Episode 4: This Man Shall be Remembered

The fight over how to memorialize the Sugar Land 95 has taken its toll on activist Reginald Moore. As his health declines, momentum slows. Research on the cemetery is finally made public, and the findings aren’t just surprising — they’re unbelievable.

Transcript 

Related 

Emails between Bill Martin at the Texas Historical Commission and archeologist Reign Clark from Sept 2018 discussing who had authority to grant permission to do destructive analysis on the remains.

Source: Obtained from the Texas Historical Commission under the Texas Public Information Act

Emails between Bill Martin at the Texas Historical Commission and Fort Bend ISD's attorney in the summer of 2019 about doing destructive analysis on the remains.

Source: Obtained from the Texas Historical Commission under the Texas Public Information Act

Report and graphic novel depicting the history of convict leasing in Sugar Land written and designed by Hanna Kim under the guidance of Reginald Moore. Published Jun 2020.

Source: Convict Leasing and Labor Project

"Back to Bondage: Forced Labor in Post-Reconstruction Era Texas," a report prepared by Goshawk Environmental Consulting for Fort Bend ISD, detailing the discovery, exhumation and bioarchaeological analysis of the Sugar Land 95 cemetery. Published Aug 2020.

Source: Fort Bend ISD

A table from "Back to Bondage" listing 72 convicts who could be among those buried in the Sugar Land 95 cemetery.

Source: Fort Bend ISD
ABOUT
The Sugar Land podcast is a production of Dot Productions and The Texas Newsroom, a public radio journalism collaboration that includes NPR, KERA in North Texas, Houston Public Media, KUT in Austin, Texas Public Radio in San Antonio and other stations across the state.
Co-hosts: Brittney Martin and Naomi Reed
Editor: Rachel Osier Lindley
Executive Producer: Brittney Martin
Engineer and Sound Designer: Jacob Rosati
Fact Checker: Billy Brennan
Audio Editor: Bennett Smith
Music: JaRon Marshall
Recording Engineer: Jake Perlman
Producer: Rafa Farihah
Managing Editor of The Texas Newsroom: Corrie MacLaggan
Website: Alan Bouzek
SUPPORT
The podcast and website were completed with the support of a grant from Columbia University's Ira A. Lipman Center for Journalism and Civil and Human Rights with funding provided by Arnold Ventures and a grant from the Convict Leasing and Labor Project.
The nonprofit collective Lawyers for Reporters and the SMU Dedman School of Law's First Amendment Clinic provided Dot Productions with pro bono legal assistance.
Copyright © Dot Productions LLC