Auburn Prison and the Murder that Shocked America with Robin Bernstein

Professor Robin Bernstein discusses her book, Freeman’s Challenge: The Murder that Shook America's Original Prison For Profit. Auburn Prison in Upstate New York was designed to be a factory prison, incorporating the area's major industry into its walls. Through harsh conditions, solitary and silent confinement, and constant violence, the inmates' lives were desolate ones of hard labor. Enter William Freeman who was convicted of a horse theft he insisted he did not commit. He suffered greatly in Auburn and was rendered deaf and brain damaged after being beaten by a guard. After his release, Freeman committed a murder that terrified white America. The trial the followed helped create the founding myth of inherent Black criminality. William Freeman’s unforgettable story reveals how the North invented prison for profit half a century before the Thirteenth Amendment outlawed slavery “except as a punishment for crime”
Robin Bernstein is the Dillon Professor of American History and professor of African and African American studies and studies of women, gender, and sexuality at Harvard University. She is the author of Racial Innocence: Performing American Childhood from Slavery to Civil Rights.
---
The Cleveland Heights-University Heights Library's 1619 Project discussion group meets every second Thursday of the month. We discuss how the legacy of slavery remains a dominant factor of American political, cultural, and social spheres. The library program centers on the articles included in the New York Times Special Sunday Magazine dated August 20, 2019.
The program began in October 2019 and has had over 500 people participate. All interviews done by John Piche'.
For upcoming programs, additional readings, and resource lists please visit Heights Library's 1619 Project Discussion page heightslibrary.org/services/1...
#1619Project #slavery #1619Projectdiscussion #1619
Music by Controller 7
controller7.bandcamp.com/