Junius Wilson (1908-2001) spent seventy-six years at a state mental
hospital in Goldsboro, North Carolina, including six in the
criminal ward. He had never been declared insane by a medical
professional or found guilty of any criminal charge. But he was
deaf and black in the Jim Crow South.
Unspeakable is the
story of his life.
Using legal records, institutional files, and extensive oral
history interviews--some conducted in sign language--Susan Burch
and Hannah Joyner piece together the story of a deaf man accused in
1925 of attempted rape, found insane at a lunacy hearing, committed
to the criminal ward of the State Hospital for the Colored Insane,
castrated, forced to labor for the institution, and held at the
hospital for more than seven decades. Junius Wilson's life was
shaped by some of the major developments of twentieth-century
America: Jim Crow segregation, the civil rights movement,
deinstitutionalization, the rise of professional social work, and
the emergence of the deaf and disability rights movements. In
addition to offering a bottom-up history of life in a segregated
mental institution, Burch and Joyner's work also enriches the
traditional interpretation of Jim Crow by highlighting the
complicated intersections of race and disability as well as of
community and language.
This moving study expands the boundaries of what biography can and
should be. There is much to learn and remember about Junius
Wilson--and the countless others who have lived unspeakable
histories.