0:08

School of Humans. So

0:15

remember back in episode one, at the

0:18

beginning of this series, I

0:20

talked about driving to Mount Meg's last July,

0:22

about trying to get in the front gate, more

0:25

than fifty years after Jenny, Johnny,

0:28

Lonnie, Mary, Johnny Mack,

0:30

and Jesse James Andrews had left. This

0:34

was always a project about Mount Meg's back

0:36

then rather than now. But

0:38

the more I looked into the institution's history,

0:41

the more I wanted to know what it was like today,

0:44

had it improved or had the lawsuit

0:47

been a false positive a promise

0:49

that never manifested. For more

0:51

than a year, we tried over and over

0:54

to get access to Mount Meg's, not

0:56

only for reporting purposes, but

0:59

because Johnny, Mary, Jenny,

1:01

and Lonnie all expressed interest

1:03

in seeing what it was like now. We

1:06

called, emailed, asked

1:08

anyone who we thought might be able to get us in,

1:11

but they denied us, giving us various

1:14

excuses. They were understaffed,

1:16

there were COVID restrictions, it was too close

1:18

to the holidays. They even

1:21

turned down Denny, a former law enforcement

1:23

officer. We

1:25

really don't ever give tours to begin with, a

1:27

staff person at the Department of Youth Services

1:29

wrote instead, she just

1:31

sent us some newsletters and a YouTube link

1:33

to a video, writing that maybe

1:36

these would, as she said, provide

1:38

them some hope that things have changed and continue

1:40

to change for the better. So

1:44

instead, I just decided to show up

1:46

to see as much of the place as I could. Hi,

1:50

I've been working on a project about

1:52

the Mount Megs and the sixties, and I was just

1:54

hoping I could see the campus. Is

1:56

there a way we could just drive around it? Since

2:01

the series started airing, we've finally

2:03

gotten a more positive response to our request

2:05

to visit from the administrators at Mount Meg's.

2:08

In mid February, an official from

2:11

the Alabama Department of Youth Services

2:13

responded to an email sent from a member

2:15

of Lonnie's team. The officials

2:17

said they were open to discussing

2:19

a visit from former residence in the near

2:22

future, but added

2:24

that they would like to listen to the

2:26

entire series before scheduling

2:28

a specific time. In

2:31

this episode, the last of the

2:33

series, we look at where Lonnie,

2:36

Mary, Johnny, Jenny, and Denny

2:38

are fifty years after leaving

2:40

Mount Megs. We also look

2:42

at how juvenile justice in America has

2:44

evolved and how other juvenile

2:46

reform schools that mistreated their students

2:49

have atoned for their wrongs. And

2:51

lastly, we get a glimpse into the current

2:53

state of Mount Meg's. Has it changed

2:56

or is it the same place it was more than fifty

2:59

years ago. The

3:01

feedback that I get from my clients while

3:04

at Mount Meg's is, I

3:06

think exactly what one would expect

3:09

it to be. The worst case scenario

3:11

would be death, and Mount Meg's

3:13

would be immediately under

3:15

that. I'm

3:20

Josie Duffie Rice. This

3:22

is Unreformed the Story

3:24

of the Alabama Industrial School for Negro

3:27

Children, Episode

3:44

eight, Searching for Justice.

3:50

Over the past year, I've

3:52

thought more and more about what justice would

3:54

look like here. What would

3:57

justice look like for Lonnie, Mary,

3:59

Jenny and Johnny. What would

4:01

it look like for all the students of Mount Meg's,

4:04

including the ones they today?

4:06

What would it look like for Jesse, James Andrews

4:09

or Johnny mac young or the people

4:12

that they hurt? Is

4:15

justice even possible? One

4:17

of the things that blew my mind is

4:19

the fact that none of the survivors we spoke

4:21

to even knew about the nineteen sixty

4:23

nine lawsuit until decades later.

4:27

They'd been victimized by this institution,

4:30

but once they were gone, they were gone. There

4:33

was no follow up, no accounting,

4:36

no remorse from the state of Alabama.

4:39

And it goes without saying that they didn't

4:41

get any relief. They

4:44

didn't get settlement money or anything. They

4:46

didn't even get an apology.

4:49

They all left Mount Megs and were

4:51

tossed out to fend for themselves, and

4:54

they're still paying for it. Half

4:56

a century later. In

4:59

twenty twelve, Mary

5:01

was at her home in Chattanooga, sitting

5:03

across from an investigator from N's

5:05

Child Protective Services. Her

5:08

own children had grown up and she wanted

5:10

to become a foster parent. She

5:12

was nervous because there was something standing in

5:14

her way, her criminal record,

5:17

specifically the year and a half she had spent

5:19

at Mount Meg's. It

5:22

turned out that it was not going to be an issue.

5:25

Instead, this meeting connected Mary

5:27

was someone she hadn't seen since she was a child.

5:30

The investigator for Department

5:32

Children's Services did my investigation

5:35

to be in the foster parenty

5:37

system, and I told her about

5:40

my state at Alabam in Destri School.

5:42

She said, you know there's a book

5:44

out about the school.

5:47

I said, what that

5:49

book was? They had no voice By whistleblower

5:51

Denny Abbott and his co author Douglas

5:54

Collegian. I hadn't forgotten

5:56

about Danny, you know. At the

5:59

end of the meeting at Mary's, the investigator

6:01

gave her Denny's name and phone number. As

6:03

soon as she lived at called

6:06

Denny. That call in twenty

6:08

twelve was the first time Mary had talked to

6:10

Denny since she and other runaways for Mount

6:13

Meg's pleaded for his help at the Montgomery

6:15

Juvenile Detention Center forty five

6:17

years prior after

6:19

I got fired. After we file the suits,

6:22

it took me almost a year to find meaningful

6:24

employment, and then at the end of

6:26

that year we had to borrow money against our life

6:28

and chaerance policy to parabills. I got

6:30

a call from O. J. Keller, who

6:32

was setting up a division a few services

6:34

that had already done it in state Florida, and

6:37

he called me and he said, we have

6:39

an opening. Would you like to be the regional

6:41

detention director for South Florida?

6:44

And I said absolutely, I'll

6:46

be there tomorrow. They

6:51

finally saw each other for the first time in decades

6:54

when Denny gave a talk about his book at

6:56

the Rosa Parks Library and Montgomery.

6:59

Their reunion was cut briefly on video.

7:04

Great

7:08

Mary is with a group of women, also

7:11

survivors of Mount Meg's. Denny

7:13

hugs each of them, but you can tell he

7:15

shares a special connection with

7:17

Mary. Letter

7:20

tears and I thanked him

7:22

for helping me and

7:26

for me getting out of being able to

7:29

leave, for

7:32

not being killed. He's

7:34

more than a friend. I

7:40

look up to him lis at the Bigger Household

7:46

because of his care and

7:49

the way he felt about children and

7:53

me. Mary

7:56

Stevens was always looking for a family.

7:59

She grew up in an unstable household,

8:01

and when she first arrived at Mount Meg's,

8:03

she hoped that Fanny Matthew was going

8:06

to adopt her, but in some ways,

8:08

that feeling of family safety always

8:11

eluded her. After

8:13

she was released from Mount Meg's, she was

8:15

plagued by instability once again. Would

8:19

I left Alabama?

8:21

Sent me right back to

8:24

the same foster home birthplaces?

8:26

I got right. My

8:28

brothers and sisters were there. I

8:35

left the foster home, got married,

8:37

had a baby at nineteen. But

8:40

while she tried to build the family she always

8:42

wanted her brothers and sisters

8:44

were left behind. I know they

8:47

will be a beat for the raise

8:49

of strap and so Mary did

8:51

something bold, risky.

8:54

I stole my brothers and sisters from that boster

8:56

who It was

8:58

a crazy idea, one that

9:01

if things went wrong, could have resulted

9:03

in her child being taken from her, but

9:06

Mary did it anyway. I told

9:08

my brother when I was coming for

9:12

him to be ready, one

9:16

brother and two sisters. I

9:21

was scared. I

9:23

was so scared. It was scared. Police

9:25

go to be behind me, had my brother looking out

9:29

who was speeding. We're probably gotten stopped

9:31

for speeding. Fast is that we got

9:33

stopped for stolen children. Mary

9:38

and her siblings made it across the state line

9:40

to Tennessee. By

9:42

that time, Mary had already left her husband,

9:45

so she was a young single mother trying

9:48

to take care of her child and her siblings.

9:52

She struggled to make ends meet. When

9:54

I got them to Tennessee, I

9:57

couldn't take care of them.

9:59

I was making a dollar sixty see an hour or

10:01

make the police department as a dispatch. I

10:04

had a child, and I

10:06

couldn't get any help for little brothers and sisters.

10:09

So they

10:11

hated at boor to TPSS

10:15

Tennessee Preparatory School. But

10:17

it was nothing like not for

10:20

Mary. Her life as an adult wasn't

10:22

always easy, but it was

10:24

better than her childhood. She

10:27

remarried, had more children, divorced

10:29

again. She built a career

10:32

as an insurance agent. But

10:34

in recent years Mary was called to something

10:36

else, foster parenting.

10:39

I think Matt Mags had like to do that. After

10:44

I divorced and new that I wanted to

10:46

do something good, so I started

10:48

to post at home. When they came

10:50

into my house, they were calling

10:52

me miss Mary. I told them

10:54

you can call me what

10:57

everyone. You don't have to call me

10:59

miss Mary. And I explained

11:01

to him how much I loved them and cared for him,

11:03

and you know, thank you was Nana.

11:07

Mary showed us a property behind her house.

11:10

She used to own three lots but ended

11:12

up selling them off. Actually

11:15

I wanted to start a school. That's

11:18

why I had these three lots. I

11:20

wanted to school. But I got sick and

11:24

I got to have back surgery again. So I

11:28

was diagnosed with room toward authors in

11:30

nineteen eighty eight. I came home in seventy

11:34

so I've been dealing with this since nineteen

11:36

eighty eight and worse.

11:40

You know, five row miles the

11:43

genitive discs deteriorating

11:47

and stuff. We found

11:49

that this is true for a lot of survivors

11:51

of Mount Mags. There are permanent

11:54

injuries that started young, often

11:56

in the back. Let's still have the disability

11:59

in my bag where I

12:01

can't sit very long or stand

12:03

very long. Here's any knocks

12:07

from the outside. Jenny appears

12:09

to have a sense of serenity with

12:11

her family photos and the Bible collection

12:13

at her Montgomery home, but

12:16

the years following her release from Mount Mags

12:18

were rough. I came home

12:20

and I've been stuck ever

12:22

since, from the time

12:25

I left My Mags until my

12:27

adulthood, just feeling stagnated,

12:30

mentally stagnated. After

12:32

Mount Mags, Jenny moved to Atlanta, where

12:34

she worked as a nanny. She

12:37

found herself in and out of tumultuous relationships,

12:40

and eventually she moved back to Montgomery.

12:43

I think I came out with lots of anger

12:47

emmy, lots of hurt. I

12:50

was troubled, I was confused, I

12:54

didn't know who to trust. I

12:56

just hung out by myself a lot of times

12:59

because I didn't think nobody would really

13:01

care or would really understand what

13:04

I had gone through, or maybe

13:07

I didn't understand you know, life

13:09

itself, having most

13:11

of my teenage years taken away from

13:13

me, and I

13:17

think it was when I gave my life to Christ

13:19

in eighty three when

13:22

I really feel

13:24

like releasing away.

13:34

Jenny got saved in nineteen eighty

13:36

three and ordained in

13:39

nineteen ninety three, and

13:41

ever since then she's been intimately

13:43

involved with her church. It

13:46

was her pastor and his wife who were

13:48

the first people she was able to open

13:50

up to about Mount Meg's. I

13:53

sat down and talked to my pastor's wife

13:55

first, and then

13:57

that encouraged me to just go forward

14:00

and talk about it. Both Jenny

14:02

and Mary said they haven't talked about what they

14:04

went throughout Mount Meg's with many people, even

14:07

family. Miss Matthews had already

14:09

told us that no matter who we talked today, wasn't

14:11

going to believe us, and you know from the start,

14:14

and so I guess it has settled

14:16

in my mind, you know, what's the use of

14:19

trying to tell anybody anything

14:21

about it? And then I

14:23

didn't think my family would really understand,

14:28

so I just kept it held

14:30

me in. Mary such

14:32

something similar. I've tried to

14:34

talk to my daughter about it. She

14:38

thinks just because I stayed out of school. I

14:40

just didn't want to go to school. This

14:43

reason I had to go away, But it wasn't

14:45

I've tried to explain too of the childhood

14:47

that we had. And this is something

14:49

that you don't talk about love because

14:52

people think you did something you

14:55

don't want to go No

15:05

roomy,

15:13

that's Johnny Body singing. In

15:16

the nineteen eighties, Johnny started

15:18

working with kids at a secure treatment facility

15:20

for juvenile delinquents in Boston,

15:23

Gazzy In for rate murder

15:25

robber teenagers fifteen sixteen

15:28

years old. And one of the good

15:30

things about that situation is whenever

15:32

I started talking, they would

15:34

listen because I started talking

15:37

about Mount Meiggs, start talking about what

15:39

I was locked up in, the things that I did, and they

15:41

say, and you are counselor. I

15:43

said, yeah, I said you could

15:46

change. But Johnny wasn't

15:48

exactly on the street and narrow yet.

15:51

When he moved to Boston in the nineteen seventies,

15:54

he was part time musician, part

15:56

time self described hustler, prone

15:59

to petty theft, robbery. Here

16:01

and there. He was teaching

16:03

the kids he worked with to be better, but

16:05

wasn't necessarily following his own advice.

16:08

And then I would go back and be with the young

16:11

guys. So my conscience start

16:13

bothering me. I mean, how could

16:15

I be trying to change these gathered I'm still at

16:17

here, This is what I'm saying to myself. And

16:19

I did that for about fifteen years,

16:22

working with these gays, you

16:24

know. So eventually

16:26

I just just he ended up changing.

16:31

And that's the best thing that ever happened to me in my life,

16:33

you know. For the other

16:36

Johnny, Johnny Mack Young, he's

16:38

serving life without parole as

16:40

we speak, for years. He

16:42

had a plan, so I

16:45

had made a commitment to myself there, but

16:47

I got to live without parole. When I get tired

16:50

during the time, I'm

16:52

just gonna make you, thought me.

16:55

He'd commit suicide by cop by

16:58

doing something that would force the prison guards

17:00

to kill him.

17:03

That led to a standoff with guards

17:05

while at Holman, one of the most

17:07

infamously brutal prisons in the country.

17:11

But Johnny Mack survives a standoff,

17:14

and he started corresponding with a prison advocacy

17:16

volunteer via mail. He

17:19

was shocked that someone would want to help

17:21

him. I realized, I don't

17:23

want to be that person I used

17:25

to speak and the

17:27

first baby I had to resolve why

17:31

was the person that I would And

17:34

it was all because of the treatment

17:38

and the same that I was taught in my murde.

17:41

So he started taking college courses offered

17:44

in prison, first psychology,

17:47

then writing. He's a poet

17:49

and an essayist. He has a bachelor's

17:51

degree in theology. He

17:54

and some other incarcerated men produced

17:56

a radio show. He

17:58

also works as a jailhouse lawyer, helping

18:00

other inmates file appeals. But

18:03

for Johnny mac, the biggest change

18:06

happened when the Alabama Department of Corrections

18:08

started offering meditation courses.

18:13

I've just staying in like about twenty three,

18:16

and we learned how to you

18:19

know, concentrate demand and

18:21

get obsure sensation. Well

18:25

that's it's change left five and it

18:27

just learned it. Then got compassion. See

18:30

like I almost a crying a little while when I

18:32

was talking to you. I'm not affected

18:35

by what happened back then, but just expression

18:38

and saying, you know, killing

18:40

somebody around it's enough

18:43

to bring cheese tom eyes right.

18:46

Johnny Mack has been in prison for thirty

18:49

six years. He's seventy

18:51

three now. He's currently building a

18:53

case in hopes of being furloughed under

18:55

Alabama law. He

18:57

says he meets two of the requirements.

18:59

He's a geriatric inmate, and

19:02

he's permanently incapacitated. He

19:05

had back pain so debilitating that

19:07

sometimes it's hard for him to move at all.

19:10

But because he's in prison, Johnny

19:13

Max still has not received treatment. He's

19:16

in his seventies now, though, and

19:18

prison does at number on a person's life

19:20

expectancy. Seventy

19:22

three in prison is very

19:24

different than seventy three outside. His

19:28

health and survival is

19:30

a race against the clock. Remember

19:40

how he started this series, Lonnie

19:43

Holly was out late at night exploring

19:45

the streets of Birmingham, finding

19:48

interesting things among the trash.

19:51

He'd been separated from his parents and his

19:53

dozens of siblings as a baby, and

19:56

by the time he got to Mount Meg's he'd been given

19:59

a different name entirely. But

20:02

unlike so many other kids who got taken

20:04

from their family, Lonnie

20:06

actually found his by

20:08

sheer coincidence. During a conversation

20:11

he was having one day with another student

20:13

at Mount Max, I was

20:16

telling him about how

20:18

I had been trying to

20:21

get to the airport out

20:23

to the Hollies and he asked

20:25

me, what about the Hollies. He

20:28

said he knowed some hollies

20:31

is up the heel from what will.

20:34

Word got back to Lonnie's grandmother that

20:36

the baby they've been looking for all of this time,

20:39

the one taken by aber Less Dancer more than

20:41

a dozen years before, was

20:43

locked up just a couple of hours away.

20:47

My grandmother. When she found out that I

20:49

was there, she came to visit me on that

20:51

Sunday. So once

20:54

she presented the birth certificate

20:56

and everything that I was Lonnie Bradley

20:59

Holly, they released me

21:01

into her custody and

21:05

I came home with her. It

21:08

was nineteen sixty four when Lonnie was

21:10

finally released from Mount Meg's. He

21:13

was fourteen years old. Lonnie

21:16

was glad to be reunited with his family, but

21:19

the trauma and abuse he experienced

21:22

at Mount Meg's stayed with him

21:24

as he reacclimated to life outside,

21:28

trying to fit back into the

21:30

social system, it was

21:32

almost impossible. His

21:35

grandmother tried to enroll him back in school,

21:37

but I wasn't with that in

21:44

America

21:48

side. At

21:53

age fifteen, Lonnie followed

21:55

one of his brothers to Florida

21:57

and did whatever work he could pick up. He

22:00

later became a cook at Disney World when it opened

22:03

near Orlando in nineteen seventy one.

22:06

He's had a few scrapes at the law. He

22:09

spent a couple of nights in jail, but nothing

22:11

else. Since

22:13

the late nineteen seventies, Lonnie's

22:15

life has been dedicated to his art. He's

22:18

an extremely successful visual artist

22:21

and even has a cult following as a musician.

22:25

But despite his eventful life traveling

22:27

the world as an artist at a musician, those

22:30

formative years at Mount Meg's are embedded

22:32

in his head and in his body. Here's

22:35

a clip from a sound check in the UK when

22:38

Lonnie busted out something he learned as a kid

22:41

that he called the Mount Meg's Stomp, the

22:44

rhythm track for this podcast theme song.

23:01

Lonnie is the only one who has been able to get

23:03

back inside Mount Meg's. He

23:05

went in twenty thirteen with a camera

23:08

crew. During the visit, he

23:10

clutched onto the arm of a close family

23:12

friend, terrified, I

23:15

get the heebie jeebs now you know, Okay,

23:19

get your camera ready, cutsy dang

23:21

gonna. This is this is the way they brought us

23:23

in. Unlike

23:25

us, Lonnie was allowed to tour the

23:27

facility. He saw the old

23:29

building that Eby Holloway used to live in,

23:32

the white dormitory where the girls lived.

23:36

The next year, he went back again, and

23:39

this time just stood outside the gate reflecting

23:42

on his time there, especially

23:44

on the rock pile. It was

23:47

just so horrible that I couldn't

23:49

get it out of my memory. It was almost

23:51

like you having to

23:54

go through the shale shop,

23:56

like you're being in the military, and it's

23:59

just constantly going through your brain, and

24:01

this is something that you just can't forget

24:03

about. Lonnie's

24:07

art is one way of working through the trauma he

24:09

endured there. I talked to

24:11

him about his sculpture Blood on the Rock Pile

24:14

and some of his other pieces that refer directly

24:16

to Mount Meg's. In

24:19

one piece, he padlocked together

24:21

eight spoons. It's

24:23

called chain Gang Mount Meg's. Another

24:27

called Whitewash, features seven

24:29

broken mops. The mop

24:31

heads are dirty, like how the kids in

24:33

White would have looked after spending days

24:36

or months on the rock pile. That's

24:39

Meanwhile, I like doing abstract called

24:41

the abstract can allow me and put

24:44

my hand back in situation

24:46

and then I can redo it. Here is something

24:48

here I don't know what I can

24:51

peel is away with

24:53

the camera rolling, Lonnie peeled

24:55

away a small piece of paint

24:57

from the fence surrounding the grounds. So

25:00

get that little piece or idea

25:03

is enough to remind me that I

25:05

I have been here today. So

25:08

Lonnie, always fascinated

25:10

by found objects that others would discard,

25:13

took that small piece of Mount Megs with him,

25:16

a fragment of a part of his life

25:18

that he couldn't erase. We

25:24

could have told you the simple story, the

25:27

easy one, that the nineteen

25:29

sixty nine lawsuit changed everything,

25:32

that after Judge Frank Johnson ruled

25:34

against the State of Alabama, Mount

25:36

Meg's magically transformed into a

25:38

caring home for children, a

25:40

true place of rehabilitation. This

25:44

is a story Mount Megs likes to tell too.

25:47

In their January newsletter, the

25:49

department said they welcome some

25:51

new ideas on how best to rehabilitate

25:54

youth. They mentioned that

25:56

they prioritize communication and collaboration,

26:00

writing, we share ideas

26:02

freely and courageously. We embrace

26:04

the potential of ideas and approaches.

26:08

But the truth, as far as I can tell, is more

26:10

complicated. Since the

26:12

lawsuit, Mount meg seems to have gotten

26:14

better, but it never got

26:16

good. Some parts

26:18

did improve, at least at first. It

26:21

was less crowded that it had been. Kids

26:24

had shoes to wear, but

26:26

plenty of things stayed the same. In

26:30

the past fifty years, countless

26:32

children have run away, just as they

26:34

used to, sometimes in

26:36

packs of three or seven or even eleven.

26:39

The state would once again use dogs

26:42

to sniff them out, and if

26:44

and when they were caught, they'd be arrested

26:46

and sent to adult jail. And

26:50

over the past fifty years, the overcrowding

26:52

and poor infrastructure have made

26:54

the news again every so often, as

26:57

state authorities once again claim

26:59

they're helpless to address the problems.

27:03

And Mount Meg's tradition of poor record keeping

27:06

didn't end in nineteen seventy one either.

27:09

For example, in nineteen ninety seven,

27:11

a board member noticed that the school had somehow

27:13

lost ownership of seven hundred

27:16

acres of land since the early nineteen

27:18

eighties, and no one knew how.

27:21

The school blamed the lack of paper trail

27:23

on a nineteen seventy six fire that

27:26

destroyed the institution's administrative

27:28

records, but the

27:30

board member noted that the missing land

27:33

had happened after the fire. He

27:35

suspected that the land had been traded

27:38

for political favors. And

27:40

there have still been credible allegations of abuse

27:43

perpetrated by staff and other students.

27:46

Some of those allegations are in letters from

27:49

parents or whispered among practitioners.

27:52

Others can be found in lawsuits

27:55

or newspaper articles. In

27:57

twenty eleven, for example, a

27:59

student filed suit against a school officer

28:02

alleging he shoved him into the wall and slammed

28:05

his into a table. The

28:07

court noted the injuries bleeding

28:11

bruises, cracked teeth, a

28:13

swollen head. The feedback

28:16

that I get from my clients while

28:18

at Mount Megs is I

28:21

think exactly what one would expect

28:23

it to be. The worst case scenario

28:25

would be death, and Mount Meg's

28:28

would be immediately under

28:30

that. That's Jennifer

28:32

Schnipper, a lawyer who's practiced

28:34

family law in Birmingham, Alabama for

28:36

almost fifteen years. Relatively

28:40

early in Jennifer's career, she had

28:42

a young client facing time at Mount Meg's.

28:45

The judge was very clear

28:48

in saying, have you ever been

28:50

to Mount Megs? And I said

28:52

no, and he said you

28:54

should go. So Jennifer

28:57

arranged to visit the facility

28:59

and immediately she understood what the

29:01

judge meant. It's stark,

29:04

it's cold, depressing,

29:06

it's intimidating,

29:09

and these I knew were kids anywhere

29:11

from twelve to nineteen

29:14

twenty twenty one years old that

29:16

could be in there for three

29:19

months, six months, three years.

29:22

It was shocking that

29:25

visit to Mount Meg's has shaped Jennifer's

29:27

decisions as someone who represents

29:30

children in court, by fight

29:32

to keep my clients out of Mount Meg's because

29:35

from my perspective, there is very

29:37

little value in a commitment

29:40

to Mount Meg's. I don't

29:42

find that it particularly benefits

29:44

my clients, and I often

29:47

feel like it becomes a

29:49

bigger detriment to my clients. Over

29:52

the past couple of decades, the consensus

29:54

around juvenile justice in America has

29:56

shifted. In two thousand

29:59

and five, the Supreme Court ruled that's

30:01

sentencing juveniles to death was unconstitutional,

30:05

and twelve the Court also

30:07

outlawed mandatory life without parole

30:09

sentences for children. We

30:12

know more about children now, more

30:15

about their brain development, their decision

30:17

making, the impulses that lead

30:19

them to act out, and

30:21

in some ways that knowledge is

30:24

changing how the juvenile justice system

30:26

works. Even in places

30:28

like Alabama, the juvenile

30:30

justice system tends to have

30:33

changed perspectives significantly.

30:35

We look at the child as a whole. In

30:39

other words, they're more likely to try

30:41

other ways of addressing the issues that children

30:43

face, meaning that sending

30:46

kids to places like Mount Meg's has

30:48

steadily decreased, and it continues to decrease.

30:51

I think commitments account

30:53

for a very low number of

30:56

outcomes for these delinquency

30:59

cases. There are so many resources

31:01

in place that can

31:03

help us keep that from happen. There's

31:06

one more thing about Mount Meg's that hasn't

31:08

changed, and that's the suffering

31:11

in silence. There's

31:13

not much more interest in what's happening there now

31:16

than there was fifty years ago. Some

31:19

other institutions have seemed backlash

31:21

related to their mistreatment of children,

31:25

but there's been no reckoning at Mount

31:27

Megs. We

31:40

mentioned at the beginning of this podcast

31:42

that Mount Meg's wasn't the only school that

31:44

abused children. At

31:46

the Dojer School in Florida, once

31:49

known as the Florida State Reform School,

31:51

children were abused for decades. In

31:55

twenty twelve, a team of forensic

31:57

anthropologists did field work

31:59

on the property and uncovered

32:01

dozens of unmarked graves. At

32:04

least one hundred children were thought to have died

32:06

there. There's

32:09

a major difference between what the Doser School

32:11

was like in the nineteen fifties and sixties

32:13

and Mount Megs. Both

32:15

black and white students attended the

32:17

Doser School, which was internally

32:20

segregated, but

32:22

aside from that, there are a lot of similarities

32:25

between the two institutions, and

32:27

the stories told by the survivors

32:29

of the Doser School echo the stories

32:32

of those who survived Mount Meg's and

32:35

in Canada, over a hundred

32:37

and fifty thousand Indigenous children

32:40

were forcibly separated from their families

32:42

and sent to what were called residential schools,

32:45

many of which were run by the Catholic Church.

32:49

Thousands of children at over a hundred

32:51

schools suffered physical, emotional,

32:54

and sexual abuse. In

32:56

two twenty one, experts

32:58

uncovered over six hundred bodies

33:00

of children who died at just one

33:02

school. These

33:05

aren't the only other institutions where

33:07

abusing children was systemic, normal,

33:10

encouraged. But

33:13

I've thought a lot about these two, specifically

33:16

not because of what happened at the schools, but

33:18

what happened after For

33:20

survivors of both of these institutions.

33:23

There's been a call for justice, a

33:26

demand for accountability for

33:28

the pain those children endured, and

33:31

in both Florida and Canada, that

33:33

call was at least sort of answered.

33:38

In twenty seventeen, the Florida

33:40

legislature officially apologized

33:42

to the survivors of the Dojer School. Cannot

33:47

say with enough heart felt

33:49

remorse that it's taken this long for

33:51

a legislature, with all the evidence that is

33:53

before us, to come forth and apologize

33:56

for what has to be one of the blackest

33:58

moments on our state's history. And in

34:00

the summer of twenty twenty two, the

34:02

Pope traveled to Canada to

34:05

appologized publicly for the abuse

34:07

that Indigenous children suffered. Bailoue

34:16

de Santacion either very conciliation.

34:20

So I wondered, did that feel like

34:22

justice for those survivors to

34:25

hear the abuse acknowledge, to

34:27

hear some remorse for

34:31

some. The answer is yes. Here's

34:34

Peter Ernick, a survivor of the Kamloops

34:37

Indian Residential School, speaking

34:39

to CBC Television. The

34:42

Pope's upology to me will

34:45

allow its survivors

34:47

to begin a new chapter but

34:50

for others it's not enough, and

34:52

for some it's not anything. We

34:55

talked to some other survivors of the Dojer school

34:58

about what the state's apology in twenty seventeen

35:01

meant to them. Here's

35:03

Charlie Fudge, it's

35:06

time that they make something

35:09

more right than just an apology.

35:11

And Captain Bryant Middleton it

35:14

was an empty gesture without

35:16

meeting, with no follow

35:19

up. And Richard Huntley, let

35:21

me be honest with you, and I think that's whole wash.

35:23

I mean, I think that's you know

35:26

what I mean, that's full of shit. After

35:29

all, these apologies don't come with anything.

35:32

Apologies demand no sacrifice from

35:34

the state, no reparations,

35:37

no settlements, no monetary

35:40

damages for the personal damage done

35:42

to them. The governor

35:45

basically said they didn't have money

35:47

to compensate us. Compensate

35:50

us in the sense of ensuring that

35:52

those that had been abused we were

35:54

treated by doctors if need be. Most

35:57

of us old guys have a very low

36:00

income, and

36:03

the majority of boys it

36:05

was taken there and beaten actually

36:08

ended up in prison. There's been

36:10

bills for reparations. Money

36:14

wouldn't fix what they went through. Nothing

36:16

would, but at least it would

36:19

be something as

36:21

boys. These men were abused,

36:24

tortured, their futures crippled

36:26

by what they endured. What

36:28

good are words now? And

36:32

yet words are more than most

36:34

have gotten. How

36:36

many stories like this one have gone uncovered?

36:40

How many children have gone missing or

36:42

died without their families knowing what happened

36:44

to them? How much abuse

36:46

has been unleashed on kids like the ones

36:48

at these schools without anyone

36:51

saying anything. Here's

36:54

one of the Doger survivors, Captain

36:56

Bryant Middleton. Again, I can't

36:58

help but wonder if

37:01

any of this would surface anywhere

37:04

else had it not been so prominently

37:06

covered by the media

37:08

here in Florida. How many

37:11

other places are like dojer

37:13

the Florida School for Boys that have not been

37:17

found out or have not been

37:19

reported. There's no telling.

37:22

Alabama has never expressed any

37:24

regret for what the state did to those children.

37:28

In fact, the terror of Mount Meg's has gotten

37:30

little attention at all before now, except

37:33

for Denny's book and Jesse James Andrews

37:35

appeal in California court. I

37:38

have some theories of why that might be. At

37:41

the Dojor school and the residential schools

37:43

in Canada, survivors connected

37:45

and organized. We decided

37:48

we would have some sort of reunion. We

37:51

were startled by the amount of turnout

37:53

that we had. Literally hundreds of men

37:57

showed up. It just was overwhelming.

38:00

You can probably imagine how much the connection

38:03

matters. How the fight for acknowledgment

38:05

is much easier when hundreds of people

38:08

speak out versus just one,

38:11

regardless of the outcome. Being part

38:13

of a group is some sort of relief catharsis,

38:18

But survivors of Mount Megs haven't been organized

38:21

like that quite yet, and

38:23

so many of them suffer alone. They

38:26

don't have anyone to validate their memories,

38:28

their trauma, what they went

38:30

through as children. There

38:33

are other differences between Mount Meg's and some

38:35

of these other facilities. For

38:38

example, at the Dojer School, many

38:40

of the survivors were white, which

38:42

probably increased the likelihood of accountability.

38:46

Plus, the other institutions have been shut

38:48

down. The Dojer School shuttered

38:51

in two eleven, and the Canadian

38:53

residential schools have been closed since the

38:55

early nineteen nineties. At

38:59

Mount Megs, though the institution

39:02

lives on, we

39:04

don't know what became aim of the makeshift graveyard

39:07

that Johnny Bodley and Lonnie Holly remember.

39:10

But since this podcast began airing,

39:12

we've gotten emails from people formerly

39:15

affiliated with Mount Meg's, including

39:17

one from someone who worked there within

39:19

the last few years. He

39:22

says, Lonnie and Johnny's memories are correct,

39:25

that the small graveyard still existed when

39:27

he worked there. Whoa with

39:30

me Law. Other

39:33

places have brought in forensic anthropologists

39:36

to on earth these institutions secrets,

39:39

But as long as Mount Meg's is open, that

39:41

level of reckoning is impossible. How

39:44

can Alabama fully apologize or

39:46

account for the harm of an institution that

39:49

still exists. Eby

39:51

Holloway died in nineteen seventy six.

39:54

Judge Thetford died in nineteen seventy

39:57

seven. Most of the adult perpetrators

39:59

are dead now, and lots of the children

40:02

who were there in the nineteen sixties are dead

40:04

too, But some remain,

40:07

like Lonnie, Mary, Jenny

40:10

and Johnny. Don't leave

40:12

me alone, Lord, don't

40:16

leave me alone? Why

40:21

I'm all miss Jesus,

40:26

john Ah,

40:29

won't Jesus do

40:33

all with me? So

40:40

this is the end of our story, But

40:43

ours is only part of the story of mounta Megs.

40:47

The entire story of this place, now

40:49

almost one hundred and fifteen years old,

40:52

is limitless. There's

40:55

no way to account for all the harm caused

40:57

by Mountain Megs to survivors, and

40:59

all the harm caused by survivors

41:02

because of that trauma.

41:05

I find myself wishing I had a clearer

41:07

ending to give you, that

41:09

I could say the survivors are completely

41:11

at peace now that I could tell

41:13

you there'd been some sort of reckoning with those

41:15

who perpetrated these injustices. Denny,

41:19

now in his eighties, is still

41:21

trying to find a way to get reparations

41:23

for the survivors of Mount Meg's, but

41:26

that's not a promise that he or we can

41:29

make. The

41:31

true story, as always, is

41:34

a little more unsatisfying than the

41:36

stories we want to tell. Earlier,

41:40

I asked what justice for these survivors

41:42

would look like. But

41:44

maybe the truth is that justice here

41:47

is impossible. There's no way

41:49

of making whole what was broken on that

41:51

stretch of land outside of Montgomery.

41:54

The harm cannot be undone.

41:59

We asked, if you could talk to the people

42:02

who abused you, what would you say?

42:05

And Mary thought about Fanny Matthews

42:09

and all of these years later, she found

42:11

herself wondering what Fanny had gone

42:14

through, what kind of pain

42:16

she might have experienced herself to

42:18

do what she did to Mary and so

42:21

many others, What happened

42:23

to her to make her so treacherous.

42:29

You know, I'm softy too,

42:32

as bad as it was, and

42:35

I haven't so I'm not gonna

42:37

lie to usday. I've forgiven her, Okay,

42:41

if she told me what

42:43

happened to her, I

42:45

probably have a soft spot for her too. If

42:49

I knew something that happened, listen, I

42:51

don't know, I

42:54

don't know, I'd

42:57

probably end up loving her too. So

43:07

maybe there's something else, a

43:10

bit of comfort maybe, or

43:12

even hope. And the fact

43:14

that despite it all, many

43:17

survivors still have the capacity for

43:19

forgiveness. Despite

43:21

it all, so many of them are still

43:23

trying to make the world a little better,

43:27

And fifty years later, they're

43:29

still here, still

43:31

suffering, still remembering,

43:34

but still surviving all the same. Unreformed.

43:44

The Story of the Alabama Industrial School for Negro

43:46

Children is a production of School of Humans and

43:48

iHeartMedia. This episode was written

43:50

by me Josie Deffie, Rice and Taylor von Laslie.

43:53

Our script supervisors Florence Burrow Adams and

43:55

our producer is Gabby Watts, who had additional

43:58

writing and production support from Sherry Scott. Executive

44:01

producers are Virginia Prescott, Elsie Crowley,

44:03

Brandon Barr, Matt Arnette and Me. Sound

44:05

design and mixes by Jesse Niswanger. Music

44:08

is by Ben Soli. Additional recordings

44:10

are courtesy of the Alabama Center for Traditional

44:12

Culture. The songs featured in this episode

44:14

are Scalaway by Spiritual Voices of Whitehall,

44:16

Alabama, Walk with Me by Helen McLoud,

44:19

and I'm a Suspect by Lonnie Holly courtesy

44:21

of Jack Jaguar. Special thanks to

44:23

the Alabama Department of Archives and History, Michael

44:25

Harriet, Floyd Hall, Kevin Nutt, Van Newkirk,

44:27

and all of the survivors of Mount Meg's willing

44:30

to share their stories. If you enjoyed

44:32

this episode, please leave us a rating and review

44:34

wherever you get your podcasts. If

44:37

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

44:39

in contact, please email Mountmegs Podcast

44:41

at gmail dot com. That's Mt

44:44

m e Igs Podcast at

44:46

gmail dot com.

44:56

School of Humans