Hi listeners! This is Josie Duffy Rice. We wanted to give you some good news and ask once more for your help, if you wouldn’t mind!  First the good news! I am so honored to tell you that Unreformed has won a few very exciting awards lately. We won an Ambie award for best history podcast of the year, an international women’s podcast award, and we also won TWO Signal Listener’s choice awards because of you and your votes. We are unbelievably grateful for this recognition. The opportunity to...

Unreformed has been nominated for two Signal Listener's Choice Award. Voting is open through October 5, 2023, you can vote for the show under "Best Host" and "History" in the Limited Series and Specials category. Link to vote is here.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Out of the Shadows is a podcast about America's tangled history of immigration hosted by award-winning New York Times writer Erick Galindo and entrepreneur and best-selling author Patty Rodriguez. Season 2: Dreamers Last season, we tackled Ronald Regan’s 1986 amnesty act, Season 2 will trace the origins of DACA or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a contentious executive order to protect undocumented young people from being deported. Issued by former President Barack Obama in 2012, DACA...

Hi, Unreformed fans! Dive into how South African cult leader Cecilia Steyn leads her followers to kill 11 innocent people over the course of four years. Join host and filmmaker Kurt Kubicek as he travels to Krugersdorp, SA - a small mining town rocked by these brutal serial murders. Listen to Queen Havoc and Her Murder Cult now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts! About Queen Havoc and Her Murder Cult: Serial Cult murders in South Africa bring on a deep, winding,...

In the final episode, we look at where Lonnie, Mary, Johnny, Jennie, Johnny Mack, and Denny are fifty years after leaving Mt. Meigs. We also look at how juvenile justice in America has evolved and how other juvenile reform schools that mistreated their students have atoned for their wrongs. And lastly, we get a glimpse into the current state of Mt. Meigs. Has it changed? Or is it the same place it was more than fifty years ago? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey folks, Josie here! We wanted to share a show that we think you might like. It's called 5-4, and it's about how much the Supreme Court sucks. 5-4 is all about how the Supreme Court DOESN'T provide justice, and we think that will resonate with Unreformed listeners.  If you like it, you can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. About 5-4: A podcast about how much the Supreme Court sucks. It’s a progressive and occasionally profane take on the ideological battles at the heart of the...

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

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

Mary Stephens and four other girls escape Mt. Meigs and are determined to tell someone about what's happened to them. Probation officer Denny Abbott must make a decision.  If you or someone you know attended Mt. Meigs and would like to connect with us, please email [email protected].  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

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

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

Reporter Josie Duffy Rice travels to a small town outside Montgomery, Alabama, and tries to visit a juvenile reform school, once called the Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children or Mt. Meigs. The school opened in the early 20th century as a safe haven for Black kids, but by the 1960s, it had become something else entirely. Then one day, in 1968, five Black girls ran away, determined to find someone to help. We hear from one of those girls, Mary, and juvenile probation officer Denny....

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.