Season six begins with a familiar guest, Chelsea Kiefer. Chelsea joins Hollie to discuss “When the Powerless Stand Up: Social Dynamics in 1950s North Carolina Women’s Prison Riots.” She discusses riots that happened in 1954 and 1956 that occurred in the women’s prison in Raleigh, North Carolina. These riots, both motivated by very different circumstances, demonstrate that the women felt that rioting was the only way they could create change. However, the riots resulted in even less power for these women in an era before the major inmate rights movements.
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Selected Bibliography:
“18 Women Inmates Riot.” The New York Times, September 23, 1956.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1956/09/23/95810601.html?pageNumber=59.
Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New York: New Press, 2020.
Faith, Karlene. Unruly Women: The Politics of Confinement and Resistance. New York: First Seven Stories Press, 2011.
“History of NC Prisons.” North Carolina Department of Public Safety.
https://www.doc.state.nc.us/admin/page1.htm.
“Prison Quiet After Riot Over Death of Tied Girl.” Norfolk Journal and Guide, August 28, 1954. The State Library of North Carolina. Raleigh, NC.
Book recommended by Hollie in the episode: https://www.hughryan.org/house-of-d
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Victor E. History 