

mattered to me like being with my mom.

12:14

There was nobody greater, you

12:16

know, a better knew how to take care

12:19

of me and love me like my mom. Jenny

12:21

ended up staying with another aunt, who told

12:23

Jenny she was welcome as long as she did her choices

12:26

and went to school. The

12:29

arrangement was working out well until

12:31

one day a school staff member

12:33

came to Jenny's class and summoned her

12:35

to the principal's office. Jenny

12:38

was devastated when she saw who was waiting

12:40

for her. She was there, Oh

12:43

my god, it was Aunt Willie.

12:48

Even though Jenny was consistently attending

12:50

school, and even though she was much happier

12:52

staying with her other aunt, the judge ruled

12:55

that Jenny running away from her appointed guardian,

12:57

Aunt Willie, was an offense punishable

13:00

by time served at Mount Meg's.

13:03

I wasn't out drinking, getting drunk,

13:05

being loose in the streets or whatever.

13:08

I had class, not even

13:10

think about no boyfriend and all that different

13:12

kind of stuff. But I didn't

13:14

understand it's still about this meat. So

13:18

when Jenny was around thirteen, she

13:20

was sentenced to eighteen months at Mount

13:22

Meg's. If you're

13:24

wondering why these kids didn't push back or

13:27

appeal their sentences, the answer

13:29

is that they couldn't not back then.

13:31

At least they weren't entitled

13:33

to lawyers. Children didn't

13:35

really have any legal rights at all. Until

13:39

just fifty five years ago, American

13:42

kids were being carted off to juvenile attention

13:44

without first being afforded any procedural

13:47

rights. Rights that for

13:49

kids like Jenny Knox could have made

13:51

a huge difference. And

13:54

I have a lawyer. I don't

13:56

know anything about the lawyer. I

13:58

don't know I needed one. I

14:00

was awarded with State Department

14:03

Children's Services had

14:06

taken us from my mom several times.

14:09

My mom was still having children. Mary

14:13

Stevens, who met in her garden an episode

14:15

one, has a similar story to

14:17

Jenny. My mom was needing

14:20

me to work help

14:22

pick continent stuff for her

14:25

to feed the children. I

14:27

had to do that, so I

14:29

was missing so many days to school

14:32

and stuff and having to work that

14:35

it just got to wear. I

14:38

didn't want to go to school anymore because

14:40

I was so far behind and everything.

14:42

You know, I just didn't want to go.

14:45

Eventually, not going to school led

14:48

to serious consequences. We

14:50

moved to Scottsboro, Alabama,

14:52

where I had skipped school one day

14:55

and I got caught why shrotzy

14:59

I went to June. Somehow

15:01

they decided that I

15:03

was going to go to Montgomery,

15:06

and I didn't know where

15:08

I was going at the time. In fact,

15:11

Mary thought this moved to Montgomery might be

15:13

good news. She thought she might

15:15

be getting a family again. I thought

15:17

I was going to be adopted because one of my brothers

15:20

was adopted. In nineteen sixty seven,

15:23

at age thirteen, Mary was

15:25

sent to Mount Meg's for truancy. This

15:31

is part of the story that haunts me. Like

15:34

Jenny and Lonnie, all Mary

15:36

really wanted was her mother, and

15:39

instead she was functionally sent to a

15:41

juvenile prison, a

15:43

place where love and care were absent.

15:47

I believe, Oh,

15:52

I believe.

16:10

Across Alabama, Mount Megs

16:12

was used as a boogeyman, essentially

16:15

to scare kids into good behavior. They

16:17

say, you keep being bad, You're

16:20

going to Mount Megs. That's Johnny

16:22

Bodley, who you met in episode one. He's

16:25

the professional musician who lives in Selma.

16:28

Growing up, Johnny heard stories about Mount

16:30

Meg's firsthand from his sister, who

16:32

also went there, but her

16:34

horror stories about the place weren't

16:37

enough to keep Johnny out of there himself. Back

16:40

then, when the local paper mentioned Mount

16:42

Meg's, it was always because

16:44

of a kid who was sent there after committing a

16:47

more serious crime. Lots

16:49

of stories about theft, and even some

16:51

kids accused of attempted rape or assault.

16:55

The paper only ever mentioned those small

16:57

minority of kids. But

17:00

like Lonnie, Mary and Jenny, there

17:02

were many more kids who were sent to Mount Meg's

17:04

for tiny in fractions or

17:07

really for being poor and black. But

17:10

of the four of them, Johnny might be

17:12

the closest to what the system would consider

17:14

a quote unquote delinquent today.

17:17

He was caught by the police in nineteen

17:19

sixty seven. I ain't sitting in the

17:22

city jail for three months and

17:25

they shift me to Mount Megs. On July twenty

17:27

second, fifteen birthday,

17:30

Johnny, Lonnie, Mary and Jenny and

17:32

everyone who came to Mount Megs got

17:34

there the same way, driving

17:37

down a long road that led to the school.

17:40

Everyone we talked to you remembered that drive and

17:43

how they had no idea what awaited

17:46

them. Mount

17:57

Mags is about twenty miles east of Montgomery

17:59

and two hours south of Birmingham. In

18:02

the nineteen sixties, the kids were driven

18:04

there by a juven no probation officer, someone

18:07

like Denny, and often they

18:09

were handcuffed in the back of the car. Lonnie,

18:12

who came from Birmingham, probably

18:14

took the newly constructed State Highway sixty

18:17

five, which follows the Coosa

18:19

River. On the edge

18:21

of the highway, there were farmhouses and fields

18:24

rolling by. Depending

18:26

on where they were coming from, it could take hours

18:28

to get there, heading away

18:30

from the life they knew, with no

18:32

idea what awaited them. But

18:36

eventually they'd

18:39

reached the road to Mount Meg's. It

18:45

was scary just to go down that

18:47

roll, Dan, You

18:50

ride slowly down this two

18:53

lines street, pale trees

18:56

on both sides. You're riding

18:58

slowly. None of us know where

19:01

where we was going the gate.

19:03

First of all, taking that long ride

19:07

two mountain mags. You're nervous,

19:09

you don't know what to expect, your mind

19:12

running crazy or whatever. You

19:14

see this big old white house which

19:16

is the girl's home. This big

19:19

building, a big long

19:21

front ports. It was a pretty building, but it

19:23

look kind of like a plantation

19:27

house. And then when

19:29

you get on up to the building, you

19:32

see young ladies out in

19:34

the field, open field,

19:38

and they was literally bent over,

19:41

you know, with their hands picking,

19:44

pulling grass. And then let

19:46

me know that this is a horrible vision. The

19:49

boys side was further

19:52

on down the road from

19:55

us. We go through this gate

19:58

where the gatekeeper were vehicle

20:01

stopped. He gives

20:04

him man and signing

20:06

man. Then we moved

20:09

slowly on down that road. Then

20:12

you start seeing all

20:14

of these cottages, rick

20:18

buildings with bars and

20:20

things on

20:22

the windows, just awful

20:25

looking buildings, block up buildings

20:27

called to see Cottie J cottage D. I've

20:30

seen all these boys. It's out

20:32

on the yard just walking

20:34

around, just just doing nothing. You know. All

20:36

of them looked deadly, all of them looked mean.

20:39

I remember the rock pile. It's

20:42

off. I mean, it's like in this big, this

20:44

big yard, and all of this dirt and

20:47

all these big, these big square

20:49

rocks painted white. The

20:51

pile of white rocks looked ominous,

20:54

a dramatic but kind of curious

20:57

centerpiece on the flat pastoral

20:59

landscape that Lonnie and Johnny came to

21:01

understand all too well. When

21:04

Lonnie arrived, the hard pulled up to

21:06

this old big house on the campus,

21:09

and out came the superintendent, Elias

21:12

Brown Holloway, otherwise

21:14

known as EB. Mister

21:17

Holloway came out, and

21:19

he was huge and big, and

21:22

he would stand up and

21:25

look at all of us, and

21:27

then from that he

21:29

tells us about the place and

21:32

tells us that we should

21:35

never try to run away. There

21:37

is no escaped in now. Please,

21:44

Lonnie still shutters at the memory of Holloway.

21:47

You may remember that just days before this, Lonnie

21:49

and some other boys had tried to escape from Birmingham

21:52

Jail. But the minute he

21:54

saw Holloway, he knew that escaping

21:56

from this place would be much harder.

22:02

After arriving boys were given standard

22:04

issue military fatigues. This

22:07

was the only clothing that they had. It's

22:09

the same thing that Denny saw the kids wearing

22:12

when he showed up to Mount Meg's for the first

22:14

time. You take all value

22:16

surveying cloth, you turn

22:18

now me in, you turn in

22:20

any properties or ended tying your head in

22:23

your pockets. The campus had several

22:25

buildings, a chapel, a barn,

22:27

a cannery, a nurse's station

22:29

that was almost always empty, in

22:31

a schoolroom that a lot of kids never

22:34

saw the inside of. The

22:36

boys slept in buildings called cottages.

22:40

Johnny was at first assigned a cottage d,

22:42

a residence known for being unlocked down twenty

22:45

four hours a day. The

22:47

cottages were overseen by counselors, and

22:50

during Lonnie's time at Mount Meg's he remembers

22:52

one of the councilors supervising his cottage

22:54

had been convicted of serious violent

22:56

crimes, and

22:59

the cottages were packed full of kids.

23:02

In some years, three kids slept

23:04

on one cot The barely stuffed

23:06

mattresses reeked of urine. The

23:09

conditions and facilities were disgusting

23:11

to the point of hazardous. Mount

23:14

Meg's was virtually unlivable. There

23:17

was an open sewer full of fieces

23:19

and trash that became a cesspool

23:22

for mosquitos. The

23:24

outhouse was just a long board with multiple

23:27

holes cut out of it. In

23:29

the buildings, dilapidated and

23:31

poorly constructed, were extreme

23:34

fire hazards. For

23:36

at least one stretch of time, there was

23:39

no clean water at the facility at all.

23:42

The kids never had enough to eat, and

23:45

what they had was barely edible. After

23:48

all, the kitchen was full of roaches and other

23:51

vermin, but they

23:53

were so hungry they'd eat anything. In

23:56

one story, when a kid vomited

23:58

all over his food, another boy

24:00

was so hungry that he ate it. One

24:03

survivor said he often saw boys

24:05

pick corn out of kalmaneure to eat.

24:09

The kids were assigned jobs, manual

24:12

labor that they had to do to maintain them Mount

24:14

Meg's campus. There were

24:16

chores like working in the kitchen or milking

24:18

the thirty five cows, but

24:20

all of them were expected to work

24:23

in the fields. Mount

24:25

Meg's was surrounded by miles of farmland.

24:28

There were fifteen hundred acres. They

24:30

were filled with fruit trees, row

24:32

upon row of vegetables, but

24:35

mostly cotton. It

24:37

looked at dislike slavery. Can I

24:41

mean? They would land us up in the morning and

24:43

all the boys would have to hold it holes up in the

24:46

air, and when we get ready to go to something

24:48

that we would sea it would say chopped down. All of

24:50

these boys would madge to a

24:52

field about fast six seven

24:54

miles away to work. Sometime.

24:57

They ran to the field every

24:59

day from dawn until dusk. There

25:02

they were black children out

25:05

in the alle Obama fields picking cotton.

25:14

These kids were being worked to the absolute

25:17

bone. These

25:20

were kids, usually from cities like Birmingham

25:22

or Montgomery. They were told this

25:25

was training, but training for what, and

25:28

even for the kids that did have farming experience,

25:31

was close to impossible to pick that much

25:33

cotton every single day. When

25:35

I first got day, I didn't know nothing about

25:37

picking cotton. I'll just pull

25:39

the whole stalcon everything.

25:44

After filling up large sacks with cotton,

25:47

a truck would drive by with a way station,

25:50

making sure that the kids had met their quotas.

25:54

One time, Lonnie and some other boys tried

25:56

to outsmart the scale by adding stones

25:58

to the bottom of the bag. It was stupid

26:01

for us to do that.

26:03

That led to serious punishment, punishment

26:06

that the kids at Mount Meg's were all too familiar

26:09

with. If

26:12

you didn't pick a hundred pounds or caught in today, I

26:14

don't care how old you would, they would beat you. They

26:17

would punish you if you didn't

26:19

pick a certain amount of watermelons, if

26:21

you didn't pick a certain amount of cucumbers. In Mount

26:24

Maigs, they would punish you. If you was

26:26

running to the field and you got sick, they would

26:28

punish you for that, quote

26:31

unquote. Discipline at Mount Meg's was

26:33

relentless, and you could get

26:36

punished for almost nothing, or

26:38

for things completely out of your control, like

26:41

this one time that Johnny and some other boys

26:44

were riding in the front seat of a truck after

26:46

the fields when the

26:48

driver of the car suddenly slammed on the brakes.

26:51

The boys were thrown forward and the windshield

26:53

was shattered, and mister Glover took each

26:56

boy down out of the trunk and beat

26:58

him right there, as if it was our

27:00

fault. Mister Glover was

27:02

the man who oversaw the boys work,

27:05

watch their every move in the fields. Mister

27:08

Glove was an older man. Whatever

27:10

part of the military that he was in had

27:12

lamed him because he

27:14

mostly sit down everywhere he went.

27:17

Despite his disability, mister Glover

27:19

had a reputation for beating kids with a

27:21

particular intensity. John

27:23

Henry, but that's the name of his stick, and

27:26

John Henry the oak stick isn't mister Glover's

27:28

only signature. Mister Glover usually

27:31

sit in his chair and beat you, and you

27:33

dan hire on the ground. He would beat you while he's sitting

27:35

in his chair. For the boys who

27:37

failed to complete all their cotton picking on his watch,

27:40

mister Glover has an especially disturbing

27:42

punishment. He would take his oak

27:44

stick and

27:47

drill a hole in the ground. He

27:50

would say, you see that hole in the ground, boy,

27:52

and you would have to say, yes, I'm mister Glover. He

27:55

was here. Put you your private

27:57

part in it. Put your dick in the

28:00

hole, not literally pull

28:02

yourself out of the clothes. What deathway

28:04

you laid on top for that whole and

28:07

he began to whoop you. Every

28:09

time he whoop you, he hits

28:11

you, and then here a grunt

28:14

with the stick. And Danny'll

28:16

keep on hitting you with the stick each time, and

28:19

he grunt, and your fast

28:21

swell up and pretty soon

28:23

you walking with a limp. That's just how

28:25

bad Mountmaids were. There

28:29

were a number of other adults who ran the facility

28:32

in the nineteen sixties. Mister Reddy

28:34

was another infamous punisher mister

28:37

Reddy. He was a shell

28:39

shocked person. Man.

28:43

He was wow we call him

28:45

wild ch out like God

28:48

damn it. He would cross all the time. If

28:51

he caught you doing something, God

28:53

damn it, you want to be a fucking

28:55

bullet, don't you here?

28:58

A run over? And just stopped beating on you and

29:01

beat on you and beat on you and beat on you

29:04

until he felt that he was satisfied.

29:07

But it wasn't just the staff that the boys

29:09

had to look out for. In

29:11

an essay about his experience at Mount Meg's,

29:13

Johnny wrote that on the first night there, he

29:15

stayed awake until morning for fear

29:18

of being sexually assaulted. And

29:20

not just by the staff, but by

29:22

the other boys. You know, all

29:24

of them look deadly, all of them trying to put

29:26

fearing you. For Johnny, it's

29:29

impossible to talk about Mount Meg's without

29:31

touching upon the rampant sexual abuse

29:34

that openly took place. I mean,

29:36

boys got raped all the time in Mount

29:38

Megs, and if a boy reported

29:40

to a counselor that they'd been assaulted, nothing

29:43

happened. So for blood of

29:46

them, did they got raped? They would do

29:48

nothing a bad day. Boys

29:50

would often stick together in groups based on

29:52

where they were from. All the Birmingham

29:54

Boys together Montgomery Boys. When

29:57

Johnny was there, there were just a couple other boys

29:59

from Selma, and Johnny quickly

30:02

learned that even among those groups there were

30:04

divisions. There were guys

30:07

known as scrubs and

30:09

there were guys known as ikes. Ikes

30:11

were tough. Scrubs were sort

30:13

of like the suckers. Many of the Ikes

30:15

become charge boys, meaning it

30:18

becomes their job to keep their peers

30:20

in line. But

30:22

even though they're all the same age, the charge

30:24

boys have a lot of power over the others.

30:26

All they had to say that you left

30:29

from Cotton when your rope, and

30:31

they would take you up to the overseer of mister Glover.

30:34

The other thing about Mount Mags is that it was

30:36

a school without any schooling. None

30:39

of the boys can recount getting a real education

30:42

there or taking any real classes.

30:45

It was a labor farm basically. The

30:49

girls they seem to have some instruction,

30:52

but not much. Miss

30:54

Alexander was our weaken night

30:57

supervisor. I

31:00

think Harris was fun was

31:03

I was so in teacher Miss

31:06

Wright for cosmetology.

31:08

Mister Dubos was over the feet. That

31:10

was Jenny. You can

31:13

hear just how worked up she is. Even when

31:15

she's just talking about who was on staff.

31:18

It's still difficult for her to talk about

31:20

Mount Meg's. As she recalled

31:23

her experience there, she cried and cried.

31:26

When Jenny first arrived, she was taken to the

31:28

dining hall, everybody together around

31:31

the wall that you introduced me to

31:34

the stabs in the ladies

31:36

and

31:38

and make you undressed in front

31:40

of everybody. The

31:42

staff forced the new girls to bend over

31:45

naked and spread their legs for inspection.

31:48

They said it was for safety, but the girls

31:51

suspected the real reason was humiliation, to

31:54

make sure that they knew their place. It

31:56

affects your privacy, it

32:00

the grady. Nothing like

32:02

this had ever happened to Jenny before, and

32:06

even now, sixty years later, it

32:08

still haunts her. And

32:10

that was just day one. It

32:13

was only the beginning. On

32:16

the girl's side. They all supped in one dormitory,

32:19

that big white building that looked like a plantation

32:21

house. You can't talk about Mount Meg's

32:23

in the nineteen sixties without talking

32:25

about Fanny B. Matthews,

32:28

the girl's matron. When

32:31

Mary first arrived at Mount Meg's, though she

32:34

thought she was safe because I was

32:36

relieved, because everybody

32:39

was my complation, and

32:43

you know that Patty was going to be okay.

32:46

Everyone who worked or was locked up

32:48

at Mount Meg's was black. When

32:51

she first arrived. This provided a false sense

32:53

of security to Mary, and she thought

32:55

she'd been brought to Mount Meg's to be adopted.

32:58

And when we got there in the driveway and

33:01

went in, I met my fan to

33:03

b Matthews, and she

33:05

greeted me and I asked, Gressa,

33:07

are you gonna adopt me? I

33:10

did, and

33:13

I was there to be get dapped. I didn't know, but

33:15

Fanny Matthews was no mother to

33:18

those girls. Missus

33:20

Matthews was a tall, middle aged black

33:23

woman who wore a wavy cropped salt and

33:25

pepper wig. She was the mastermind

33:27

of the complex system of psychological

33:30

and physical punishments she and her

33:32

staff dolled out to the girls.

33:35

She had a very strong voice, very

33:38

strong voice. She didn't

33:40

have to raise this. She was loud

33:42

her demeanor, voice and

33:45

facial expressions, and

33:47

her walk was fierce. And

33:50

she always carried a thick, great

33:53

wooden paddle in her hand, and

33:56

she would carry that paddle in a poton

33:58

in a purse on her shoulder.

34:02

The paddle was a constant threat and

34:04

reminder that Fanny Mathews would not hesitate

34:06

to beat any student. And

34:09

I've gotten in hitting in the head by miss Matthews

34:11

several times with these with this baton.

34:15

Been over and

34:17

give her a real hump in

34:19

your back, touch your toes

34:22

and she comes down on your back as

34:24

hard as she can, but every

34:27

ounce of strength in her. And

34:29

when you do, it feels like you

34:32

just went through a shop treatment because

34:34

it hurts that bad. And I feel like you're going

34:36

through the floor when she hits you like

34:39

that. Danny Matthews

34:41

was relentless. If she heard

34:44

any girls making noise at night, she'd

34:46

line up everyone in the hallway, going

34:48

down the line and hitting girls in the head

34:50

with that baton. As

34:53

a punishment, Jenny had to manually dry

34:55

clothes and sheets, meaning she had to stand

34:57

up all night and shake them dry.

35:01

Mostly, Mount Meg's was a torture sight,

35:04

a place where children just endured unbelievable

35:07

abuse, but there

35:09

were some good moments, some

35:12

moments when the kids could feel like they were actual

35:14

children and not inmates. There

35:18

were a couple of extracurricular activities that

35:20

Jenny got involved in that did become

35:22

a part of the choir out there.

35:25

I became a cheerleader. While

35:28

I was out there, she even met

35:30

a boy nicknamed Chick.

35:34

Chick was fifteen years old when he and Jenny

35:36

met at Mount Meg's. He

35:38

was serving time down the road on the boy's side,

35:41

and on the rare occasion that it was his job to

35:43

drive the tractor near the fields where the girls

35:45

lived, he would get a chance to see them.

35:48

I think Chick used to always come to the

35:51

girls home and you

35:53

know, drive attractors, and

35:56

you know, I guess he got

35:58

turned on by seeing me and

36:02

wanted to know who I word. Their

36:05

court ship was sweet, innocent.

36:08

We just slipped letters to one another,

36:10

and if we was caught slipping letters to each

36:12

other, we would get in trouble. But

36:15

these few opportunities to be normal American

36:17

teenagers were brief. There

36:20

were some good things that went on.

36:22

They didn't last long, but there were some good things

36:25

that I was in the choir, you

36:27

know, I was on the football team, was

36:29

a kitchen boy, worked in the kitchen, and all

36:32

of those things were privileged positions.

36:36

No, but as I said,

36:38

it was David brutal and

36:40

if you made it out of laugh, he was blessed. You

36:44

may be wondering how anyone got out of

36:46

Mount Meg's alive, and

36:48

the truth is that many didn't, or

36:51

at least that's the consensus. We

36:53

don't have records that tell us just how many

36:56

kids died because of abuse or

36:58

starvation or being worked to death.

37:02

But there were kids who disappeared. And

37:05

there are memories of children who were beaten

37:07

within an inch of their life and then never

37:09

seen again. And they have him a

37:11

couple of times. We

37:14

know that they mout they had to die, they

37:16

ain't. No amulans came down through them.

37:20

Some even have memories of a makeshift graveyard.

37:22

When you're a rabbit Mount Me, you'll see these graves

37:26

over to the side and you don't know

37:28

what's up. But a lot of boys didn't even

37:30

make it out of Mount Me and

37:32

they said that was not such a graveyard.

37:35

But I think that was the cover of because

37:39

that mouth they have been. And

37:42

of course all of this, the

37:45

beatings, the abuse, the sexual

37:47

assault, the cotton quotas, the

37:49

strip search, the starvation, the

37:51

deaths, the graveyard, the

37:54

infinite never ending punishments were

37:57

condoned, if not outright

38:00

encouraged by the school's superintendent,

38:02

Eb Holloway.

38:17

You can't talk about Mount max in the nineteen

38:19

sixties without talking about Eb Holloway.

38:22

For eighteen years he ran the institution,

38:25

and of all the adults who were directly

38:27

responsible for what those children endured

38:30

as a superintendent, Holloway

38:32

was arguably the most to blame. He

38:34

was staying in the Beith House and Mount Meigs,

38:38

so he was treated like a king. You

38:41

know, I had the Gills come

38:43

down and do all of the housework

38:45

and stuff like that. It

38:48

was he was almost like the master of

38:51

the plantation. There's

38:55

one specific and chilling detail that

38:58

stays with Johnny about Holloway even now.

39:00

You know he larned everybody else, and

39:04

he always smiled. He'll

39:07

be being you to death if he be

39:09

smad. I

39:14

keep thinking about the adults who are running

39:16

the school back then, mister Glover,

39:18

mister Reddy, Fannie Matthews, and especially

39:21

Evie Holloway. Who

39:23

were they and why did they treat these kids,

39:26

these children who were in their care so

39:28

violently. The

39:30

truth is we don't know too much about what was going

39:32

on internally at Mount Meg's back then. We

39:36

search state archives and people's personal

39:38

documents. We sent in public records

39:40

requests, but we haven't

39:42

found or received any personnel records.

39:46

But what we do know is that no one really

39:49

seemed to be penalized for what was going on.

39:53

The Department of Social Welfare and the Department

39:55

of Pensions in Alabama, they did

39:57

these annual reports every

39:59

year. They came to the school and they examined

40:01

the grounds and they typed up these perfunctory

40:04

reports that are based basically the same every

40:06

year, and they just don't

40:08

mention the violence that these kids were enduring

40:12

and the couple of times that it is like alluded

40:14

to. It's framed as fair

40:17

punishment. It's framed as reasonable. And

40:21

it wasn't just that Holloway faced no

40:23

backlash. It was also that he was celebrated.

40:26

He was praised across the state. In

40:29

fact, if you judged Holloway based on what

40:31

was written about him in the newspapers, you would

40:34

honestly think this guy was a hero, a

40:36

champion for kids, finding tooth and nail

40:39

to secure adequate resources and funding

40:41

for them from the state of Alabama.

40:43

And this is an important thing to keep in mind here

40:46

too, because it wasn't just the abuse that

40:48

was the problem. Some of

40:50

Mount Mex's problems couldn't have been solved

40:52

even if they had had the best staff in the world. It

40:55

was a chronically underfunded school. It

40:58

won't be surprising to know that the white industrial

41:00

schools in Alabama had far higher

41:02

budgets while housing fewer kids and

41:06

out Mount Megs. You know, there was this double standard.

41:08

A judge in the nineteen fifties said that he did

41:10

not want to approve more money for Mount Megs

41:13

because they could just sell the crops they grew to fund themselves.

41:16

At the white schools, no one was telling them to make

41:18

their own money off of crop yield. But

41:21

at Mount Megs, the state just kind

41:23

of expected the black people to make it work.

41:28

Here's the other thing about Ebe Holloway. He

41:30

was technically never qualified to run Mount

41:32

Megs. He had no real background

41:34

as an educator, had never worked

41:37

at a school like this, So

41:39

why did the state of Alabama hire him.

41:43

Holloway was born in nineteen oh six in

41:45

South Carolina. He moved to

41:47

Alabama to attend the Tuskegee Institute

41:50

founded by Booker T. Washington, an

41:52

institution that becomes an important part of our

41:54

story. We'll get to that next episode.

41:58

Holloway went into agriculture, not education,

42:01

but he started gunning for the job at Mount Megs

42:03

in nineteen forty four, before

42:05

the previous superintendent, JR. Wingfield

42:08

had even retired. Wingfield

42:11

spent twenty seven years on the job and

42:13

was a prominent black figure in the community,

42:16

considered part of the upper echelon of black

42:18

society. Starting

42:21

before Wingfield even retired, Holloway

42:23

wrote letters to the governor asking for the job,

42:26

and then the governor quickly received a flurry

42:29

of other letters from Alabamians recommending

42:31

Holloway for the position, including

42:34

from white men, some of whom Holloway

42:36

barely knew. It became

42:38

clear that he was asking anyone he could

42:40

to recommend him, despite not being

42:43

qualified for the role. But

42:45

even with all those recommendations, Holloway

42:48

didn't get the job. The

42:50

governor appointed as superintendent another

42:52

black man with more experience, named Amos

42:55

Parker. Holloway instead

42:57

was hired to oversee the agriculture

43:00

at Mount Meg's, but

43:02

Holloway didn't give up. He still wanted

43:05

to be superintendent and seemed

43:07

willing to sabotage Parker in

43:09

order to get the job in

43:13

nineteen fifty one. Five years later,

43:16

the governor got another letter about Mount Megs,

43:18

this time from a white county judge. The

43:21

judge asked that Amos Parker be replaced

43:24

as superintendent because of

43:26

the hotbed of Negro political activity

43:28

in Montgomery. The

43:30

judge insisted in his letter that Parker

43:33

belonged to the radical element

43:35

that is causing much trouble through agitation,

43:38

unrest, and scheming. The

43:41

judge recommended Holloway as Parker's replacement

43:44

because, in the judge's own writing, Mount

43:47

Megs is in great need of some white oversight,

43:50

and Holloway seems to be a good Negro. He

43:53

is educated and doesn't dabble in

43:55

political activities. The

43:58

governor wrote back and said that the judge

44:00

had bad information that Parker didn't

44:02

have radical tendencies, and

44:05

it was true that as far as we know, Parker wasn't

44:07

particularly radical, but

44:09

he was more willing to speak out about what

44:11

Mount Meg's needed. In

44:13

March of nineteen fifty one, he went to the state

44:16

legislature and he told them that the conditions

44:18

at the school were deplorable. He

44:20

said the kids were using fertilizer sacks,

44:22

for towels, and that many of them didn't

44:24

even have shoes. It's

44:27

not radical to say that kids should have shoes to

44:29

wear, but it was bold. It

44:31

made the news, and

44:34

eventually the governor decided that Parker was

44:36

more trouble than he was worth. In

44:39

nineteen fifty two, it became official.

44:42

The governor fired Parker and made eb

44:44

Holloway the new superintendent of Mount

44:46

Meg's. Every

44:49

superintendent up until and including

44:52

Holloway was black. In fact,

44:54

Mount Megs was operated exclusively by

44:56

black people for a

44:58

long time. That was mandated by law. Black

45:01

children were not allowed to be taught by white

45:03

teachers, but even

45:05

after the law changed, the pattern continued.

45:09

Still, state officials were specific

45:12

about what kind of black people they wanted

45:14

in the job. It seemed the State

45:16

of Alabama preferred staff members

45:18

who were ambivalent to the black quote

45:21

unquote cause timpt

45:25

Timpta ride, timpte,

45:27

cities want to check lime light, oh

45:30

bo, and little minds oh

45:34

bo a little line. By

45:38

the time Denny Abbott started working as a juvenile

45:41

probation officer in nineteen sixty one, it

45:43

was clear that Holloway's allegiance wasn't to the kids,

45:46

but to the white board members. He

45:48

would do whatever the white authorities

45:51

are, those board of trustees told

45:53

him to do. They raised some pigs

45:56

and other chickens and things like that at

45:58

Mountain Mason. So when they slaughtered them for

46:00

the meat, guess what happened.

46:03

The white trustees pulled up in their brand

46:05

new cars and all of

46:07

the meat was put into the trunks of their cars

46:09

and they left and the kids had

46:11

nothing. You had

46:13

a battle and shake

46:16

balls put a captain, And

46:19

Denny says that despite Mountain Magsi's charter

46:22

that saved three seats on the board for black

46:24

people, all the trustees

46:26

in the nineteen sixties were white, safe

46:28

for one Holloway, and

46:31

many of the board members had land surrounding

46:33

Mountain Megs. So when it came time

46:35

to get their crops harvested, guess who did

46:37

the work. They would pick up the phone

46:39

and call the superintendent, and the sup the

46:42

kids over there in their truck. Did they get any

46:45

compensation for that? No, all

46:47

I got was beatings when they didn't

46:50

do enough work or the overseers

46:52

didn't think they picked enough cotton, and

46:55

they were physically beaten every day in the

46:57

field. So I don't know

46:59

how much more you could

47:01

describe a slave camp than that tell

47:04

them to read in chemn tay right the

47:07

cheven two ties want to check line right

47:09

before. In

47:13

some ways nineteen sixties, Mount Megs was like an

47:15

early prototype of the for profit prison,

47:18

but it certainly wasn't designed that way.

47:21

When a black woman and student of Booker

47:23

T. Washington named Cornelia Bowen founded

47:26

Mount Megs in nineteen oh eight, she

47:28

envisioned a safe haven for black kids

47:30

who weren't being served by the state of Alabama.

47:34

She believed in reform through industrial

47:36

education, and often

47:38

she was successful, and

47:41

without her, America might not have had one

47:43

of its most legendary black athletes,

47:46

baseball player Satchel Page. That's

47:49

next time, Unreformed.

47:54

Unreformed The Story of the Alabama Industrial

47:57

School for Negro Children is a production

47:59

of School of Humans in iHeartMedia. This

48:01

episode was written by me Josie Duffie, Rice

48:03

and Taylor von Laslie. Script

48:05

supervisors Florence Burrow Adams, and our producer

48:07

is Gabbie Watts, who had additional writing

48:10

and production support from Sherry Scott. Executive

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producers are Virginia Prescott, Elsie Crowley

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Brandon Barr, Matt Arnette and me. Sound

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design and mix is by Jesse Niswanger. Music

48:19

is by Ben Soli. Additional recordings

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are courtesy of the Alabama Center for Traditional

48:23

Culture. The song's featured in this episode

48:25

of From Vire Hall, Mary lou Bendoff with seb

48:28

Petway and Richard Amerson. Special

48:31

things to the Alabama Department of Archives and History,

48:33

Michael Harriet, Floyd Hall, Kevin Nutt, Van

48:35

Newkirk, and all of the survivors of Mountmeg's

48:37

willing to share their stories. If

48:40

you are someone you know attendant Mount Megs and would like to be

48:42

in contact, please email Mountmegs Podcast

48:44

at gmail dot com. That's Mt

48:47

m e i g S Podcast at

48:49

gmail dot com. School

49:07

of Humans