Unspeakable

The Story of Junius Wilson

By: Susan Burch, Hannah Joyner

Narrated by: Corey Johnson

Junius Wilson (1908-2001) spent 76 years at a state mental hospital in Goldsboro, North Carolina, including 6 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. In addition to offering a bottom-up history of life in a segregated mental institution, Burch and Joyner's biography also enriches the traditional interpretation of Jim Crow by highlighting the complicated intersections of race and disability as well as of community and language.

©2007 The University of North Carolina Press (P)2014 Audible, Inc.

Nuanced look at a complicated case of injustice

I really enjoyed this biography about Junius Wilson, a deaf black man, who was unjustly institutionalized for most of his life. The story contextualizes the many circumstances and discriminations that allowed for Wilson’s castration and continued institutionalization for 60+ years. It also chronicles the many progressive laws and activism efforts that slowly changed attitudes towards and the treatment of disabled and institutionalized people that eventually led to the many legal measures that finally granted Wilson more rights and freedom, albeit devastatingly late in his life.