Historical Podcast
Freeman's Challenge: The Untold Story Of.....
FREEMAN'S CHALLENGE: THE UNTOLD STORY OF AMERICA'S FIRST PRISON - FOR - PROFIT - NEW YORK BLACK HISTORY 1840-1846.
Content Warning: This episode contains graphic descriptions of prison torture, violence, and murder.
Uncover one of the most important untold stories in African American history: how a 15-year-old Black teenager in New York challenged America's first prison-for-profit system and exposed the origins of mass incarceration.
William Freeman's story reveals shocking truths about Black history that have been buried for nearly 200 years. In 1840s Auburn, New York, this young African American man demanded wages for prison labor, threatening a system that would become the blueprint for today's prison-industrial complex.
This untold civil rights story reveals:
- How New York - not the South - invented convict leasing 45 years before the Civil War
- The systematic torture methods used on African American prisoners, including deadly water torture devices
- Why Freeman's demand for fair wages was revolutionary Black resistance to economic exploitation
- How Auburn State Prison's profitable model spread nationwide, targeting Black communities
- The tragic cascade from wrongful imprisonment to quadruple murder that shocked 1840s America
- Direct connections between 19th-century New York prison labor and today's mass incarceration crisis
Click the following link for more information about this program on The Black History Buff Podcast
