Bio: My name is Alex Kay and I am a junior at Butler University. Over the course of this past semester, my peers and I have been researching late 19th to early 20th century prisoners who received life sentences in the state of Indiana. I found that one of the men I researched, Samuel Price, could form the basis for my episode based on the nature of his crime and the motivations behind it. I enjoyed conducting the research to form this episode to our podcast series, and while my episode is mainly a somber one, I believe that it fits in well with the other episodes and sets a good tone as the first episode of the series. Thanks for listening.
Description of podcast: This episode in the podcast series, Forgotten: Life Histories of Indiana Prisoners is about racially motivated crime that took place in post-reconstruction America. The episode highlights the murder of African American man Kent Brown as an example of the extra-judicial killings that occurred during the time period. Lynchings were common occurrences, meant to terrorize black families and communities, to keep them subservient and terrified.
Racially-motivated crime, while not necessarily lynching, has continued up into the present day. People like Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Brandon Mclleland, Marlene Pinnock, and so many more have been subject to racially motivated acts of violence, whether it be at the hands of the police, a few citizens, or a lone individual. This episode intends to highlight the general atmosphere surrounding racially motivated crime back then and now.
Snapshot of crowd at a lynching. Image from EJI https://eji.org/thomas-shipp-and-abram-smith-indiana
Sources:
– Bosman, Julie, and Joseph Goldstein. “Timeline for a Body: 4 Hours in the Middle of a Ferguson Street.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 23 Aug. 2014
– Hill, Karlos K. Beyond the Rope: The Impact of Lynching on Black Culture and Memory.
– Life Prisoners’ Statements: Indiana State Prison North, Michigan City. Volume 1.
– Mitchell, Dawn, and Maureen C. Gilmer. “Last-Known Lynching in Indiana Included in National Memorial for Peace and Justice.” Indianapolis Star, IndyStar, 26 Apr. 2018.
– “Price Wants Pardon After Twenty Years” The Indianapolis Morning Star. Thursday, September 29, 1904.
– “Theodore Shockney.” Dearborn County Ingenweb Project, www.ingenweb.org/inrandolph/Biographies/ShockneyT.htm. Cambridge University Press, 2016.
– “What Happened in Ferguson?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 13 Aug. 2014
– Rushdy, Ashraf H. A. The End of American Lynching. Rutgers University Press, 2012.
-Sophocles. Antigone.