Speaker 1: School of Humans. Howard Mandel, a Northern Jewish boy fresh
Speaker 1: out of law school, decided to move down to Montgomery,
Speaker 1: Alabama in nineteen sixty nine. I wanted to be in
Speaker 1: Montgomery because I wanted to be a civil rights lawyer,
Speaker 1: and that was the heart of racism in the South.
Speaker 1: Howard arrived in an Alabama still functioning in many ways
Speaker 1: as a renegade state, defying the Civil Rights Act, which
Speaker 1: had been passed five years prior. In most counties, there
Speaker 1: still weren't any black people on voting roles. There were
Speaker 1: no black people on juries voters. Oppression has a long
Speaker 1: history in Alabama. When the state constitution was rewritten in
Speaker 1: nineteen oh one, convention chair John Knox opened the proceedings
Speaker 1: saying that their goal was to establish white supremacy in
Speaker 1: this state. The state levied poll taxes, literacy tests, and
Speaker 1: convoluted property requirements to vote. Then, like now, people convicted
Speaker 1: of certain crimes were not permitted to cast a ballot.
Speaker 1: And as for people willing and able to fight voter
Speaker 1: suppression in a court of law, there weren't many. When
Speaker 1: Howard got to Alabama, there were only about ten civil
Speaker 1: rights lawyers in the entire state. The New England native
Speaker 1: and Georgetown Law graduate arrived in a whole new world
Speaker 1: the Deep South. Most aspects of Alabamian life remained segregated
Speaker 1: down the track. Alabama's gone to Booga Boola, jack On
Speaker 1: Alabama bog So. The mayor Montgomery at the time was
Speaker 1: a gentleman. His name was Emery Fumi. Mayor carried a pistol.
Speaker 1: He was just racist through and through it. He was
Speaker 1: the usher at this Presbyterian church and one of his
Speaker 1: main jobs is to make sure that no African Americans
Speaker 1: tried to come to church. Howard moved to Montgomery for
Speaker 1: his first job, clerking for Federal District Court Judge Frank Johnson.
Speaker 1: I don't consider having quote stuck my neck out. I'll
Speaker 1: value the decisions that I've made and the effect of
Speaker 1: those decisions, and my oath as a United States judge
Speaker 1: decide cases like the law requires that to be decided.
Speaker 1: So technically you had no option if you're going to
Speaker 1: be a good jazz. That was an interview with Judge
Speaker 1: Johnson in nineteen ninety five after he was awarded the
Speaker 1: Presidential Medal of Freedom. Strangely enough, infamously racist Governor George
Speaker 1: Wallace and Judge Johnson had grown up together in small
Speaker 1: town North Alabama and both up being influential leaders in
Speaker 1: the state, but ideologically speaking, they were about as far
Speaker 1: as they could get from one another. When I finally
Speaker 1: met him, Judge Johnson, we went out to dinner at
Speaker 1: a restaurant and we were waiting in line for I
Speaker 1: don't know, fifteen minutes, and we finally got into the
Speaker 1: main restaurant and I saw that there were only about
Speaker 1: three people leading. So I said to Judge Johnson, I said,
Speaker 1: why are all these empty tables? Why'd they have us
Speaker 1: waiting fifteen minutes? He said, that's because nobody'll sit within
Speaker 1: three tables of me, who was such a pariah. Judge
Speaker 1: Johnson had been an instrumental part of many important civil
Speaker 1: rights cases of his time. He had ruled against racis
Speaker 1: Alabama lawmaker since the early nineteen fifties. He ordered Montgomery
Speaker 1: to integrate swimming pools and buses. He ruled in favor
Speaker 1: of the Freedom Writers, but it was when he first
Speaker 1: ordered schools to desegregate that Johnson and truly became the
Speaker 1: enemy of dedicated white supremacists. Johnson had to have two
Speaker 1: full time bodyguards US Marshals sitting in front of his house.
Speaker 1: Every single day. He and his family received death threats constantly.
Speaker 1: His mother's house was firebombed, and yet despite all that,
Speaker 1: Howard knew that this is where he wanted to be,
Speaker 1: to become one of those handful of civil rights lawyers
Speaker 1: painstakingly working towards desegregation. I'm Josie Duffie Rice, and this
Speaker 1: is Unreformed The Story of the Alabama Industrial School for
Speaker 1: Negro Children, Episode six, Scallywag and Carpetbaggers. It's the end
Speaker 1: of nineteen sixty eight in Montgomery, Alabama, and Marian or
Speaker 1: four companions had just told Denny Abbott about the abuse
Speaker 1: they endured at the Alabama Industrial School. Danny was the
Speaker 1: chief juvenile probation officer in the county. He already knew
Speaker 1: about some of it, the horrible conditions, some of the violence,
Speaker 1: but he was rattled by their vivid descriptions of their
Speaker 1: quote nightmarish routine of hard labor, beatings and sexual abuse.
Speaker 1: It was this conversation with the girls that made Denny
Speaker 1: realize he had to do whatever he could to help
Speaker 1: the black kids at Mount Meg's and I said, you
Speaker 1: know what, I can't be the kind of father, can't
Speaker 1: be the kind of father to my own kids if
Speaker 1: I walk away from those girls. But there was a
Speaker 1: lot to figure out. Good intentions wouldn't be enough. There
Speaker 1: was no inevitability of justice here, so there was a
Speaker 1: real question about strategy. How could Denny change what was
Speaker 1: happening at Mount Meg's and also who would help him.
Speaker 1: The cruelty at Mount Meg's had flourished for many reasons,
Speaker 1: but indifference to the suffering of black children was a
Speaker 1: major part of it, and it would take something pretty
Speaker 1: significant to shake up that indifference. Not another committee or
Speaker 1: task force, not another list of recommendations, a real change.
Speaker 1: Denny couldn't make such a seismic shift happen alone. He
Speaker 1: badly needed an ally, someone willing to take on the
Speaker 1: Alabama criminal legal system on behalf of black children. He
Speaker 1: needed someone as horrified by Mount Meg's as he was,
Speaker 1: but ideally an insider, a person well connected enough to
Speaker 1: get stuff done despite all the blue bloods and red tape.
Speaker 1: And that's when Denny remembered Ira dement de met d
Speaker 1: capital m e n t. Ira is a lawyer we
Speaker 1: mentioned last episode, the one who had filed a lawsuit
Speaker 1: on behalf of that runaway teenage girl who had been
Speaker 1: locked up in solitary confinement in the dark for days.
Speaker 1: Ira was in private practice in Montgomery, so I knew
Speaker 1: he cared about kids, and I knew that he was
Speaker 1: very powerful and persuasive as a lawyer. Ira was thirty
Speaker 1: four when he and Denny met. Like Denny's boss, Judge Thattford,
Speaker 1: Ira came from an old white Alabama family, but Denny
Speaker 1: knew that Ira was willing to fight for kids, including
Speaker 1: black kids. Ira believed in the Constitution as this document
Speaker 1: that protected everyone, and he was willing to represent just
Speaker 1: about anyone. He didn't always have good judgment, and he
Speaker 1: had made a few very suspect choices in his professional career,
Speaker 1: namely a couple years before, when in nineteen sixty five,
Speaker 1: Ira had represented the Ku Klex Klan in a federal
Speaker 1: case where the clan had been accused of preventing schools
Speaker 1: from integrating. He later implied he did it because they
Speaker 1: were willing to pay him, and by the way, he
Speaker 1: lost that case when Judge Frank Johnson rightfully ruled against
Speaker 1: him either way. By nineteen sixty eight, Ira was ready
Speaker 1: to fight on behalf of the black kids at Mount Meg's.
Speaker 1: He framed the deprivations at the school as nothing short
Speaker 1: of unconstitutional, claiming the absolute denial of basic and fundamental
Speaker 1: human rights to Negro children who are incarcerated in a
Speaker 1: concentration camp at Mountain Meigs, Alabama. So that's streets and
Speaker 1: I want to see him. So Denny told Ira about
Speaker 1: Mary and the other girls who had shown up to
Speaker 1: his office. He told them about the abuse that the
Speaker 1: children at Mount Meg's were facing. And it turned out
Speaker 1: that Ira had his own suspicions about Mount Meg's. As
Speaker 1: Denny wrote in his book entitled they Had No Voice
Speaker 1: Between Us, we already had a fat catalog of evidence
Speaker 1: and plenty of ideas about how to fatten it. More So,
Speaker 1: Ira decided that he wanted to be a part of this.
Speaker 1: He wanted to help Denny bring attention to what was
Speaker 1: happening at Mount Meg's. As he put it, well, it's
Speaker 1: the difference between fundamental right fundamental all it's fat basic Iran.
Speaker 1: Denny then had to decide how they wanted to handle this.
Speaker 1: So I recalled Governor Albert Brewer. Ira thought maybe there
Speaker 1: was a chance that the governor just didn't know about
Speaker 1: what was happening at Mount Meg's that if he knew,
Speaker 1: he'd be outraged enough to handle it, but that was
Speaker 1: not the case. He stated that there was a committee.
Speaker 1: He had a point that he would be happy for
Speaker 1: me to confer with him. Told him I had never
Speaker 1: seen a committee accomplish. He wasn't wrong. We mentioned this
Speaker 1: last episode, but there'd been committees convened before and nothing
Speaker 1: had changed. Swa off the bat Ira concluded two things. First,
Speaker 1: they would need to file a lawsuit. What was happening
Speaker 1: at the Alabama Industrial School for Negro children was not
Speaker 1: only wrong, but he believed it was unconstitutional. There was
Speaker 1: a problem though. We couldn't go to state corps. That
Speaker 1: would never have worked. The judges were all efficient hunting
Speaker 1: each other. It was a good old boys club filled
Speaker 1: with judges who had fought equality under the law at
Speaker 1: every juncture. As Denny wrote, this was a case about
Speaker 1: basic civil and human rights, and no state court in
Speaker 1: Alabama had anything but the most dismal record on either front.
Speaker 1: See Denny was in law enforcement. Ira was a lawyer.
Speaker 1: They both knew that what the laws said didn't matter
Speaker 1: as much as who was on the bench making the decisions,
Speaker 1: Hence IRAS's second conclusion, they would have to go big.
Speaker 1: They decided to file a federal class action lawsuit against
Speaker 1: the school, the administrators, and the board of trustees. The
Speaker 1: law is intentionally opaque, and the procedural elements of it,
Speaker 1: what court you file and why are intricate and kind
Speaker 1: of boring, But here it's pretty simple. This is the
Speaker 1: late nineteen sixties and the federal government was far more
Speaker 1: progressive than the state of Alabama. In fact, during this era,
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court was maybe the most progressive it had
Speaker 1: ever been before or since. Filing a federal case meant
Speaker 1: there was a slightly better chance they'd get a good
Speaker 1: faith judge. But it was a big move a class
Speaker 1: action like this, especially against mullable defendants. It signaled that
Speaker 1: the wrongdoing wasn't a one off, that abuse of children
Speaker 1: was endemic to the institution, and by suing the board,
Speaker 1: the lawsuit made it clear that the fault was not
Speaker 1: only with the act of perpetrators, but the passive enablers.
Speaker 1: For decades. Trustees had just let cruelty flourish, which meant
Speaker 1: they were responsible to This suit targeted the whole system.
Speaker 1: On January twenty second, nineteen sixty nine, a county clerk
Speaker 1: stamped the lawsuit, officially filing Charles Stockton at All versus
Speaker 1: Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children in the United States
Speaker 1: District Court for the Middle District of Alabama. The lawsuit
Speaker 1: listed as plaintiffs five brave black boys, including Charles Stockton,
Speaker 1: ranging from ages thirteen to fifteen, who were suing by
Speaker 1: and through Denny. Don't know exactly how these five children
Speaker 1: were chosen. We know that they were kids that had
Speaker 1: been in Denny's custody as a probation officer, but beyond that,
Speaker 1: we just don't know much about them. And honestly, given
Speaker 1: the conditions of Mount Megs, they could have probably chosen
Speaker 1: any of the students there, but in order to file
Speaker 1: the lawsuit, they would need students willing to affix their
Speaker 1: name to the filing, students who were willing to attest
Speaker 1: that they had suffered these harms. The suit spent pages
Speaker 1: laying out the deficiencies of Mount Megs, like the understaffing,
Speaker 1: the lack of education, the child labor, the overcrowding, the
Speaker 1: crumbling infrastructure, the extreme heat, the lack of privacy, the
Speaker 1: absence of vocational training, and the lack of funding. It
Speaker 1: also accused school administrators of physical abuse, in particular Superintendent
Speaker 1: Ebe Holloway and Matron Fannie Matthews abuse kidding kids in
Speaker 1: the skull with broom handles, were beating kids so badly
Speaker 1: that it caused a miscarriage. Being a child out Mount
Speaker 1: Megs meant quote, being imprisoned in a penal colony, which
Speaker 1: is constitutionally, factually and totally unfit for the purpose for
Speaker 1: which it is intended. So that was it. The nine
Speaker 1: page lawsuit was filed out there for everyone in the
Speaker 1: country to see, and Ira and Denny weren't only asking
Speaker 1: the court to address the abuse and the horrible conditions,
Speaker 1: they were also demanding that the state in a great
Speaker 1: Mount Megs and other juvenile reformatories. The next day, the
Speaker 1: lawsuit was all over the news. The Montgomery Advertiser and
Speaker 1: the Psalma Times published stories about the abuse that the
Speaker 1: kids had suffered, and with the publicity came the backlash
Speaker 1: from the community from Denny's friends, family, and especial his
Speaker 1: boss Judge Thatford. It wasn't like Denny had been quiet
Speaker 1: even before filing this lawsuit. He'd expressed disappointment and discussed
Speaker 1: both privately and publicly about countless elements of the juvenile system,
Speaker 1: but filing a federal lawsuit that was next level. Denny
Speaker 1: and his neighbors in Montgomery, they had their differences, sure,
Speaker 1: but he had a lot of friends and people admired him.
Speaker 1: He liked to officiate high school games and go to
Speaker 1: church on Sundays. He played football in the local police league.
Speaker 1: Old copies of his resume show a list of affiliations
Speaker 1: a mile long, and even now he's kept placards and
Speaker 1: schedules from a ton of conferences he attended in groups
Speaker 1: he was a part of. He'd been vice president of
Speaker 1: the Montgomery Social Service Club, president of his It's PTA.
Speaker 1: He taught part time at the local university. This was
Speaker 1: his home, his community. Plus, Denny was in law enforcement.
Speaker 1: He was a member of the Police Union and the
Speaker 1: Alabama Council and Crime and Delinquency. The local paper mentioned
Speaker 1: him often. He was powerful, he was respected, and he
Speaker 1: wasn't even thirty years old. Yet after we file the suits,
Speaker 1: people that I had known my whole life, that I
Speaker 1: had grown up with, some stopped talking to me. Neighbors
Speaker 1: stopped interacting with me, store owners turned their backs on me.
Speaker 1: My kids were called names going to school unless you
Speaker 1: were there. It's surely kind of hardly explained what that
Speaker 1: was like. You can imagine that this must have been
Speaker 1: a lonely time. Denny was a whistleblower, but no one
Speaker 1: was exactly impressed by his bravery, the ripple effects to
Speaker 1: what it did to his wife, his kids, and then
Speaker 1: of course there was his job. Over the past few years,
Speaker 1: Judge Thattford had at least publicly supported Denny's push for
Speaker 1: a new juvenile detention center. So when Judge Thetford found
Speaker 1: out that his subordinate went over his own head after
Speaker 1: he stuck his neck out for him, he was furious.
Speaker 1: The day after the lawsuit was filed, Judge Thattford sent
Speaker 1: Denny a letter, and in it he claimed that Denny
Speaker 1: never told him how bad things were at Mount Meg's,
Speaker 1: but he wasn't embarrassed or regretful, And for someone who
Speaker 1: supposedly just found out about the abuse that these kids suffered,
Speaker 1: he didn't mention them once. Instead, he made it clear
Speaker 1: that whatever connection the two of them had was gone.
Speaker 1: In that letter, Betford said, as you know, over the
Speaker 1: years since I have been judge of this court, I've
Speaker 1: depended upon your integrity, trust and ability. Filing a suit
Speaker 1: in federal court without my knowledge is a distinct betrayal
Speaker 1: of that trust and of the court for whom you work.
Speaker 1: He calmed into his office, I think the next day
Speaker 1: of when he found out about it, and he was
Speaker 1: irate that I had done that, and he said, you know,
Speaker 1: you've betrayed my trust. And I said, well, I might
Speaker 1: have betrayed your trust. I don't think I've betrayed the
Speaker 1: trust of the kids I'm supposed to be trying to help.
Speaker 1: But he suspended me for my job for fifteen days,
Speaker 1: a fifteen days suspension without pay for in subordination. It
Speaker 1: was eventually reduced to ten. Now you may be wondering
Speaker 1: why Thoughtford didn't just fire Denny, and the answer is
Speaker 1: that legally he couldn't. Denny did not serve at the
Speaker 1: pleasure of any judge, and so Thutford didn't have the power,
Speaker 1: but he was trying to get it. Later, when the
Speaker 1: county granted their annual merit raises, Denny was the only
Speaker 1: person not to get one. Look, it could have been worse.
Speaker 1: We know what happened to people, particularly black people, who
Speaker 1: were willing to fight for equality under the law. Denny's
Speaker 1: house wasn't bombed, he wasn't shot or killed, and in fact,
Speaker 1: the five juveniles who were listed in the lawsuit were
Speaker 1: probably at much greater risk than he was. But still,
Speaker 1: things in Denny's personal and professional lives weren't exactly great.
Speaker 1: But the case, on the other hand, the case was
Speaker 1: going about as well as it possibly could, thanks to
Speaker 1: two strokes of luck. The first was that the case
Speaker 1: ended up in the docket of none other than Judge
Speaker 1: Frank Johnson. There was no Alabama courtroom more willing to
Speaker 1: consider the plight of black children than his, and as
Speaker 1: we mentioned before, Judge Johnson knew something about being a pariah. Still,
Speaker 1: there was a long way to go between just filing
Speaker 1: the case and actually winning it. Then, thankfully, the second
Speaker 1: lucky thing happened. Our later became the US Attorney for
Speaker 1: the Middle District of Alabama. This meant that Ira Dement
Speaker 1: became the head of the Federal prosecutor's office in the
Speaker 1: heart of Alabama. It's hard to explain just how important
Speaker 1: this was. Ira goes from just being one of the
Speaker 1: only progressive lawyers in Alabama to being one of the
Speaker 1: most powerful law enforcement officials in the state. He went
Speaker 1: from being one guy fighting the state of Alabama to
Speaker 1: being a prosecutor with the weight of the entire federal
Speaker 1: government behind him fighting the state of Alabama. Plus simply
Speaker 1: getting a job like this put Ira in his work
Speaker 1: in the national spotlight, and that became its own accelerant.
Speaker 1: It greatly increased the chance that the kids at Mount
Speaker 1: Meg's would get some genuine attention. The facts of the
Speaker 1: case hadn't changed at all, but the calculus shifted significantly,
Speaker 1: and his new job made way for another remarkable shift
Speaker 1: in the case. Suddenly, federal authorities set their sights on
Speaker 1: this lawsuit against Mount Megs. So after I became United
Speaker 1: States Attorney, I interflated the United States and requested that
Speaker 1: the Civil Rights Division in the FBI would come involved.
Speaker 1: When the FBI came down to the school to observe,
Speaker 1: they saw evidence of the cruelty that Denny and Ira
Speaker 1: had reported. Here's what one instructor of Mount Meg's told
Speaker 1: the FBI during an interview. I have observed numerous beatings
Speaker 1: to inmates with both fan belts and broomsticks on almost
Speaker 1: a daily occasion. Inmates would receive these beatings for such
Speaker 1: things as being late to dinner, being noisy in the
Speaker 1: mess hall, attempts to escape. Meanwhile, Holloway is not happy
Speaker 1: about these FBI agents sniffing around looking into how he
Speaker 1: runs the school. In May of nineteen sixty nine, he
Speaker 1: wrote an indignant letter to the governor complaining. In it,
Speaker 1: he said, one of the agents told me that I
Speaker 1: was not to question the students about what they had
Speaker 1: talked about, or punish or intimidate the students in any
Speaker 1: way because they had talked to the FBI. He lamented
Speaker 1: that after the FBI left, he had more pushback from
Speaker 1: the students. In August of nineteen sixty nine, a seventeen
Speaker 1: year old girl at Mount Meg's named Diane allegedly went
Speaker 1: to Fanny's room and told her, I came up here
Speaker 1: to kill you. I'm tired of messing with you. And
Speaker 1: in the courtroom, Diane's story was completely different from Fanny's.
Speaker 1: Court officials determined that Diane had definitely been beaten before.
Speaker 1: She had bruises on the backs of her legs and
Speaker 1: around her shoulders and other scars from previous injury. Fanny
Speaker 1: said all of those might have happened in the tussle,
Speaker 1: but child services officials determined that the injury were too
Speaker 1: old for that. Despite clear evidence that Diane had been abused,
Speaker 1: the court punished her instead of Fanny. The juvenile court judge,
Speaker 1: none other than William Thetford, ordered Diane to be tried
Speaker 1: as an adult. She got sentenced to six months an
Speaker 1: adult jail for battery, knocked down from a charge of
Speaker 1: attempted murder. Meanwhile, Superintendent Holloway was starting to get a
Speaker 1: little nervous. He wrote a letter that really stuck with
Speaker 1: me to one state official in November of nineteen sixty nine.
Speaker 1: It seems as if everyone is out to get me,
Speaker 1: and as using every means possible to do so, he wrote,
Speaker 1: After twenty three years of hard, honest work here, I
Speaker 1: would like to remain until I have reached age sixty five,
Speaker 1: but due to the pressure and strain of this year's work,
Speaker 1: I find it impossible to go on much longer. He said,
Speaker 1: I am confident that I have done my best. A
Speaker 1: month later, a number of people, including Superintendent Holloway, Fanny Matthews,
Speaker 1: and Tom Glover, were subpoena, but after searching all the
Speaker 1: material we had and visiting several archives, we were only
Speaker 1: able to find Holloway's deposition. It was December nineteen sixty nine,
Speaker 1: almost a year after the lawsuit had been filed. Holloway
Speaker 1: was careful about what he would share on the record,
Speaker 1: but even the little he said made it clear that
Speaker 1: the kids were being worked half to death. He said
Speaker 1: he had them working fifteen hundred acres milking thirty five
Speaker 1: cows a day. And then the lawyer doing the deposition,
Speaker 1: a lawyer for the Department of Justice, He started questioning
Speaker 1: Holloway about the abuse. The lawyer asked if mister Glover
Speaker 1: had a paddle, and Holloway said, I'm sure he has one.
Speaker 1: He told the lawyer that six months prior, he'd started
Speaker 1: a discipline committee to cut down on corporal punishment. He
Speaker 1: said it was only then that they stopped just letting
Speaker 1: anybody just punish a boy for just any little thing. Now,
Speaker 1: he said, boys will be brought in for fighting. We
Speaker 1: give them five licks, that's all. The lawyers never brought
Speaker 1: up fan belts. Nobody asked Holloway why he and his
Speaker 1: co workers beat kids until they poured blood or passed out.
Speaker 1: There were no questions about the sexual abuse, and nobody
Speaker 1: mentioned the rock pile. The case was national news now,
Speaker 1: which was bad news for the state of Alabama. According
Speaker 1: to Denny, state officials were doing all that they could
Speaker 1: to avoid this case going to trial, which would surely
Speaker 1: be both embarrassing and expensive. As the case carried on,
Speaker 1: Superintendent EB Holloway fulfilled his promise. He retired in May
Speaker 1: of nineteen seventy for quote unquote health reasons, and he
Speaker 1: wasn't the first one to leave. Within days of her deposition,
Speaker 1: Matron Fanny Matthews resigned in left Mount Megs. After Superintendent
Speaker 1: Holloway left Mount Megs, the State of Alabama asked J. B.
Speaker 1: Hill to come on board. J B was the former
Speaker 1: superintendent of the other industrial school, the one for white boys.
Speaker 1: He believed the situation at Mount Meg's was so dire
Speaker 1: that he came out of his retirement to take the job.
Speaker 1: He was the first white superintendent at Mount Meg's. Right
Speaker 1: off the bat, Superintendent Hill asked to look over the
Speaker 1: school's financial records, and he learned that there weren't any
Speaker 1: no budgets, no ledger book, nothing. He looked everywhere, and
Speaker 1: all he found was thirty five thousand dollars and unpaid bills,
Speaker 1: but no cash to pay them. He had to write
Speaker 1: the governor and ask for money to pay off the debts. J. B.
Speaker 1: Hill opped all the abuse and stopped the farming program
Speaker 1: and the higher staff that will compliment and could deliver
Speaker 1: programs because the federal court had said these are things
Speaker 1: you're going to do. There were more changes too. The
Speaker 1: most dilapidated living quarters were torn down, all the girls
Speaker 1: were transferred to other schools, and most importantly, new guidelines
Speaker 1: for corporal punishment were introduced. For a year, Judge Johnson
Speaker 1: monitored Mount Megs, holding the possibility of a trial over
Speaker 1: the heads of the board, the administrators, and the state
Speaker 1: if they didn't address the problems at the school, But
Speaker 1: by nineteen seventy one he'd seen enough improvement to issue
Speaker 1: a final ruling that July, more than two years after
Speaker 1: Denny filed suit, Judge Johnson ruled for the children of
Speaker 1: Mount Megs. His final judgment stated explicitly that the school
Speaker 1: had to stop overcrowding, employ a social worker, and provide
Speaker 1: real medical care. He also said that the farming program
Speaker 1: had to be limited and that most forms of corporal
Speaker 1: punishment were no longer permitted at Mount Meg's. And seventeen
Speaker 1: years after Brown v. Board, he ordered the desegregation of
Speaker 1: the Alabama Industrial School for Negro children. Now it was
Speaker 1: just the Alabama Industrial School. We had integrated training schools
Speaker 1: that made things better for everybody. I got a lot
Speaker 1: of letters of support from people who started look at
Speaker 1: things a little differently. And yet you can see how
Speaker 1: even this ruling left the door open for some of
Speaker 1: the same harm that had always existed at Mount Meg's.
Speaker 1: The worst parts of Mount Megs were given permission to continue,
Speaker 1: just in a limited capacity. Boys could still be forced
Speaker 1: to farm as long as it was consistent with the
Speaker 1: school's vocational and training prom Corporal punishment was still allowed,
Speaker 1: but the order stated only with a prescribed paddle. The
Speaker 1: order was limited and the law was too. Once the
Speaker 1: federal case ended, so did the constant oversight, and that
Speaker 1: meant there was still room for kids to fall through
Speaker 1: the cracks despite its limitations. Judge Johnson's ruling was a
Speaker 1: watershed moment for Mount Meg's, but even after the ruling,
Speaker 1: Denny was still hearing new stories of children who had
Speaker 1: been mistreated and abused at Mount Meg's. And then in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two, Denny stumbled across the name of a
Speaker 1: boy named Emmett Player. Five years before, back in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty seven, Emmett Player had been a ten year old
Speaker 1: kid who didn't seem to have anywhere to go. His
Speaker 1: mom had recently died, his dad was in prison. So
Speaker 1: without a sentencing, without a social worker, without any judicial
Speaker 1: oversight whatsoever, they put ten year old Emmett in a
Speaker 1: car and they drove him to Mount Meg's. Law does
Speaker 1: not permit that. The law said kids had to be
Speaker 1: at least twelve, but many who were sent to Mount
Speaker 1: Megs were Emmett's age or younger. Even Lonnie went there
Speaker 1: when he was just eleven. Plus, Emmett had been placed
Speaker 1: at Mount Megs without being charged or seeing a judge.
Speaker 1: Emmett had done nothing except be a black dependent child,
Speaker 1: and he stayed there five years. So Denny decided to
Speaker 1: try to help Emmett. But he realized that Mount Meg's
Speaker 1: wasn't the only culprit here. I quickly learned that the
Speaker 1: homes for dependent children were run primarily by church groups.
Speaker 1: I applied to each and every one of them for Emmett,
Speaker 1: and each and every one of them him refuses because
Speaker 1: of his black Denny and Irish suit may have integrated
Speaker 1: all the juvenile detention facilities in Alabama, but Judge Johnson's
Speaker 1: ruling in that case didn't say anything about the integration
Speaker 1: of church homes. So that's why I ran into Howard Mandel.
Speaker 1: That's Howard Mandel, the young lawyer from the beginning of
Speaker 1: this episode. By nineteen seventy two, he'd finished his clerkship
Speaker 1: with Judge Johnson and was one of those handful of
Speaker 1: civil rights lawyers in Alabama. So there's a term used
Speaker 1: after the Civil War, still used by Southern whites. You
Speaker 1: were either a scalawag or carpet bagger. I was a carpetbagger,
Speaker 1: you know. I was this liberal Jewish kid coming down
Speaker 1: from the North and here I am in Montgomery, Alabama,
Speaker 1: doing my thing, and I'm going to file civil rights cases.
Speaker 1: Denny was worse in the eyes because he's a scalawag.
Speaker 1: He is a local boy, a local boy who was
Speaker 1: defying the old guard, the scalo wag and the harpetbagger,
Speaker 1: and they had a plan. So I saw this as
Speaker 1: more than just Emmett player. This was a class action
Speaker 1: that we would be filed. I said, you know, here,
Speaker 1: we go down this road again, but we have to
Speaker 1: do it. So we filed a second federal court class
Speaker 1: action lawsuit in nineteen seventy two, and we suited all
Speaker 1: the Methodists, and all the Baptists, and all the Presbyterians,
Speaker 1: and all the sheriffs at the State of Alabama all
Speaker 1: be half of and I think Kid's life. During the
Speaker 1: first suit almost four years prior, Denny was mostly focused
Speaker 1: on just one institution, Mount Megs. But this time he's
Speaker 1: going after churches. There's no question it's going to make
Speaker 1: a lot of people upset. On Friday, November seventeenth, nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy two, Denny and Howard filed their suit, and on
Speaker 1: Monday that word summoned Denny to come to his office.
Speaker 1: Denny entered while Thetford was dictating a letter to his secretary,
Speaker 1: Dear mister Abbott, that bird saught out loud, ignoring Denny,
Speaker 1: but clearly intending him to hear. Within the past month,
Speaker 1: I instructed you that there were to be no suits
Speaker 1: filed by any personnel of the Montgomery County youth facilities
Speaker 1: without my prior knowledge and approval. This discharge is effective immediately, yours,
Speaker 1: very truly William f Thetford and the next morning I
Speaker 1: get up and get the Montgomery Advertised, which is a
Speaker 1: local paper, headlines front page. Denny appot fire not something
Speaker 1: you want to start your day with. He could not
Speaker 1: tolerate Denny's and ursuing the State of Alabama and all
Speaker 1: these children's homes. He was not going to buckcause he
Speaker 1: had to face his friends at the country club. Now,
Speaker 1: technically Betford still didn't have the power to fire Denny,
Speaker 1: so once he did, Denny sued him. So Jenny was
Speaker 1: entangled in two lawsuits at the same time. As for
Speaker 1: the suit against both church and state. The good news
Speaker 1: was Judge Johnson got randomly assigned to this new case
Speaker 1: as well, but that didn't make it easy. Pretty quickly
Speaker 1: the case devolved into a standoff. I did have a
Speaker 1: conversation with the head of the one of the heads
Speaker 1: of the welfare department, and she said to me, Howard,
Speaker 1: you know they're not going to settle the head people.
Speaker 1: They got their marching orders, and that marching orders is segregation.
Speaker 1: Now in segregation forever about a year after the case
Speaker 1: was filed, Howard was reading through the minutes of one
Speaker 1: Methodist church's board meeting in Bradley, Alabama. They'd had a
Speaker 1: board meeting and the topic was should we settle this
Speaker 1: case or not? What would God want us to do?
Speaker 1: Kind of thing. So they decided to take a vote.
Speaker 1: Method is Children's Home in Selma. So the vote was
Speaker 1: should we continue to segregate or should we agree to integrate?
Speaker 1: And the vote was thirteen to thirteen. The vote was tied.
Speaker 1: That means the chairperson of the board had to vote
Speaker 1: as a tiebreaker, and he said, I'm not ready to
Speaker 1: vote yet, and they said, what do you mean. He says,
Speaker 1: I need to pray about this. He stepped outside and
Speaker 1: went to the chapel alone. He came back fifteen minutes later.
Speaker 1: Everyone's waiting and he says, I prayed about this, and
Speaker 1: what I feel is that I'm voting to integrade. I
Speaker 1: think that's the lesson you learned is that people aren't bad,
Speaker 1: necessarily bad. They grow up in a certain culture and
Speaker 1: that's all they know and they but then he was
Speaker 1: called upon just like Denny was. I think that's the
Speaker 1: thing is when you're called upon, how are you going
Speaker 1: to respond? Everyone doesn't have to be a civil rights
Speaker 1: lawyer kind of you live your life, and Denny led
Speaker 1: his life and he had his family. But when he
Speaker 1: was called upon, he stepped forward. That's I think as
Speaker 1: a real lesson. I was always impressed by that he
Speaker 1: did something he didn't have to do. Howard maybe right
Speaker 1: that a few people did the right thing. But what
Speaker 1: sticks with me when I hear this story is how
Speaker 1: much luck was involved from start to finish, not just
Speaker 1: with this case, but with the first case too. A
Speaker 1: judge like Judge Johnson had to exist in Alabama and
Speaker 1: had to have both cases randomly assigned to him. Ira
Speaker 1: and Howard had to be willing to help. The federal
Speaker 1: government had to get involved, Denny had to take a chance,
Speaker 1: and the chairperson had to vote yes. Howard sees this
Speaker 1: as a story about humans willing to do the right thing,
Speaker 1: but I mostly see it as a story of luck
Speaker 1: and the end result. Like the first suit, this case
Speaker 1: doesn't go to trial, but it was a long haul.
Speaker 1: Howard pushing bit by bit, following up every loose end,
Speaker 1: meeting every piece of resistance. Eventually, Johnson ruled that the
Speaker 1: state of Alabama had to provide black children access to
Speaker 1: the same state run care as white ones. We were
Speaker 1: thrilled because again, not only had we reformed the juvenile
Speaker 1: justice system, in my opinion, now we had reformed the
Speaker 1: child welfare system for dependent children as well. I mean
Speaker 1: they were being abused too. We felt like we had
Speaker 1: made major accomplishments in Alabama to get justice for black kids.
Speaker 1: Denny was right that it was a step forward, but
Speaker 1: the ruling applied only to state run homes, not private ones,
Speaker 1: and that meant that church homes were exempt from Johnson's ruling.
Speaker 1: Eventually they did desegregate, but not right away. I think
Speaker 1: they were embarrassed. But these are children, that's what always,
Speaker 1: you know. And to take a ten year old like
Speaker 1: Emmett Player and say to him, you have to go
Speaker 1: to Mountain Meggs, even though you've never done anything wrong.
Speaker 1: With all the problems Mountain Eggs had. The Welfare department
Speaker 1: found Emmett's father in prison, and when they talked with him,
Speaker 1: they found out that Emma had an aunt in a
Speaker 1: little community called Silicaga and she was willing to take
Speaker 1: him in. And Howard, well, he had plenty of other
Speaker 1: cases to get to it's like trying to cut a
Speaker 1: field of kudzu with a hand sickle that's fifty acres square.
Speaker 1: The problems was so overwhelming that I think you do
Speaker 1: what you do not because you hope to make significant change,
Speaker 1: but because that's just who you are, and that's what
Speaker 1: your expectations off of how you live your life. And
Speaker 1: then there was Denny. He lost that wrongful termination lawsuit
Speaker 1: against Thattford, and he couldn't find a job anywhere in
Speaker 1: the state of Alabama. So he started applying to jobs
Speaker 1: across the country. He even scored a recommendation from Senator
Speaker 1: Ted Kennedy. But nobody wanted to hire a guy who
Speaker 1: was such a squeaky wheel, a robble rouser, a guy
Speaker 1: who had sued his own job twice. They said, here's
Speaker 1: a crazy person. He sued his own state in federal
Speaker 1: court twice. We don't want him here in Virginia or
Speaker 1: Texas or wherever I was. So I went for almost
Speaker 1: a year without meaningful employment. I had a friend who
Speaker 1: had a bumper recrowmbing shop, and he let me come
Speaker 1: into his store, deliver some bumpers from him, put up
Speaker 1: stock in his shelves, clean his bathrooms, sweep the hallways,
Speaker 1: which I did, and most importantly, after the lawsuits were settled,
Speaker 1: what happened to the thousands of kids who had been
Speaker 1: sent to Mount Meg's. I'm looka what happened half towards
Speaker 1: I don't you know? There's suchompdis in male marriage. There's
Speaker 1: nothing compared to to after Man the Maumee. On our
Speaker 1: next episode, we look at some of the children who
Speaker 1: were sent to Mount Meg's and later as adults, cycled
Speaker 1: in and out of prison. Some were even sentenced to
Speaker 1: life in prison or worse, sentenced to death Unreformed. The
Speaker 1: Story of the Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children is
Speaker 1: a production of School of Humans and iHeartMedia. This episode
Speaker 1: was written by Me, Josie Duffie, Rice and Taylor von Leslie.
Speaker 1: Our script supervisors Florence Burrow Adams, and our producer is
Speaker 1: Gabbi Watts, who had additional writing and production support from
Speaker 1: Sherry Scott. Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Elsie Crowley, Brandon
Speaker 1: barrmt Arnett, and Me. Sound design and is by Jesse Niswanger.
Speaker 1: Music is by Ben Soli. Additional recordings are courtesy of
Speaker 1: the Alabama Center for traditional culture. This song featured in
Speaker 1: this episode is Alabama Boogie by Johnny Lee, adapting with
Speaker 1: drums and percussion by Jordan Ellis. William Thattford was voiced
Speaker 1: by Van Gutter. Special thanks to the Alabama Department of
Speaker 1: Archives in history, Michael Harriet, Cloyd Hall, Kevin Nutt, Van Newkirk,
Speaker 1: and all of the survivors of Mount Meg's willing to
Speaker 1: share their stories. Additional thanks to Danny Abbott and Douglas
Speaker 1: Collegian for the use of their book They Had No Voice,
Speaker 1: My Fight for Alabama's Forgotten Children. If you enjoyed this episode,
Speaker 1: please leave us a rating and review wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts. If you are someone you know attended Mount
Speaker 1: Megs and would like to be in contact, please email
Speaker 1: Mountmegs Podcast at gmail dot com. That's Mt m e
Speaker 1: Igs Podcast at gmail dot com. School of Humans