WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.540 So imagine a system of imprisonment that is so 00:00:04.540 --> 00:00:08.359 calculating and, well, so brutal that historians 00:00:08.359 --> 00:00:11.220 are still fiercely debating whether it was actually 00:00:11.220 --> 00:00:14.560 worse than chattel slavery. Yeah, it's an incredibly 00:00:14.560 --> 00:00:17.320 heavy premise. It really is. Welcome to another 00:00:17.320 --> 00:00:20.260 deep dive, everyone. Today we are unpacking a 00:00:20.260 --> 00:00:23.120 really fascinating piece of source material. 00:00:23.760 --> 00:00:27.800 It's a summary detailing the critical reception, 00:00:28.239 --> 00:00:31.260 the rigorous sourcing, and this highly unusual 00:00:31.260 --> 00:00:33.820 structure of a 1996 book. Right. The book is 00:00:33.820 --> 00:00:37.179 called Worst in Slavery, Parchment Farm and the 00:00:37.179 --> 00:00:39.929 Ordeal of Jim Crow Justice. Exactly. written 00:00:39.929 --> 00:00:41.950 by David Emashinsky and published by the Free 00:00:41.950 --> 00:00:44.750 Press. And our mission for this deep dive is 00:00:44.750 --> 00:00:47.609 to explore how this specific text documents the 00:00:47.609 --> 00:00:50.189 transition from slavery to Jim Crow at the Mississippi 00:00:50.189 --> 00:00:51.789 State Penitentiary. Which is, of course, famously 00:00:51.789 --> 00:00:53.710 known as Parchment Farm down in Sunflower County. 00:00:54.009 --> 00:00:55.409 Right. And if you're listening to this and you've 00:00:55.409 --> 00:00:57.850 ever wondered how scholars actually build a historical 00:00:57.850 --> 00:00:59.990 narrative out of something so traumatic, how 00:00:59.990 --> 00:01:02.130 they debate these horror stories, this is going 00:01:02.130 --> 00:01:03.710 to show you exactly how the sausage is made. 00:01:04.030 --> 00:01:06.939 Oh, absolutely. I mean, building that narrative 00:01:06.939 --> 00:01:09.079 really starts with the raw materials, right? 00:01:09.079 --> 00:01:11.420 Yeah. The sources. Yeah, let's let's start there, 00:01:11.599 --> 00:01:15.400 because Oshinsky's sourcing is wild. It is. He 00:01:15.400 --> 00:01:17.920 didn't just look at official state decrees. The 00:01:17.920 --> 00:01:20.359 source material notes he used, primary documents 00:01:20.359 --> 00:01:23.579 from the prison, but also, crucially, from plantations. 00:01:23.659 --> 00:01:26.799 Oh, and interviews, right? Yes, firsthand interviews. 00:01:26.900 --> 00:01:29.459 And there's this great quote from reviewer James 00:01:29.459 --> 00:01:31.439 Goodman, the new leader, where he points out 00:01:31.439 --> 00:01:33.700 that Oshinsky relied on works that were, quote, 00:01:34.159 --> 00:01:36.659 long forgotten. Long forgotten. I mean, Goodman 00:01:36.659 --> 00:01:39.500 calls them invaluable, but that phrase long forgotten 00:01:39.500 --> 00:01:41.879 just, it carries so much weight. It really does. 00:01:41.939 --> 00:01:44.819 It forces you to ask, well, who forgot them and 00:01:44.819 --> 00:01:47.019 why? Right. Like if you have to dig up forgotten 00:01:47.019 --> 00:01:49.079 documents to tell the story of a major state 00:01:49.079 --> 00:01:51.760 penitentiary, the official narrative is clearly 00:01:51.760 --> 00:01:55.599 hiding something. Exactly. By pairing those plantation 00:01:55.599 --> 00:01:58.780 documents with the prison records, he's methodically 00:01:58.780 --> 00:02:00.900 proving that you cannot understand the prison 00:02:00.900 --> 00:02:03.519 without understanding the plantation system first. 00:02:03.719 --> 00:02:06.540 Which actually brings us to the structure of 00:02:06.540 --> 00:02:10.080 the book itself. Because honestly, the structure 00:02:10.080 --> 00:02:12.960 completely baffled me at first glance. Oh, you 00:02:12.960 --> 00:02:15.360 mean the slow burn aspect of it? Yes. I mean, 00:02:15.419 --> 00:02:17.840 the subtitle is literally, Parchman Farm and 00:02:17.840 --> 00:02:20.520 the Ordeal of Jim Crow Justice. So if I pick 00:02:20.520 --> 00:02:22.319 that up, I assume chapter one is going to be 00:02:22.319 --> 00:02:24.259 about Parchman Farm. That would be the traditional 00:02:24.259 --> 00:02:26.400 way to do it, yeah. But the introduction starts 00:02:26.400 --> 00:02:29.979 way back before the US Civil War. It moves through 00:02:29.979 --> 00:02:34.090 the end of slavery into Jim Crow. And the prison 00:02:34.090 --> 00:02:35.990 itself doesn't even show up until the halfway 00:02:35.990 --> 00:02:37.830 point. It takes a long time to get there, yeah. 00:02:38.110 --> 00:02:40.689 So I've got to push back on this. If I buy a 00:02:40.689 --> 00:02:42.830 book about a specific prison, I want to step 00:02:42.830 --> 00:02:46.889 inside those walls early on. Why dedicate 50 00:02:46.889 --> 00:02:49.430 % of the text to pre -Civil War Mississippi? 00:02:49.889 --> 00:02:51.969 Isn't that just alienating the reader? Well, 00:02:52.009 --> 00:02:56.490 it's definitely a risk. But Oshinsky is prioritizing 00:02:56.490 --> 00:02:59.110 historical logic over a quick hook. What do you 00:02:59.110 --> 00:03:01.669 mean by that? So if he starts on page one with 00:03:01.669 --> 00:03:04.169 the grand opening of Parchment Farm, the reader 00:03:04.169 --> 00:03:06.650 might think, oh, this was just a new flawed criminal 00:03:06.650 --> 00:03:08.710 justice experiment. Ah, like it just popped out 00:03:08.710 --> 00:03:11.349 of nowhere. Right. He's withholding the prison 00:03:11.349 --> 00:03:14.370 to make a point about its origins. By making 00:03:14.370 --> 00:03:16.969 you wade through the antebellum south and the 00:03:16.969 --> 00:03:20.409 plantation economy first, you feel the momentum. 00:03:20.669 --> 00:03:23.129 The momentum of like the state trying to replace 00:03:23.129 --> 00:03:26.349 its labor force. Exactly. The structure is the 00:03:26.349 --> 00:03:29.060 argument. When Parchman finally appears halfway 00:03:29.060 --> 00:03:30.860 through, it doesn't feel like a new building. 00:03:31.599 --> 00:03:34.319 It feels like... An inevitable mutation of the 00:03:34.319 --> 00:03:37.099 plantation. Yes. It's the old foundation beneath 00:03:37.099 --> 00:03:39.259 the new building. It's the logical continuation 00:03:39.259 --> 00:03:41.860 of systemic control. Okay, wow. That totally 00:03:41.860 --> 00:03:44.419 reframes it. And that leads us right into this 00:03:44.419 --> 00:03:47.099 massive debate from our notes regarding the book's 00:03:47.099 --> 00:03:49.500 title, because he calls it worse than slavery. 00:03:49.879 --> 00:03:52.599 which is incredibly provocative. It really grabs 00:03:52.599 --> 00:03:55.000 you by the collar, but not every critic bought 00:03:55.000 --> 00:03:57.139 into the literal premise of that title, right? 00:03:57.180 --> 00:03:59.500 No, they didn't. The main pushback came from 00:03:59.500 --> 00:04:02.340 James McPherson in the New York Times. And McPherson 00:04:02.340 --> 00:04:04.539 really praises the book, generally speaking. 00:04:04.740 --> 00:04:07.319 Oh, he loved it. He called the writing vigorous 00:04:07.319 --> 00:04:09.719 and heart -hitting. He even said the absolute 00:04:09.719 --> 00:04:12.120 best chapter. It's the one describing the prisoners' 00:04:12.539 --> 00:04:15.860 lives between 1904 and 1930. Which, just for 00:04:15.860 --> 00:04:18.420 context, that window is the absolute peak of 00:04:18.420 --> 00:04:21.000 Jim Crow enforcement and the convict lease system. 00:04:21.420 --> 00:04:24.220 Right. But then McPherson throws in this crucial 00:04:24.220 --> 00:04:27.120 caveat. He says that while Oshinsky proves prisoner 00:04:27.120 --> 00:04:30.699 life was very much like slavery, it's not clear 00:04:30.699 --> 00:04:33.379 if he proves it was actually harsher. Yeah, that's 00:04:33.379 --> 00:04:35.500 a huge distinction to make. So let me ask you, 00:04:35.540 --> 00:04:38.360 the title is worse than slavery, but the NYT 00:04:38.360 --> 00:04:41.040 reviewer says it's not clearly worse, just similar. 00:04:41.500 --> 00:04:44.199 Is Olshinsky just using a clickbait title to 00:04:44.199 --> 00:04:46.720 sell books, or is there a deeper point here? 00:04:46.920 --> 00:04:48.980 I think it's McPherson highlighting a much deeper 00:04:48.980 --> 00:04:51.759 problem. I mean, how exactly does a historian 00:04:51.759 --> 00:04:54.779 quantify human suffering? It feels like an impossible 00:04:54.779 --> 00:04:57.319 metric. Totally impossible. What makes one horror 00:04:57.319 --> 00:05:00.500 worse? Is it mortality rates? the psychological 00:05:00.500 --> 00:05:03.600 terror. Under chattel slavery, enslaved people 00:05:03.600 --> 00:05:06.240 were legally considered valuable property. Right. 00:05:06.279 --> 00:05:08.620 So there was a perverse financial incentive to 00:05:08.620 --> 00:05:11.079 keep them alive. Exactly. Their bodies were investments 00:05:11.079 --> 00:05:13.560 to the slaveholders, but under the convict lease 00:05:13.560 --> 00:05:16.079 system at places like Parchman. The state just 00:05:16.079 --> 00:05:18.420 had an endless supply of replaceable people. 00:05:18.939 --> 00:05:21.660 Yes. If a prisoner was worked to death, there 00:05:21.660 --> 00:05:24.959 was no financial loss. The state just enforced 00:05:24.959 --> 00:05:27.990 a vagrancy law and arrested someone else. So 00:05:27.990 --> 00:05:30.490 the disposability of human life was absolute. 00:05:30.949 --> 00:05:33.370 That terrifying disposability is probably what 00:05:33.370 --> 00:05:37.089 Oshinsky means by worse. But McPherson's point 00:05:37.089 --> 00:05:40.470 is that empirically proving one era of abuse 00:05:40.470 --> 00:05:43.149 is harsher than another is an academic trap. 00:05:43.339 --> 00:05:46.379 Because they're both just distinct, devastating 00:05:46.379 --> 00:05:49.100 horror stories. Exactly. Which, actually, horror 00:05:49.100 --> 00:05:52.019 story is the exact phrase used by another reviewer 00:05:52.019 --> 00:05:54.839 we have here, Brad Hooper in Booklist. Yeah, 00:05:54.879 --> 00:05:56.740 Hooper was very explicit about that. He called 00:05:56.740 --> 00:05:58.779 it a horror story, said the work was rigorous 00:05:58.779 --> 00:06:01.620 and belongs on the US history shelf. But that 00:06:01.620 --> 00:06:03.980 makes me wonder, how do human beings survive 00:06:03.980 --> 00:06:06.379 that kind of psychological crushing? Well, that's 00:06:06.379 --> 00:06:08.560 where the music comes in. Yes, the music analogy. 00:06:08.639 --> 00:06:10.779 This quote from James Goodman completely caught 00:06:10.779 --> 00:06:13.449 me off guard. He said the book reads like a, 00:06:13.610 --> 00:06:16.689 quote, quietly powerful piece of music, less 00:06:16.689 --> 00:06:19.829 blues than jazz. It's such an evocative way to 00:06:19.829 --> 00:06:22.370 describe a rigorous history book. It really is. 00:06:22.610 --> 00:06:25.029 And our notes point out that Oshinsky surprisingly 00:06:25.029 --> 00:06:27.230 includes the actual lyrics of prison -related 00:06:27.230 --> 00:06:29.370 songs right in the text. Which is brilliant. 00:06:29.449 --> 00:06:32.290 But I want to dig into that less blues than jazz 00:06:32.290 --> 00:06:35.649 thing, because blues is usually this direct emotional 00:06:35.649 --> 00:06:37.829 lament, right? One person singing about their 00:06:37.829 --> 00:06:40.930 individual pain. It's very linear. But jazz is 00:06:40.930 --> 00:06:43.949 complex, it's unpredictable, but it's bound by 00:06:43.949 --> 00:06:47.949 this systemic, mechanical rhythm. Does Goodman 00:06:47.949 --> 00:06:50.350 mean the book focuses more on the mechanics of 00:06:50.350 --> 00:06:54.370 Jim Crow justice than just individual sorrow? 00:06:54.589 --> 00:06:56.689 I think that's arguably the most insightful piece 00:06:56.689 --> 00:06:59.110 of criticism in our sources today. If this were 00:06:59.110 --> 00:07:01.689 a blues narrative, it would be a straightforward 00:07:01.689 --> 00:07:04.370 tragedy. Start with the arrest, detail the suffering, 00:07:04.509 --> 00:07:07.930 and end in sorrow. Exactly. Devastating, but 00:07:07.930 --> 00:07:11.029 structurally simple. But jazz is polyphonic. 00:07:11.529 --> 00:07:13.910 It has overlapping timelines, disness, multiple 00:07:13.910 --> 00:07:15.629 voices. Oh, like the structure we were talking 00:07:15.629 --> 00:07:17.910 about earlier. Yes, wading through the antebellum 00:07:17.910 --> 00:07:20.810 south, the plantation economy, waiting to introduce 00:07:20.810 --> 00:07:23.730 the prison that is a jazz composition. He's layering 00:07:23.730 --> 00:07:26.470 the instruments, the state legislature, the wardens. 00:07:26.709 --> 00:07:29.350 All playing this heavy, oppressive rhythm of 00:07:29.350 --> 00:07:31.589 the state's justice system. And then slicing 00:07:31.589 --> 00:07:33.569 right through that heavy rhythm, you have the 00:07:33.569 --> 00:07:36.290 actual prison song lyrics. Which act as the human 00:07:36.290 --> 00:07:39.129 solo. You're reading this dense academic history, 00:07:39.569 --> 00:07:41.470 and suddenly you're confronted with the actual 00:07:41.470 --> 00:07:44.470 words sung by inmates sweating in the fields. 00:07:45.009 --> 00:07:48.129 Wow. It just completely grounds all that abstract 00:07:48.129 --> 00:07:51.089 history into immediate human reality. It elevates 00:07:51.089 --> 00:07:53.949 the whole text. The inmates aren't just passive 00:07:53.949 --> 00:07:57.040 statistics in a horror story on a shelf. By printing 00:07:57.040 --> 00:08:00.120 their lyrics, Oshinsky treats a song, sung in 00:08:00.120 --> 00:08:02.620 a field with the same weight as a state decree. 00:08:02.800 --> 00:08:05.500 They become active voices documenting their own 00:08:05.500 --> 00:08:07.839 history. I love that. It's a really powerful 00:08:07.839 --> 00:08:10.319 choice. But speaking of Oshinsky's choices, there 00:08:10.319 --> 00:08:12.980 is one more structural thing he does that really 00:08:12.980 --> 00:08:15.300 stirs up a debate about the role of a historian. 00:08:15.399 --> 00:08:19.120 Ah, the 1996 tangents. Yes. The book was published 00:08:19.120 --> 00:08:22.279 in 1996. And according to our summary, Oshinsky 00:08:22.279 --> 00:08:25.459 doesn't just stay in the past. At times, he describes 00:08:25.459 --> 00:08:28.980 events so good in 1996 and goes on tangents about 00:08:28.980 --> 00:08:31.019 completely different subjects. He essentially 00:08:31.019 --> 00:08:33.389 breaks the fourth wall of history. And the reviewers 00:08:33.389 --> 00:08:36.169 definitely noticed this. Adolf Reed Jr. in The 00:08:36.169 --> 00:08:38.750 Nation called the book an especially welcome 00:08:38.750 --> 00:08:41.990 reminder of past race relations that society 00:08:41.990 --> 00:08:45.110 would find undesirable to return to. And Goobin 00:08:45.110 --> 00:08:48.450 called it timely, right? Exactly. And we even 00:08:48.450 --> 00:08:50.470 know the topic stayed relevant because another 00:08:50.470 --> 00:08:53.460 book down on Parchman Farm, was published just 00:08:53.460 --> 00:08:55.960 a few years later in 1999. It definitely struck 00:08:55.960 --> 00:08:58.059 a nerve. But let me play devil's advocate here. 00:08:58.440 --> 00:09:01.440 If I pick up a book to learn about 1904 to 1930, 00:09:01.679 --> 00:09:03.879 and the author keeps talking about 1996 current 00:09:03.879 --> 00:09:07.360 events, is he abandoning his post as an objective 00:09:07.360 --> 00:09:09.759 historian? That's a fair question. I mean, is 00:09:09.759 --> 00:09:11.600 he crossing a line and acting more like a social 00:09:11.600 --> 00:09:13.820 critic? Well, this touches on a massive debate. 00:09:14.279 --> 00:09:16.840 What is the purpose of history? Is a historian 00:09:16.840 --> 00:09:19.460 just a custodian of old facts, dusting them off 00:09:19.460 --> 00:09:22.279 and locking them in a glass case? A strict traditionalist 00:09:22.279 --> 00:09:24.340 would say yes, they want the glass case. Sure. 00:09:24.919 --> 00:09:27.580 But look at Adolf Reed Jr.'s quote. He calls 00:09:27.580 --> 00:09:30.679 it a reminder of conditions we'd find undesirable 00:09:30.679 --> 00:09:33.740 to return to. You only need a warning if the 00:09:33.740 --> 00:09:36.360 threat is still palpable. Oh, so by jumping forward 00:09:36.360 --> 00:09:39.340 to 1996, he's removing the comfort of distance. 00:09:39.919 --> 00:09:41.840 Precisely. He won't let you close the book and 00:09:41.840 --> 00:09:44.679 say, well, thank goodness that's over. By detailing 00:09:44.679 --> 00:09:48.320 1996 criminal justice alongside the 1904 convict 00:09:48.320 --> 00:09:50.679 lease system, he's showing that the jazz rhythm 00:09:50.679 --> 00:09:53.659 never stopped playing. It just changed its tempo 00:09:53.659 --> 00:09:56.899 and its legal terminology. Right. And the fact 00:09:56.899 --> 00:09:59.360 that Goodman found it timely and that Down on 00:09:59.360 --> 00:10:02.299 Parchment Farm came out in 1999 proves that readers 00:10:02.299 --> 00:10:04.200 were seeing reflections of Parchment in their 00:10:04.200 --> 00:10:06.340 own news cycles. So he's making the argument 00:10:06.340 --> 00:10:08.799 that the wall between the past and present is 00:10:08.799 --> 00:10:11.480 basically an illusion. Exactly. It's not a lack 00:10:11.480 --> 00:10:14.440 of objectivity. It's a structural argument about 00:10:14.440 --> 00:10:17.840 enduring systems. Man, that is fascinating. So, 00:10:18.340 --> 00:10:19.820 bringing all these threads together, what does 00:10:19.820 --> 00:10:22.559 this deep dive mean for us as readers? We've 00:10:22.559 --> 00:10:24.779 unpacked a text that critics universally praise 00:10:24.779 --> 00:10:27.980 as rigorous, but also profoundly unconventional. 00:10:28.139 --> 00:10:30.259 Very unconventional. We started with an author 00:10:30.259 --> 00:10:32.879 digging up long -forgotten plantation records. 00:10:33.259 --> 00:10:36.240 We explored how he built a cinematic, slow -burn 00:10:36.240 --> 00:10:38.779 narrative that forces you to sit with the antebellum 00:10:38.779 --> 00:10:41.820 south before you ever see the Jim Crow penitentiary. 00:10:41.899 --> 00:10:44.059 We looked at the grim mathematics of measuring 00:10:44.059 --> 00:10:46.799 trauma, debating with the New York Times whether 00:10:46.799 --> 00:10:50.860 it was like slavery or worse. Right. And we saw 00:10:50.860 --> 00:10:53.679 how he wove the breathing lyrics of prison songs 00:10:53.679 --> 00:10:57.399 into this complex jazz like history that refuses 00:10:57.399 --> 00:10:59.860 to stay safely quarantined in the past. It's 00:10:59.860 --> 00:11:01.899 really a master class in how history is felt, 00:11:02.000 --> 00:11:05.159 not just recorded. It truly is. But as we wrap 00:11:05.159 --> 00:11:07.100 up today, I want to leave you with a final thought 00:11:07.100 --> 00:11:09.059 spinning off that beautiful detail about the 00:11:09.059 --> 00:11:12.100 music. The book preserves the lyrics of those 00:11:12.100 --> 00:11:14.340 prison songs, right? The art created by the inmates 00:11:14.340 --> 00:11:17.759 themselves while navigating this horrific system. 00:11:17.919 --> 00:11:20.570 Yeah, their own words. It makes you wonder. What 00:11:20.570 --> 00:11:22.750 happens to the history of a place like Parchman 00:11:22.750 --> 00:11:25.149 Farm if those songs were never recorded or written 00:11:25.149 --> 00:11:27.549 down in books like this? That's a haunting thought. 00:11:27.870 --> 00:11:29.889 Does the horror story just disappear silently 00:11:29.889 --> 00:11:33.009 into the Mississippi soil? Or does human suffering 00:11:33.009 --> 00:11:35.549 always find another way to echo forward and be 00:11:35.549 --> 00:11:38.610 heard? The permanence of history really relies 00:11:38.610 --> 00:11:41.549 on our willingness to keep unearthing it. Keep 00:11:41.549 --> 00:11:44.309 asking questions, keep looking beneath the floorboards. 00:11:44.649 --> 00:11:46.809 Thanks for joining us everyone and we will catch 00:11:46.809 --> 00:11:48.470 you on the next Deep Dive.