Unreformed: The Story of the Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children
4.7/5
Critic Rating
In 1968, police arrested five Black girls dressed in oversized military fatigues in Montgomery. The girls were runaways, escaping from a state-run reform school called the Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children in Mount Meigs, Alabama. The girls were determined to tell someone about the abuse they’d suffered there: physical and sexual violence, unlivable facilities, and grueling labor in the fields surrounding the school. It was, as several former students called it, a slave camp. UNREFORMED is the story of how this reform school derailed the lives of thousands of Black children in Alabama for decades and what happened after th...
Critic Reviews
Score: 4
The Crime Writers Squad • Crime Writers On • May 4, 2023
"Host Josie Duffy Rice brings powerful stories from former students of Mount Meigs in "Unreformed: The Story of the Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children." While not perfect (the series is packed almost too tightly with information to be processed) it paints a troubling picture of intergenerational, institutional trauma."
Score: 5
Keelin • Mentally? A Magpie. • Apr 2, 2023
"The reporting is smooth and gentle, contrasting the content being discussed. Josie Duffy Rice takes care with this subject, not shying from the rough edges. Rather, the care she takes is highlighting the atrocity of this place by the smooth nature of the production. It is carefully calculated, paced, and taken on with immense care. I commend this reporting on not just a level of justice, but also humanity for those survivors of Mount Meigs."
Score: 5
Lauren Passell • Podcast The Newsletter • Jan 23, 2023
"And if we’ve learned anything from all the podcasts coming out about Canada’s residential school system (Stolen and Kuper Island) we’ve learned about generational trauma, how the nightmares don’t stop with the people who experienced them first hand. I didn’t even know about Mt. Meigs. Did you? This is vital listening for the education, the need to be confronted with this. The reporting is blunt and captivating. It’s blowing one of America’s dirty secrets up."
