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Match Limited by state law, not

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available in all states. Hello

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and welcome to This Day,

0:26

a history show from Radiotopia.

0:28

My name is Jody Avergan.

0:30

And this is part two of

0:33

our episode on William Freeman with

0:35

Robin Bernstein of Harvard. So to

0:37

bring us up to speed it

0:39

is 1846 in upstate New York,

0:42

William Freeman suffered abuse in his

0:44

time in the for-profit Auburn Prison.

0:46

And now it's a few months

0:49

after being released and he has

0:51

committed a gruesome random murder, an

0:53

act of terrorism as Robin put

0:55

it, in part to try and

0:58

raise awareness about the slave labor

1:00

conditions inside the prison. He's now

1:02

been arrested and the trial is

1:04

beginning and as you'll hear the

1:06

trial is a sensation and it

1:08

brings up all sorts of larger

1:11

questions about not just the prison

1:13

but the effectiveness of Freeman's shocking

1:15

act and the larger anti-slavery movement.

1:17

We'll pick this story up with William

1:19

Henry Seward entering the picture. Now you

1:21

may know that name because he would

1:24

soon be Secretary of State, but in

1:26

1846 he is a prominent lawyer in

1:28

upstate New York and he picks up

1:30

the case defending Freeman. So anyway here

1:33

are me and Nicole Hammer of

1:35

Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter Jackson of

1:37

Wesley talking to Robin Bernstein.

1:39

This starts with Nikki's question about

1:41

the trial. So ultimately William

1:43

Freeman is arrested and he's put

1:46

on trial and this is fascinating

1:48

to me that William Henry Seward

1:50

shows back up at this moment,

1:52

doesn't intervene in that earlier period,

1:54

but in this moment he steps

1:56

up to defend William Freeman. How

1:58

does that happen? it happens

2:01

through a whole lot of

2:03

mechanisms by white people. It

2:06

involves Seward, it involves his

2:08

wife, it involves a local

2:10

minister named John Austin. Basically,

2:13

all of these people come

2:15

together to decide that Seward

2:18

should defend Freeman pro bono.

2:20

Now, what's really important here

2:22

is that Seward did not

2:25

defend Freeman. because Seward actually

2:27

respected the claim that Freeman

2:30

was making. It was quite

2:32

the opposite. Seward... was economically

2:34

entangled with the Auburn State

2:37

Prison and he was in

2:39

fact politically entangled with the

2:42

Auburn State Prison. By this

2:44

time in history the prison

2:46

had become a kind of

2:49

political seesaw whereby political parties

2:51

were fighting through the prison

2:54

and Seward was a wig

2:56

and he had become governor

2:58

twice largely by in part

3:01

by manipulating the prison itself

3:03

and manipulating scandals that were

3:06

happening in the prison. He

3:08

was able to use them

3:10

politically. So he was, and

3:13

I show in the book

3:15

how he was totally entangled

3:18

politically, he was entangled economically,

3:20

but this didn't make him

3:22

unusual. This made him normal.

3:25

This is all the prison

3:27

function. This is how the

3:30

prison manufactured consent by entangling

3:32

everybody in one way or

3:34

another. So Freeman has... made

3:37

the prison shake. Freeman has

3:39

called the entire system into

3:42

question. Freeman has freaked out

3:44

the entire region, mainly but

3:46

not only white people. And

3:49

so Seward steps up not

3:51

to amplify his challenge, but

3:54

to muffle it. And the

3:56

way he muffles the challenge

3:59

is by defending Freeman. using

4:01

the insanity defense. So his

4:03

claim in court is that

4:05

Freeman is 100% irrational and

4:08

that he committed this act

4:10

out of pure insanity and

4:13

literally nothing else. And then

4:15

he had an argument about

4:18

why Freeman was insane. But

4:20

this was a really good

4:23

way. to shut William Freeman

4:25

up and to silence his

4:28

very rational critique of the

4:30

Auburn State Prison. So, I

4:32

mean, to state the obvious, insanity

4:34

is part of the picture here,

4:37

or mental deterioration, as part of

4:39

the picture here, to be clear, as

4:41

we've discussed, I think you're pointing out

4:44

that Seward's argument was this was a

4:46

all or nothing 100 percent, this is

4:48

the only motivation, is the way he

4:50

sort of tried to use this to

4:53

muffle at the larger idea, but... Did

4:55

anyone start to connect the dots

4:57

then? If the argument is, he's

4:59

100% insane, did anyone connect the

5:01

dots and say, well, what made

5:03

him 100% insane? Was it the

5:06

conditions inside the prison? Yes, okay,

5:08

so yes, absolutely. That was the

5:10

next question. If he was insane,

5:12

why was he insane? And Seward

5:14

had two answers to that question.

5:16

One was that he was insane

5:18

because of his beating in the Auburn

5:20

State prison. There was one beating

5:22

in particular... that was so terrible

5:25

a guard beat him over the

5:27

head with a board and beat

5:29

him so terribly that the board

5:32

actually broke on his head and

5:34

he had a skull injury he

5:36

had a brain injury and as

5:38

a result of this he became

5:41

deaf and so there's no question

5:43

that William Freeman had a mental

5:45

impairment and I you know in

5:47

no way do I deny that

5:50

The point that I make is

5:52

that it's perfectly possible for a

5:54

person to have a mental impairment

5:57

and to make a rational political

5:59

claim. prediction there. So Freeman

6:01

absolutely was mentally impaired.

6:03

There's no question. So

6:06

Seward argues in court

6:08

that Freeman is 100

6:10

% irrational because of

6:12

A, the beating on

6:14

the head, but also,

6:16

and here's where like

6:18

my mind gets blown.

6:20

Also, he claims that

6:22

Freeman has been made

6:24

irrational, has been driven

6:27

insane by racism, by

6:29

racial discrimination. And

6:31

he makes the argument. Yes, I

6:33

know. Wild.

6:35

I know you just blew

6:37

my mind a little. I

6:39

know it blows my mind.

6:42

He makes the argument in

6:44

court. And I want to

6:46

say really clearly that this

6:48

court case got so big,

6:50

so fast, it was reported

6:52

nationally. So Seward's arguments were

6:55

exported. They were disseminated nationally.

6:57

A pamphlet is made up

6:59

with Seward's argument and thousands

7:01

of copies of this pamphlet

7:03

are distributed. So these ideas,

7:05

which at the time were

7:08

relatively new, they,

7:10

these ideas went very far,

7:12

very fast. Now let's first

7:14

of all, let's note that

7:16

William Freeman never claimed racism

7:18

as a cause of his

7:21

actions. He was crystal clear.

7:23

This was about the prison.

7:25

This was about his rights

7:27

as a citizen, his right

7:29

not to be enslaved. This

7:31

was about his right to

7:33

be paid for his work.

7:35

He never said it was

7:37

about the fact that he

7:39

was excluded from school, for

7:41

example, which is what Seward

7:43

argued. So this is an

7:46

argument that, of course, 150

7:48

years later would, or 120

7:50

years later, would become part

7:52

of the Moynihan report, this

7:54

idea that racism and Seward

7:56

was absolutely explicit about this.

7:58

And he's blamed black

8:00

women by the way. So we

8:02

argue, I know, I know, this

8:04

is all in the book. So,

8:07

Seward argues that there's, basically,

8:09

there's racism which then

8:11

causes black communities to

8:13

have basically a tangle

8:15

of pathology to quote

8:17

the morning again before,

8:19

120 years later. that

8:21

he claims and he

8:23

specifically goes after the

8:25

black women in William

8:27

Freeman's life. And this

8:29

is heartbreaking. He specifically

8:32

goes after William Freeman's

8:34

mother, puts her on the stand,

8:36

and then roasts her. And he

8:38

specifically goes after William Freeman's best

8:41

friend and his sister-in-law. And so,

8:43

what's, so this, of course, these

8:45

kinds of things. And nothing to

8:47

do with the state, nothing to

8:50

do with capitalism, nothing to do

8:52

with everyone's investment in this prison.

8:54

I mean, well, nothing to do

8:57

with the torture that's happening in

8:59

the prison. Wow, wow. This is

9:01

Seward's argument and this is how

9:03

Seward shuts up William Freeman. And

9:06

what really blows my mind is that

9:08

what Seward did was he articulated

9:10

an emerging form of racism.

9:12

One that at the time

9:14

was not deeply embedded in

9:16

the culture. This was, certainly

9:18

Seward did not invent this

9:20

argument, certainly he was not

9:23

the very first one to

9:25

make this kind of Moynihan

9:27

argument, but he was among

9:29

the first. And what was

9:31

really special about this trial

9:33

was because it was so

9:35

high profile, and because it

9:38

was disseminated so far and

9:40

wide, this relatively new emerging

9:42

form of racism metastasized. And

9:45

this is one of the origins,

9:47

but it's a really important origin

9:49

point for this particular kind of

9:51

racist argument. So, I mean, this

9:53

is all very fascinating to me,

9:55

and we want people to read

9:58

the book, so we don't... We

10:00

don't want to give away

10:02

the whole story. We do

10:04

know that Freeman is convicted

10:06

of this murder. But can

10:08

you tell us sort of

10:11

about the social or cultural

10:13

or even political aftermath? Like

10:15

what does the nation make

10:17

of this case? Yeah. And

10:19

this and this prison really

10:21

because the prison continues to

10:24

exist and is still in

10:26

existence to this very day.

10:28

Yeah. So the prison exists

10:30

to this day and I'd

10:32

love to talk to you

10:34

about that more. The Auburn

10:36

system of prison for profit,

10:39

of course, travels across New

10:41

York State, it travels across

10:43

the northeast, down to the

10:45

south, to the west, and

10:47

basically it becomes the norm

10:49

today. So the idea that

10:52

a prison can and somewhat

10:54

argue should be an economic

10:56

force. That is common sense

10:58

to us today. So one

11:00

of the effects of the

11:02

Auburn prison and the people

11:05

in my book is that

11:07

if that is just seems

11:09

to be a very commonplace

11:11

ordinary idea to us, if

11:13

that idea is already in

11:15

our heads, that idea was

11:18

planted in us by the

11:20

people in my book. So

11:22

the specific effects of the

11:24

trial. Well, there were a

11:26

lot of specific effects. I

11:28

mean, one of the big

11:31

effects was the dissemination of

11:33

this particular emerging form of

11:35

racism. And again, that is

11:37

implanted in all of us

11:39

today. I didn't even talk

11:41

about the prosecution. So the

11:43

prosecution made an argument because

11:46

they were also invested in

11:48

shutting up William Freeman's charge

11:50

against the prison. The prosecution

11:52

was also... invested in the

11:54

prison and entangled in it.

11:56

And the way they shut

11:59

him up was by making

12:01

the argument that he had

12:03

committed this act of violence

12:05

because of inherent essential violence.

12:07

race. Basically it was it

12:09

was the basic argument of

12:12

the criminalization of black people

12:14

which again now is everywhere

12:16

but at the time was

12:18

relatively new. So the effects

12:20

of this are that these

12:22

two emerging forms of racism

12:25

get amplified and disseminated everywhere.

12:27

When I was writing this

12:29

book, my mind got blown

12:31

so many times. We're just

12:33

talking about a lot of

12:35

the mind-going moments. I know,

12:38

but there are so many

12:40

more. So here we have

12:42

this giant event where a

12:44

black man, a black young

12:46

man, by this time he's

12:48

22, a young black man

12:50

has something really important to

12:53

say and gets really shut

12:55

down and shut up. And

12:57

what happens after the trial?

12:59

Black abolitionists start coming to

13:01

Auburn. They start coming to

13:03

Auburn and they had never

13:06

come before. People like Frederick

13:08

Douglas start coming to Auburn.

13:10

And did they talk about

13:12

William Freeman? No, they do

13:14

not. Instead, what they do

13:16

is they talk about their

13:19

own stories. They tell their

13:21

own stories, they narrate their

13:23

own lives, the exact right

13:25

that was taken away from

13:27

Freeman to tell his own

13:29

story, to present his own

13:32

political beliefs. That is what

13:34

is exercised by people like

13:36

Frederick Douglas. And Auburn becomes

13:38

a center for abolitionist publishing.

13:40

It comes a major stop

13:42

on the underground railroad. So

13:45

in the wake of Freeman's

13:47

disastrous trial, a new kind

13:49

of freedom talk flourished in

13:51

the shadow of this new

13:53

form of unf freedom, the

13:55

prison for profit. I'm

14:04

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this day. I'm

17:10

so glad that you took us to

17:12

that moment because I think often

17:14

when we talk about this particular

17:16

kind of institutionalized violence and institutionalized

17:19

racism, it's not, it doesn't have

17:21

a happy ending. And this obviously

17:23

is going to immisorate a lot

17:25

of people going into the 20th

17:27

and 21st centuries, but the ability

17:29

of people to take a space

17:31

of crime like this, the crime

17:33

against William Freeman, and to turn

17:35

it into something else, to give

17:37

it meaning, to sort of reconsecrate

17:39

the town with their activism,

17:42

strikes me as a particularly

17:44

hopeful note in a dark story.

17:46

Yeah. Well this is, I mean,

17:48

it's mind-blowing to me because, you

17:50

know, I studied the abolitionist, I'm like

17:53

Auburn. Isn't that a great place

17:55

to be? Like people aren't a

17:57

lot of black abolitionists circulating in

17:59

this town? a lot of you

18:01

know upstate New York places you

18:03

think about Syracuse think about Buffalo

18:06

you think about these places where

18:08

they are safe havens for black

18:10

abolitionists and for fugitive slaves and

18:13

so having this counter narrative of

18:15

the prison there having the story

18:17

of the prison really gives you

18:20

a much fuller picture of what

18:22

black people are combating and what

18:24

they're up against that it's not

18:27

just the institution of slavery that

18:29

it's all of it's it's capitalism

18:32

and all of its other cronies

18:34

that are doing the work of

18:36

dehumanization yeah yeah that's absolutely right

18:39

and it also by putting Auburn's

18:41

prison in the center of Auburn

18:43

which This prison is in the

18:46

center of Auburn. It's in the

18:48

center geographically, it's in the center

18:51

of its economy, it's in the

18:53

center of its history. By simply

18:55

acknowledging that, what one thing that

18:58

we do is we reveal some

19:00

really important silences. So Harriet Tubman

19:02

lived in Auburn for over 50

19:05

years, and she seems never to

19:07

have spoken in public about the

19:10

prison. And I mean, Harriet Tubman

19:12

was a genius. And she lived

19:14

two miles from the prison. And

19:17

she bought her land from, guess

19:19

who, William Henry Seward and his

19:21

wife. Oh, she sure does. Yeah.

19:24

She sure does. And she worshipped

19:26

at the AME Zion Church, which

19:29

was where many, many members of

19:31

William Freeman's family worshipped. So she

19:33

knew his family and yet she

19:36

never once said a word in

19:38

public. We can assume she had

19:40

lots to say about it in

19:43

private. But by noticing that silence,

19:45

we can think about it critically.

19:47

Like what does that silence mean

19:50

exactly? Well, I don't know. But

19:52

we can certainly think about it

19:55

and we can we can we

19:57

can imagine possibilities of what that

19:59

silence might mean what we know

20:02

for sure is that that silence

20:04

means something that it's

20:06

significant. Final question and

20:08

I want to ask the three of

20:10

you as historians a little

20:13

bit about the kind of

20:15

work of historical complexity. First

20:17

off I should say you know I'm

20:19

sure listeners maybe are thinking this and

20:21

I want to say I'm thinking this

20:24

you know I think of Louis G.

20:26

Mangioni as you described this story a

20:28

little bit and especially you know the

20:30

conversation we were having about the difference

20:32

between an act of revenge and an

20:35

act of terrorism and you know I

20:37

think Mangioni probably fits in somewhere along

20:39

the spectrum between personal vendetta and

20:41

pure act of sort of removed

20:43

random violence but the reason I

20:46

bring that up is in part because I

20:48

think some of the discourse around what do

20:50

we make of that act was the separation

20:52

between the sort of act itself and the

20:54

idea behind the act. And that feels like

20:56

a really important thing to think through when

20:59

we think of William Freeman's behavior.

21:01

You know, he murdered these people and then there

21:03

was an idea behind that murder and we

21:05

can kind of live in that complexity and

21:07

that uncertainty and so forth. I'm just wondering

21:09

Robin and all of you, like how do

21:11

you do the work of history and hold

21:14

all those complicated things in your head at

21:16

the same time and have empathy and complexity

21:18

and all these things we've been kind of

21:20

swirling around. Well, Lemire, I want

21:22

to say is that Kelly, your

21:25

scholarship was so helpful for me

21:27

in understanding the act of violence,

21:29

because as I was writing this

21:32

book, one of the key questions

21:34

that I was struggling with was,

21:36

what does it mean that Freeman

21:39

changed from trying to pursue

21:41

legal means to committing an

21:43

act of violence, committing a

21:45

quadruple murder? And one thing

21:47

I learned from your scholarship

21:49

is that Conversations about

21:52

violence as a viable political tool

21:54

were in the air at this

21:56

moment and they were specifically in

21:58

the air among black people in

22:01

New York State. And to understand

22:03

that kind of context, to help

22:05

me understand the violence as political

22:07

and as less extraordinary than it

22:10

otherwise might seem. It was less

22:12

of a leap than it might

22:14

otherwise seem. So your work really

22:17

helped me to bridge this key

22:19

moment and this very big question.

22:21

And to do it with empathy.

22:23

And to take it really seriously,

22:26

not just to say, well, you

22:28

know, he was on the side

22:30

of the angels and then he

22:33

left, it's so much more than

22:35

that. And your scholarship helped me

22:37

see that. And so I thank

22:39

you for it. Thank you. I

22:42

want to jump in too, because

22:44

just last week in my graduate

22:46

seminar, I taught a book called

22:49

Force and Freedom by Dr. Kelly

22:51

Carter Jackson. That's right. And one

22:53

of the things that we really

22:55

lingered on in addition to just

22:58

the... real flipping of this notion

23:00

that political violence is always bad

23:02

and we must always just condemn

23:05

it and not understand it. And

23:07

that I think is the historian's

23:09

first push is to go past

23:11

condemnation into something deeper and more

23:14

nuanced. But we carry these binaries

23:16

and these very mannequian ways of

23:18

thinking about morality with us, if

23:21

you're raised in the United States,

23:23

if you're raised in white households,

23:25

if you're raised in Christian households,

23:27

you have very clear, like black

23:30

and white views, I think, of

23:32

some issues that we inherit from

23:34

history, that we inherit from our

23:37

culture and violence and nonviolence is

23:39

one of those. And what is

23:41

so rich and useful about your

23:43

work, Kelly, is that you invite

23:46

us to set that down and

23:48

start asking questions. And all really

23:50

excellent history does that. It says,

23:53

okay, I see the things that

23:55

you're bringing to this, and now

23:57

I'm asking you. to take a

23:59

beat and think about it differently.

24:02

So I just wanted to add

24:04

on to the accommodations. All right

24:06

I got to steer this back

24:09

from from praising Kelly to

24:11

praising Robin. You're all mushy. But

24:13

I really wanted to end on that

24:15

note because I think you know that's

24:17

the point of what I've learned over

24:19

the course doing the show that's the

24:22

point of what brilliant scholars like you

24:24

do is you tell great stories from

24:26

the past but obviously we then carry

24:28

those into this very complex violent complicated

24:30

moment and it really does help us

24:32

navigate so Robin thank you so much

24:34

for doing this it was really really

24:36

just a thrilling tale and also really

24:38

brilliant kind of scholarship so thank you

24:40

and congratulations the book of course is

24:42

Freeman's Challenge listeners there's a lot more

24:44

in there's a lot more in there

24:46

but Robin Bernstein thank you so much

24:48

for joining us Thank you so much for

24:51

having me. This was an absolute pleasure and

24:53

an honor. I'm so glad to be here.

24:55

Thank you so much. Nicole Hammer, thanks

24:57

to you as always. Thank you,

24:59

Jody. And Kelly Carter Jackson, thanks

25:01

to you. My pleasure.