The Morganza, 1967

by Stuart, David E.

• ISBN13: 9780826346414
• ISBN10: 0826346413
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-09-30
• Publisher: Univ of New Mexico Pr

Summary

Fresh out of college, David Stuart put off graduate school to take a job close to his West Virginia home as a counselor at the Youth Development Center at Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. Known locally as the Morganza, the facility was founded in the nineteenth century as a farm for orphaned boys. By the 1960s, the Morganza had long been burdened with a sinister reputation when it was converted into a detention center for Allegheny County youth convicted of crimes ranging from petty theft to armed robbery, rape, and murder. Reporting for duty during the racially turbulent and riot-torn summer of 1967, Stuart describes the life of students and staff in what was, in reality, a youth prison camp. Confronted with the glaring shortcomings of the reform school's methods of rehabilitation, Stuart irritated the bureaucracy, advocating for detainees whose only crimes were a lack of education and belonging to the wrong race or economic class. He confronted an establishment that refused to distinguish between hardened criminals and those who would benefit from actual reform. In The Morganza, 1967Stuart offers a brutally honest--at times touching--insider's view of a juvenile justice system that was badly in need of fixing.

Author Biography

David E. Stuart was the first student in the state of West Virginia to earn a degree in anthropology. He earned his MA and PhD from UNM in 1970 and 1972. A cofounder of UNM's Office of Contract Archaeology, he has conducted fieldwork in Mexico, Alaska, Ecuador, and the American Southwest, where he continues to publish in both anthropology and archaeology. Stuart served the University of New Mexico as a senior academic administrator for many years, and still teaches the archaeology of New Mexico. His other UNM Press books include The Guaymas Chronicles (2003 Southwest book of the year), Zone of Tolerance (a PEN Southwest 2007 nonfiction finalist), The Ecudor Effect (a PEN Southwest 2007 fiction finalist), Flight of Souls, and Angel of Vilcabamba.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments Author's Note	p. xi
We Have a Job Opening	p. 1
Students Will Be Rehabilitated	p. 3
Let's Break Him In	p. 7
The Tower	p. 16
Rabbit	p. 23
A Day Off	p. 30
Where's the Graveyard?	p. 34
I'm Black!	p. 43
Not Behind the White Fence	p. 50
Mr. Davenport, We Have to Talk	p. 57
Sorry About the Fork Thing	p. 64
Nefertiti	p. 71
What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate	p. 76
Jelly Baby	p. 87
We Got Duppies Up on 2	p. 93
The Price of Identity	p. 101
Daddy	p. 109
Billy, I Have Something to Tell You...	p. 118
Dammit! It's Rabbit Again...	p. 131
Cat Missing	p. 139
Happy Halloween, 1967	p. 149
Who? Who?	p. 158
Her Majesty's Dance	p. 171
I'll Take Extra Shifts	p. 179
The Changing of the Guard	p. 190
Punish Me! Punish Me!	p. 196
Sanna's White ... It Gonna Open for You	p. 202
We Lost Four?	p. 212
It's an Inside Joke	p. 217
Epilogue	p. 221
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