Unspeakable

December 15, 2007
This remarkable book documents the life of Junius Wilson (19082001), who was committed to a state mental hospital in North Carolina at age 17 following an accusation of attempted rape. Imprisoned there for 76 years without ever having been tried or found guilty of a crime, he was forced to work as a laborer for the State Hospital for the Colored Insane and was eventually castrated. He was never found insane by any medical professional. Wilson was merely poor, black, and deaf in the Jim Crow South. Activist scholars Burch and Joyner use hospital records, legal documents, and oral history interviews to tell Wilson's story. The authors gently demonstrate how, in many ways, his story is also the story of race, bigotry, disability, and mental illness in 20th-century America. Wilson's life is, tragically, a nearly perfect lens through which to examine those themes. Highly recommended for collections with a strong African American history, deaf studies, or disability history emphasis, although its scholarly approach may be a better fit for academic libraries than public libraries.Rachel Bridgewater, Washington State Univ. Lib, Vancouver

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2007
Junius Wilson, a deaf black man who died in 2001, spent 76 years in a state mental hospital in Goldsboro, North Carolina. He had earlier spent six years in a criminal wardafter a charge of attempted rape. Relyingmostly on oral-history interviews, Burch andJoyner reconstruct Wilsons life in an institution where he was castrated, forced into hard labor, and marginalized by his deafness even as the entire institution, the State Hospital for the Colored Insane, was marginalized by race. Isolated by his inability to communicate with others, Wilsons every action was misinterpreted to his detriment.Burch andJoyner also explore the racial and social dynamics that may have caused a man who was never found guilty of any criminal charge to live his life in an institution as the forces of major movements from civil rights to disability rights and changes in professional social work slowly moved to reevaluate his situation. An engrossing and insightful look at changes in how race and disability have been viewed from the perspective of one mans life.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)