The Negro Boys Industrial School was a juvenile work farm near Wrightsville, Arkansas, housing boys who were orphaned, unhoused, or accused of minor misbehavior. In other words, this “reform school” functioned as a prison.
On March 5, 1959, 21 of its Black students burned alive.
It was already a rough night for these boys, who were forced to wear rags, farm the school’s land, and go without drinkable water. But at 4:00 a.m., flames licked their dormitory walls. And they were locked in.
Out of 69 boys, 48 fought to pry windows open and jump out – 21 others were found dead in a pile the next morning. What remained of their bodies was wrapped in newspaper. After a mass funeral, family members couldn’t even see their coffins descend into the ground.
Decades later, the Negro Boys Industrial School is no more. But an adult prison stands on the land where it used to sit. Black people are only 15% of Arkansas’ population but make up 38% of that prison’s population and 42% of the state’s overall prison population.
Things like the “troubled teen industry” might masquerade under different names, but it’s all part of the criminal legal system and its brutal ideology. Black youth deserve resources born out of care, not criminalization and punishment.