It Could Happen Here - The Forgotten History of the Old Atlanta Prison Farm: Part Three

Episode Date: August 12, 2022

This episode we discuss the question of unmarked grave sites at the Old Prison Farm property, and propose methods of carrying out further historical research.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by

an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. Welcome to Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get real and dive straight into todo lo actual y viral. We're talking musica, los premios, el chisme, and all things trending in my cultura. I'm bringing you all the latest happening in our entertainment world and some fun and impactful interviews with your favorite Latin artists, comedians, actors, and influencers. Each week, we get deep and raw life stories, combos on the issues that matter to us, and it's all packed with gems, fun, straight-up comedia,

and that's a song that only Nuestra Gente can sprinkle. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome. This is It Could Happen Here, the podcast about how it feels like everything is kind of falling apart and maybe what we can do to put stuff back together. I'm Garrison Davis, your host for this episode, and this is the third and final part of our miniseries on the history of the old Atlanta prison farm, produced in collaboration with the Atlanta Community Press Collective. We're actually going to start this episode with a little update on what's been going on in Atlanta as a part of the Defend the Atlanta Forest and Stop Cop City movement.

Considering the Atlanta Police Foundation's Cop City Project is very much a direct continuation of the authoritarian and carceral oppression of the prison farm that occupied the very same section of land. Here's an audio clip of one of my conversations with members of the Atlantic Community Press Collective from right before the recent July 2022 week of action. And this is about the status of construction on the South River or Willaniani forest so for the past month or so it's kind of been a waiting game like if you refer to the construction timeline that one of our open records requests revealed like construction really should have started in earnest by now like they last time i saw a figure they want to have this open by fall of next year. And they are not on that timeline.

And that's not all necessarily due to the movement. So I think between just the general supply chain havoc that's happening across different industries right now, definitely the construction industry. I think they did mention this during one of the recent community stakeholders, committee meetings, where they were like, oh yeah, by the way, we are kind of having some supply chain issues. In addition to, I don't think APD and the Police Foundation really expected to have any kind of continued resistance on the ground or any kind of continued public bad press. I don't think they thought they passed the legislation and the public would kind of move on. on. Um, cause that's frankly what usually happens when people, when people, when movements that criticize the police happen, they usually get repressed or people's attention turns, turns to other things pretty quickly. We know that they have a, uh, permit for it's what exactly is, it is a permit for is kind of complicated, but one way or another, it enables the police foundation, their contractors and their vendors to construct a temporary construction fence like you would see around a construction site.

And that permit, I believe, expires in August of this year, because that's a temporary permit. But that fence does not seem to have gone up. So it's kind of a stalemate right now. Just five days after the July week of action wrapped, on early Wednesday morning on August 3rd, dozens of work vehicles and police amassed around the forest, staging heavy machinery, setting up roadblocks, and started dismantling barricades in the forest. Sounds of tree cutting could be heard near the occupied Stop Cop City tree sits. Police were initially stalled by the burning of tire barricades near roads, but around 7am, heavy machinery breached the proposed site for Cop City and entered on the north side of the forest.

Excavators cleared barricades and trees were felled near trails, making wider paths into the forest. trails, making wider paths into the forest. DeKalb County police officers accompanied gas pipeline workers who were on the ground adjacent to Entrenchment Creek Park. One arrest was reported. The arrestee was originally being taken straight to jail and then got diverted to police headquarters for questioning, and it was confirmed that FBI was also on the scene. There were no attempts at extraction of tree sitters, and no additional arrests reported that day. The Atlanta Police Foundation's contract workers did substantial forest clearing in an area of the woods near the entrance gate on Key Road, directly adjacent to the existing power line clearing. Much of the surrounding neighborhood was blocked off by the Atlanta Police Department

for most of the day, with no warning given to local residents, many of whom have Stop Cop City yard signs. The work being done along the power line cut is assumed to be either for installing sewer lines and or drilling holes. The presence of Georgia Power suggests that they could have been trying to bore holes to install power lines. The next morning, around 20 cops, some mounted on ATVs, patrolled throughout the forest, possibly looking for rebuilt barricades or to snatch up anyone they found in the area. Ever since then, there's been cops, sometimes on ATVs, spotted multiple times a week in the forest, usually during early in the morning. How much grounds clearing and

pre-construction work was done recently in the forest was slightly surprising, considering the land disturbance permit has not yet been issued, though it is possible that the recent work was covered by existing utility easements or the temporary construction permit that expires later this month that was mainly issued around the goal of putting up a security fence around the forest. And with that, now let's get back to the history of the prison farm. As discussed last episode, overcrowding was one of the initial motivations for proposing to move the Glenwood Stockade prisoners to the dairy farm site, though it was not the final decisive factor because at the time, populations there were dwindling. Several years later, though, Councilman Chosewood was being praised for increasing the

incarcerated population because it brought in more revenue. And several years after that, in 1929, overcrowding at the second stockade on Decatur and Hillard, prompted discussions on expanding the prison farm by bringing in portable buildings from the school board and expanding the woman's prison by 100 feet. A police report from 1936 says, quote, we find that all prisoners have separate quarters which are in sanitary condition but overcrowded. We recommend that another unit be constructed for white female prisoners as well as white male prisoners, unquote. And by 1938, a new wing was completed, housing 75 more prisoners. And another addition of the same size was expected to be added to the main building.

But only five months later, the prison farm's own superintendent again described the conditions there as overcrowded, and recommended another expansion and separate ward for quote-unquote diseased prisoners. In 1939, a proposal to extend the land by 184 acres was protested by DeKalb residents on the basis that it was directly next to a white school and that, quote, further development of penal institutions in that section would destroy the value of surrounding property and preclude the development of a civic center which citizens seek near the west side school grounds, unquote. The plan was abandoned, but later brought up with a compromise in that they would instead only take 134 acres, leaving a 50-acre buffer between the prison farm and the school. In 1944, a new building originally slated to be a medical ward was built,

and as we saw in the healthcare section, this ended up becoming a new prison building. And the old building became the venereal disease hospital. The new building could, quote, house 725 prisoners without crowding them, unquote, and was said to be able to, quote, eliminate long-standing criticism of nearby residents because of escapes from the old, overcrowded, and ill-arranged structure, unquote. In 1946, the city took possession of an additional 89 acres of land for the prison farm. But still, overcrowding was again raised as an issue in 1952, but this time, certain sentences were reduced from 20 days to 10 days to address this problem, constituting the first time a slightly decarceral approach was used. But despite this,

and yet another new wing being built in 1958, a grand jury in 1960 found that the prison farm was, quote-unquote, exceedingly overcrowded, and, quote, as a result, the health of prisoners is jeopardized, unquote. They suggested building a, quote-unquote, work camp to alleviate crowding. Dick Herbert's undercover investigation in 1965 found that men were sleeping on the floor and tables because there was still not enough beds. A quote from Herbert says, So closely packed are the 300 bunks that they are alternated head to foot. In 1967, Atlanta started talking about chronic alcoholism as a health problem rather than one of criminality. However, the assumption was that this was still to be treated by those in charge of the prisons.

Quote, The prison is already crowded, up against its 600-person capacity, said the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. But according to Superintendent Halsey, the conversion to a rehabilitation center would mean longer stays and thus higher populations, stating, quote, they likely will have to build a whole new city prison farm, unquote. A 1976 article from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution says that in 1970, a thousand prisoners were packed in the old building. Inmates slept in rickety beds, three high. Health inspectors and judges cut the population for humanity's sake. It further claimed that the facility was now, quote,

well below its comfortable capacity of 400 prisoners, unquote. In 1974, the Uniform Alcohol Treatment Act was passed, although never fully funded, which effectively decriminalized alcoholism. This act was said to reduce the population of the prison farm from 500 in 1972 to 200 in 1983. Although new laws were passed, further criminalizing certain actions while intoxicated at the behest of the business community who, quote, demanded drunks and winos be removed from the streets, unquote. This era marks the last time the Atlantic community press research found complaints of overcrowding. The lack of further complaints strongly suggests that decriminalization

is a better answer to the problem of overcrowding rather than prison expansion. It's also necessary to mention that alleviating the problem 50 years into the project does not make up for the unnecessary harm and death likely caused by these conditions over the years. As we went over last episode, overcrowding of jails remains a problem in our modern jails and prisons. Currently, the Fulton County Sheriff wants the Atlanta City Government to abandon their promise of closing a city jail and instead rent the jail to Fulton County to alleviate overcrowding in their system. This is billed as a humanitarian move, but as we've discussed in the past few episodes, history suggests otherwise, and the most successful way at reducing harm

was decarceral approaches. Welcome, I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures.

Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of Michael Duda Podcast Network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals.

cruising confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Hola mi gente, it's Honey German, and I'm bringing you Gracias, Come Again, the podcast where we dive deep into the world of Latin culture, musica, peliculas, and entertainment with some of the biggest names in the game. If you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities, artists, and culture shifters, this is the podcast for you. We're talking real conversations with our Latin stars, from actors and artists to musicians and creators,

sharing their stories, struggles, and successes. You know it's going to be filled with chisme laughs and all the vibes that you love. Each week, we'll explore everything from music and pop culture to deeper topics like identity, community, and breaking down barriers in all sorts of industries. Don't miss out on the fun, el té caliente, and life stories. Join me for Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get into todo lo actual y viral. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season

digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists to leading journalists in the field, and I'll be digging into why the products you love

keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough.

So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. Complaints about poor sanitation and malnutrition also span the prison farm's history. Combined with the previously detailed conditions, these would further increase the likelihood of sickness and

death within the prison farm walls. Prisoners in 1938 complained that, quote, a silver dollar would cover each particle of food given to prisoners, and asked for, quote, more vegetables and less sorghum, unquote. In 1941, during a tense meeting in which DeKalb tried unsuccessfully to prevent Atlanta from expanding the prison farm, a DeKalb resident said that the farm was without sanitary facilities, despite frequent assurances that the facility was clean. However, work was temporarily abandoned on that expansion after DeKalb County citizens sought and obtained an injunction against the city of Atlanta for dumping untreated sewage into Entrenchment Creek. There is a large gap in reporting on these particular conditions,

but there's evidence that they persisted, because in 1960, the DeKalb ground jury found that, quote, restrooms were deplorable in both white and Negro wards, unquote, and that the kitchen floor was, quote unquote, in a deplorable state and should be replaced. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's own inspection curiously concluded that the farm was, quote, operated very efficiently and with good sanitary conditions, unquote, but just two years later, Dick Herbert's undercover work as a prisoner showed quite the contrary. He found puddles of spit at drainage grills, wondered if many of the men had tuberculosis, and said that, quote, it was not uncommon to find dead bugs or hair in food. The rusty, dirty tins we drank out of should be replaced, unquote. Herbert also mentioned that, quote,

the food was almost entirely a thin and liquid diet. And also said that inmates often complained that the best of the farm's produce and meats are reserved for the guards and hired help. And just a reminder that they themselves worked to grow all that produce. A prisoner named Carl H., sent to the prison farm in 1968 on a public drunkenness charge, said after five days at the facility, quote, I've had one half of a meal since I've been here, unquote. Apparently, by this time, local court rulings had determined that chronic alcoholics could no longer be arrested on these charges, but the judge claimed,

quote, I'm doing it from a humanitarian standpoint, whether it's legal or not, unquote. Carl said of that matter that the judge, quote, told me that he was going to save my life. I told him he can't save my life out there to save my life. I told him he can't save my life out there at the stockade. I told him he can send me anywhere, but not the stockade. He can't save my life out there, unquote. This was three years after Superintendent Holsey was praised for his reforms and interviewed by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution saying, quote, I'm just trying to make this place sanitary and livable for these people, unquote. On two occasions in 1969, the vast majority of prisoners went on strike due to poor food.

The first time, they demanded a raise for the cook and the hiring of a new cook. But four months later, these conditions, which were agreed to, to end the strike, had still not been met. Prison farm administrators once again promised to raise cook wages and hire a new cook to end the strike, but we have no indication that they ever followed through on that. An Atlanta Journal-Constitution article from 1970 states that prisoners were working in the kitchen while infected with tuberculosis. Quote, one man was sent to Batty State Hospital after it was found his tuberculosis was so advanced that he started hemorrhaging. He had worked in the kitchen the night before,

unquote. When asked about this, the prison department administrator, R.F. Jordan, said that some prisoners do have tuberculosis and yes, quote, some of them work in the kitchen, but only if their case is arrested, unquote. Employees protesting discrimination against black employees at the farm and unfair and illegal incarceration of alcoholics also said that, quote, there are rats and roaches and filth that you wouldn't believe, unquote. In 1971, the prison farm was found to be serving food illegally without a license, but health officials complained that there were only two of them for the entire multi-county district, and they had no means of actually enforcing licenses or food safety. Just one month later, prisoners again went on strike due to being served watered-down gravy and being unjustly incarcerated for alcoholism.

Reports on conditions are few and far between after this period, but the 1982 ACLU lawsuit claimed, among other things, that the conditions at the facility are unsanitary. There is most likely more information to find between these years. As one prison farm worker said, quote, we used to have strikes out here about every month, sometimes two or three a month, unquote. In 1983, Superintendent Hudson, once hailed as the great humanitarian reformer, was replaced after, quote, complaints from employees and city politicians about his handling of the city jail, its employees, and prisoners. Hudson said of the criticism, quote, I get bored when there aren't any problems. Serenity's not my thing, unquote. A big focus of the research that the Atlantic Community Press did was on the question of unmarked graves at the prison farm site.

There are persistent folk stories about these that may be tempting for some to write off as unfounded rumors. However, oral histories and qualitative interviews need to be taken seriously and considered alongside other forms of evidence. Some stories have already been substantiated, and for others, the evidence found so far certainly places them within the realm of possibility. This episode, I'm not going to try to prove without a shadow of a doubt that there are unmarked graves on the property that is slated to become Cop City, but I will discuss documentation that shows that there are unmarked graves on the property that is slated to become Cop City. But I will discuss documentation that shows that there is a strong possibility that needs to be carefully and fully investigated, regardless of how long it takes to do so properly. To start, there is this

quote from an Atlanta Journal Constitution piece from 1976, quote, Maud, the deceased elephant, and 280 inmates rest in peace at the City of Atlanta prison farm, unquote. Now, I'm going to unpack that one at a time, because there's a lot there. The elephant, Maud, was the former zoo elephant that died and whose corpse was dumped at the prison farm property by the city. And as for the line about 280 buried inmates, there's no other details given in the article, and some researchers suspect that this is some kind of sick, sarcastic joke on the newspaper's part, as the rest of the article attempts to paint life at the prison farm as one of leisure and respite. According to local folk historian Scott Peterson, there is, however, a known burial ground off of Boulder Crest and Key

Road that contains both marked and unmarked graves that was once owned and operated by the prison farm. Now, to be perfectly clear, this burial ground is not on the current property slated to become Cop City. The section of land that was originally the prison farm has been divided up into many smaller pieces, a few hundred acres of which the Atlanta Police Foundation is trying to turn into the new militarized police training compound. However, the burial site that Scott Peterson talks about does tell us that A, that there is some truth behind at least some of the folk stories, and B, the prison farm as a whole contained at least

some unmarked graves, which leads us to believe that there could be others throughout the property, and that other claims are at least worth taking seriously. When the Atlanta Community Press was doing the bulk of their historical research last year, they attempted to find death and burial records for inmates that died while incarcerated at the prison farm. Through archival digging, select inmate death and burial records for inmates that died while incarcerated at the prison farm. Through archival digging, select inmate death and burial records were found. Simply via public reporting, we know for certain that at least several deaths occurred in very close timespans. One man was sprayed with an insecticide, which the warden denies, but which the attending nurse and those who sprayed

the man corroborate. Samuel Bayon's 36-year-old black man, quote-unquote, dropped dead shortly after a patrolman woke him up to get dressed. Mark Isaiah Willem died after, quote-unquote, becoming sick. An Atlanta Daily World headline reads, quote, coroner's jury will probe death of prisoner. Brown urges full investigation. And that's dated from 1953 on April 14th. Robert Reynolds, a 49-year-old black man, died from head injuries prompting an investigation. And in reference to Reynolds, Charlie Brown, a 1953 mayoral candidate, declared, quote, approximately 10 prisoners have died in the jail in the last four years under mysterious circumstances, unquote. Despite these known deaths, finding official records listing either deaths or burials at the site was much more difficult.

On top of searching through several archives, researchers sent Georgia Open Records Act requests to the police department, the Department of Corrections, and the Atlanta City Council. The police department said that the records would be in the custody of the Department of Corrections. The police department said that the records would be in the custody of the Department of Corrections. However, the Department of Corrections stated that they are not and never were the custodians of such records. The Atlantic City Council replied to requests by sending the inaccurate Jillian Wooten history report, but also connected researchers with a historian. Serena McCracken of the Atlanta History Center has said that there's a possibility such records simply do not exist, either that they were never kept in the first place due to laws at the time, or that they were destroyed at some point, either due to negligence or an expiring

period of retention. There is also the possibility that these records do exist and simply have not been yet found. They could have been misfiled, or requests could have been sent to the wrong agency, or they could just be sitting in a box of mildewing records still on the land today, as so many other records were when the city finally shut down the site, many of which are now lost forever in the ensuing fires and other ravages of time. In the Georgia Archives file on the prison farm, a memo was discovered describing procedures for the death of inmates. The memo says that upon a prisoner's death, their nearest kin should be notified. If the body is not claimed, quote,

then the body shall be given a pauper's burial not to exceed $50, unquote. Such burials don't always include a headstone, but rather a marker or a burial flag which can easily erode away or become invisible over time. Not all unmarked graves on the site necessarily exist within a traditional grave plot. According to Scott Peterson, who's collected folk stories and oral histories about the land for 20 years, there is another plot next to an old oak tree and sunken-in structure that was once used to shade the warden during lynchings. This would, of course, be not legal, but as we've talked about, legality does not always dictate the behaviors of prison farm wardens, and there are records of cases of runaways at other prison farms that were later discovered to have been killed and buried on site. As such, these claims are not outside the bounds

of possibility, and if anything, are highly likely. There are also many similarities between the conditions at the prison farm and those of the Brandon Indian Residential School that would lead to the need to bury many bodies without necessarily keeping tight records. Catherine Nichols' thesis details a history of airborne diseases aggravated by factors such as poor sanitation and ventilation, lack of medical attention, malnutrition, violence and abuse, overwork and accidents, and harsh punishment of runaways, all of which are also seen throughout the prison farm's history. I don't want to draw too tight a comparison between the prison farm and other places and other events. It is worth looking at other similar situations as something that shows that the question of unmarked graves is not unfounded nor uncharacteristic of the institutions

of the time. presented by I Heart and Sonorum, an anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time.

Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions

will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday.

Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel winning economists to leading journalists in the field, and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep

getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough, so join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. And I'm bringing you Gracias, Come Again, the podcast where we dive deep into the world of Latin culture, musica, peliculas, and entertainment with some of the biggest names in the game. If you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities, artists, and culture shifters,

this is the podcast for you. We're talking real conversations with our Latin stars, from actors and artists to musicians and creators, sharing their stories, struggles, and successes. You know it's going to be filled with chisme laughs and all the vibes that you love. Each week, we'll explore everything from music and pop culture to deeper topics like identity, community, and breaking down barriers in all sorts of industries. Don't miss out on the fun, el té caliente, and life stories.

Join me for Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get into todo lo actual y viral. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. several other instances where institutions with similar conditions were later found to have unmarked graves, burial grounds, or other human remains. Human remains in Sugar Land, Texas, near the old Imperial Prison Farm there, were found to have, quote, belong to prisoners who worked on the land once used as a sugar plantation, unquote. An article from the Tyler Morning Telegraph describes life of physical abuse, forced labor, and poor nutrition, much like the prison farm in Atlanta. Similarly to Atlanta, quote, it wasn't until it became clear

that these abuses were widespread and affecting white prisoners that public opinion started to In Arkansas in 1968, a reformist superintendent of Cummins Prison Farm discovered the remains of three former prisoners. His discovery, quote, made international news, embarrassed Governor Winthrop Rockefeller, and infuriated conservative politicians. It also led to Martin's firing and banishment from the field of prison management, unquote. Finally, although the Brandon Indian Residential School was not a prison farm, archival research points to conditions for the prisoners held at the Atlanta Prison Farm that are not dissimilar

from the conditions of the children held at the Brandon Indian Residential School. We see lacking health care, poor sanitation and ventilation, malnutrition, violence and abuse, a heavy workload, accidents, and harsh punishments all contributed to the deaths there. And each of those factors has been demonstrated via archival research to have existed on the prison farm in Atlanta. As mentioned at the beginning of the first episode, this is not an exhaustive or comprehensive history. Further research is necessary and hopefully, as explained by the past few episodes, is extremely warranted. However, what's laid out here and in the Atlantic Community Press's other work already changes our fundamental understanding of the Atlanta prison farm.

Far from a federal program ending in the 60s before being essentially abandoned, we saw that the Atlanta prison farm on Key Road was city-run from the very beginning, and the direct continuation of the already cruel stockade. Contrary to popular belief, it was run continuously from the early 20s up into the 1990s. It was a completely different property than the Honor Farm, despite many, including the Atlanta Police Foundation, completely different property than the Honor Farm, despite many, including the Atlanta Police Foundation, continuing to use that phrase when referring to the site. At this city-run prison farm, atrocious conditions persisted across the better part of a century and ongoing into what we would consider the modern era, despite claims at each stage that the bad times were behind us and a new era lay ahead.

There is a documented history of the city prioritizing its ability to cut costs with prison labor, essentially extending slavery. Extensive records of physical and emotional abuse, torture, forced labor, overwork, lack of health care, poor sanitation, overcrowding, and poor nutrition, ranging throughout the entire history of the site. overwork, lack of healthcare, poor sanitation, overcrowding, and poor nutrition, ranging throughout the entire history of the site. Nearly every stage of leadership has gotten caught breaking rules and laws while avoiding the same carceral fate as the prisoners, as well as a reluctance by city officials to enact policies that would truly alleviate these harms

and attempt to make up for them. Rather, ensuring that power remains continuous. As is the case with Cop City, this history demonstrates how Atlanta's city government is perfectly fine with overruling rights of the residents of DeKalb County, who are disenfranchised from the city. With the Atlanta Police Foundation and the city getting closer and closer to deforestation and facility construction, the window of opportunity is shrinking for further on-the-ground historical research. The fact that they've yet to meet the requirements for the full environmental assessments, let alone the careful historical analysis necessary considering the history of

the land, means that the city is not only physically erasing the history of the land, means that the city is not only physically erasing the history of the lives it's destroyed, but also risking the possibility of desecrating their graves in the process. A guest column in the supporter report by Lily Ponence, an environmental engineer and now former member of the Community Stakeholder Advisory Committee for the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, aka COP City, gave us an inside look at how the development of COP City is knowingly and willingly refusing to do their due diligence assessments and pave over decades of carceral history. Quote, Since joining the Community Stakeholder Advisory Committee for the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, I've observed the developers from DaVinci Development Collaborative,

along with the Atlanta Police Foundation, mislead the community into believing that they are following a legitimate, regulated environmental due diligence process. In reality, they are doing less than the minimum to meet the legally defined standards for environmental site assessment reporting, and are breaking the trust of stakeholders and the terms of their ground lease agreement with the city of Atlanta. at, conditions, violence, abuse, accidents, and harsh punishments, it is reasonable to believe that areas of the property could contain human remains in unmarked graves. This was never investigated. Comments and professional input from myself and others on the Community Stakeholder Advisory Committee were brushed off, and no additional site investigations were considered beyond the limited site investigation. To remedy this, the City of Atlanta must force the development team to act

responsibly by requiring a proper Phase II environmental site assessment. If they fail to do so, taxpayers are likely to foot the bill for the remediation that is being ignored, or for the complicated litigation that will arise when this development team disturbs human remains on this site, unquote. A few months ago, Lily Ponence was kicked off the Community Stakeholder Advisory Committee after writing this column. Both the Community Stakeholder Advisory Committee and COP City have repeatedly been made aware that the assessments they've done fail to meet environmental requirements, and the reports that they're using to base decisions off of and greenlight proposals have been shown to be inaccurate. As far as responding to City Council,

As far as responding to City Council, APF enlisted Terracon to write a cultural report. This report was highly inaccurate due to relying on the Gillian Wooten report. I personally emailed City Council as Atlantic Community Press Collective. And as I've repeatedly told them, hey, this is incorrect. This is why. Here's proof. This is really disgusting and sad that you refuse to acknowledge any of this history. any of this history. And ironically, a month or two later, another report comes out that's slightly better, slightly revised, but still has that whitewashed aspect that the original one did. I had the misfortune to recently need to reread the Terracon report. And I don't believe they address when the city supposedly

took over the prison, the federal farm at all. I don't think they discussed that date in the slightest, but the Wooten report that they draw from, I think she just says sometime in the 50s, which was how we figured out because we were trying to nail down the date in the 50s and then we had to go back and back and back and back and back. We found out when the city purchased the land by literally just going to the DeKalb history archives at the courthouse and looking them up. Just a fairly quick process in terms of research that APF obviously didn't care or bother to look into at all. Obviously, the city of Atlanta didn't either. Yeah. In her residential school thesis, Catherine Nichols lays out a robust process for unobtrusively examining possibilities of human remains

while respecting the communities affected. Her process involves thorough archival research, including the use of oral histories and unconfirmed local knowledge to generate leads for deeper investigation. This archival research is then situated alongside the currently existing literature on the subject. She then conducts qualitative interviews with local community members and family members of those affected. She stresses that this qualitative information is not to be written off just because it does not align with records that the state institutions consider to be legitimate. And finally, she lays out a method for field research including site

reconnaissance, field walking and probing, site preparation, controlled burns, mapping, aerial photography, soil profiles, metal detector surveys, ground penetrating radar, and ground conductivity surveys, all checked against controls to ensure that they align with the results of the same methods on previously known unmarked grave sites. Crucially, all of this is done with the consent of the relevant communities, and is done unobtrusively as to not disturb the graves. Now that the construction process has ostensibly started, started um how does that factor into like you know disturbing the grounds where there could be you know all of this history that is being unearthed and kind of paved over top of um how does that kind of impact the ability to do ethical research going forward into the history of this land? So for one thing, we talked on and off with a handful of like archaeologists and anthropologists

and related fields about if we were going to go onto the prison farm property and conduct a search for grave sites or other historical information, like, we have no legal way to do that. It would be trespassing. And we also know that from the quote-unquote cultural report that the police foundation had done, they didn't really do that kind of search. They were mostly searching for evidence of, I guess you could say, indigenous artifacts, not, let's say, bodies buried in the 1920s. So the ability to do on-site historical research is, it kind of depends on, hey, how willing are you to get picked up for felony trespassing? Because that's a charge they can put on you. It definitely feels like we're up against a clock. I'm just going to add on to that. I feel like one

of the issues that we've definitely come across as far as looking for graves that are related to the prison farm, your options are pretty much ground penetrating radar or what they call cadaver dogs. Cadaver dogs theoretically can sniff up to 100 years from what I've read. How many people have connections to cadaver dogs, honestly? And then also the logistics of attempting to get ground penetrating radar in a forest is definitely difficult. Are you worried as construction continues that even if stuff is discovered, whether that be unmarked graves or various other things, that do you have any level of confidence that if things are found, they'll even go public? Or are you worried that do you have any, any level of confidence that if things are found,

they'll even go public or are you worried that if they find things, they'll just cover it up? Basically. I have absolutely zero faith. I mean, to me that I have absolutely zero faith to directly answer your question. I have absolutely zero faith that anything that is found will be preserved. that anything that is found will be preserved.

We also have it on fairly good authority that the issuing of construction permits is imminent. DeKalb County Commissioner Ted Terry is our best legal ally, if you will, our best government ally. He last week during the week of action introduced a resolution that would ask DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond to basically make a series of asks himself of the city of Atlanta. This is basically legally the most the county commission can do. And it is all incumbent upon the CEO of the county commission can do and it is all incumbent upon the ceo of the county to actually do these things um hope is not great for the county ceo to do any of these things but um ted terry among other things asked for additional environmental studies which by the way they are required to do in the lease he He asked for additional historical research and full disclosure,

he actually cited the Press Collective's history report we did last summer in the legislation, which was both, he's a state actor, but also you got to admit, that's kind of cool. It was gratifying to see our work receive a fairly high level of recognition. Additional environmental studies, historical research, noise studies. And ultimately, he asks that the CEO ask the city to consider just relocating the site completely. I think something that we need to take into consideration throughout this entire research process is that a lot of the records that we have access to are newspapers. The primary newspaper source we have access to is the AJC, which we have a clear, we have clear proof that AJC continues to be racist, continues to focus on the narrative that they would like to project as far as

being accomplices to the police and to APF and how that correlates to the city's history and mishandling of this piece of land. When we were looking through older articles, there are a handful of newspapers. There's the Great Speckled Bird, which is a GS, so it's a student-run newspaper. This one, I'm assuming just based on the 60s and 70s timeframe that there's a decent chance that it was primarily written by white people. I do not have proof of that. I'm just going on with gut feeling with that. So there is probably a bit of bias. there is a probably a bit of bias uh but it really does start to give a different picture of the people that were sent to the prison from there were several gsu students who were sent there

and they were put in the hole uh one was put in the hole just because he had long hair and he refused to cut his hair so they said said, you know what, you're going into isolation, have fun. And he was there for a little bit. It's important to reiterate that throughout much of the archival research that produced these findings, the bulk of the articles discovered were from the Atlanta Journal, the Atlantic Constitution, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution after the two merged. Though these papers reported on bad conditions once they had become public, and in two cases were responsible for investigative work that made these conditions public, these white-run papers, much like many major newspapers, have a known history of racism and support for the police, state, and carceral institutions. We therefore believe that a thorough search through archives

of black-run newspapers such as the Atlanta Daily World, magazines, and other publications is necessary to gain a more complete understanding of the history. Both myself and the researchers that put this history together are furthermore white, and so it is possible that our own biases and blind spots could be present in this reporting. We strongly believe that a more complete accounting of this history could be undertaken by people who have been more directly affected, and hope that these episodes and the research they're based on is not taken as the end of the story, but just a beginning and an invitation to further scrutiny. Is there really any way to continue the research that would be necessary to actually preserve the history and keep people knowledgeable

about the atrocities that's happened the past hundred plus years like with if construction continues is there even a way to do this now or is the clock really just running out so i think one of the biggest hurdles as far as preserving the history is honestly just getting people to care about it because it's not sexy. It's not people in tree houses. It's sitting on a computer just skimming through thousands of articles. No one cares that in 1982, the ACLU sued the city because they were using illegal and unconstitutional punishments. Nobody really cares about that kind of stuff. It's not that exciting in the grand scheme of things. But it's part of the history and it's part of what has led us to where we are now with Cop City.

And with that, that wraps up our mini-series on the very much incomplete history of the old Atlanta prison farm. The fact that there's seemingly little to no original official records to learn from because they were either trashed or never kept in the first place is itself a cover-up and denial of history and gross denial of the experiences of trauma and oppression of those who are subjected to the horrors of the prison farm. It's bad enough that the city couldn't be bothered to remember the history, but crucially, their bulldozed-over, police-endorsed narrative in whatever museum or plaque they want to create cannot be allowed to become the story of the prison farm and its many atrocities that we are still rediscovering. There is still a long way to go, and we have barely scratched the surface.

Hopefully this is just the start of more people paying attention to the forgotten histories like this, and then going out and doing further digging. You can check out the Atlanta Community Press Collective and their great reporting at atlpresscollective.com or atlanta underscore press on Twitter. See you all on the other side. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening.

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