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They Had No Voice: My Fight for Alabama's Forgotten Children
Denny Abbott first encountered the Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children at Mt. Meigs as a twenty-one-year-old probation officer for the Montgomery County Family Court. He would become so concerned about conditions for black juvenile offenders there―including hard labor, beatings, and rape―that he took the State of Alabama to court to win reforms. With the help of the U.S. Justice Department, Abbott won a resounding victory that brought change, although three years later he had to sue the state again. In They Had No Voice , Abbott details these battles and how his actions cost him his job and made him a pariah in his hometown, but resulted in better lives for Alabama’s children. Abbott also tells of his later career as the first national director of the Adam Walsh Child Resource Center, where he helped focus attention on missing and exploited children and became widely recognized as an expert on children’s issues.
144 pages, Paperback
First published January 24, 2013
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 28, 2013
my review from Shelfari:
Denny tells a tale that many of us southerners have seen in bits and pieces in our own lives. The struggle to stop the damage done to the poor children, especially the poor black children of Alabama and later the work he has done in Florida goes a long way to restore my confidence in at least some of my fellow citizens. Denny was and is a strong law and order type, but he realized early on that any real justice has to be fair and has to offer a path of redemption and cannot be used as a path to enslave folks, innocent folks and not so innocent folks.
The story of Mt Meigs echoes the recent findings about the "School" in Marianna, FL. People like Denny not only helped us move forward through their courageous acts in some our darkest hours, but shine a light onto the path we must take forward to maintain and build on the progress of those black and white, who fought to end the horrors visited on children who were born "the wrong color."
Thanks Denny, for your life's work, and for this book that opens up a slice of the hidden world that we so often tread over without seeing.
Denny tells a tale that many of us southerners have seen in bits and pieces in our own lives. The struggle to stop the damage done to the poor children, especially the poor black children of Alabama and later the work he has done in Florida goes a long way to restore my confidence in at least some of my fellow citizens. Denny was and is a strong law and order type, but he realized early on that any real justice has to be fair and has to offer a path of redemption and cannot be used as a path to enslave folks, innocent folks and not so innocent folks.
The story of Mt Meigs echoes the recent findings about the "School" in Marianna, FL. People like Denny not only helped us move forward through their courageous acts in some our darkest hours, but shine a light onto the path we must take forward to maintain and build on the progress of those black and white, who fought to end the horrors visited on children who were born "the wrong color."
Thanks Denny, for your life's work, and for this book that opens up a slice of the hidden world that we so often tread over without seeing.
Displaying 1 of 1 review