New shows every Tuesday and Friday!

Robin Bernstein

Robin Bernstein Profile Photo

Robin Bernstein is a cultural historian who focuses on US racial formation over the past two centuries. Her most recent book is Freeman's Challenge: The Murder that Shook America's Original Prison for Profit. Her previous books include Racial Innocence: Performing American Childhood from Slavery to Civil Rights and a Jewish feminist children's book called Terrible, Terrible! She teaches at Harvard University, where she is the Dillon Professor of American History and Professor of African and African American Studies and of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality. She currently chairs Harvard's doctoral program in American Studies. Visit her at robinbernsteinphd.com.

William Freeman & The Birth of Profit Prisons With Dr. Robin Bernstein
275
Nov. 18, 2025

William Freeman & The Birth of Profit Prisons With Dr. Robin Bernstein

American history, slavery, capitalism, and the origins of America’s prison-for-profit system collide in this powerful episode of the Unsolicited Perspectives Podcast. Bruce Anthony interviews Dr. Robin Bernstein about her book Freeman's Challenge: The Murder that Shook America's Original Prison for Profit. Dr. Bernstein uncovers the true story of William Freeman, revealing how prison for profit, racial control, and mass incarceration grew directly out of slavery. Dr. Bernstein shares the research, family history, and discoveries that led her to William Freeman — a Black man whose wrongful imprisonment, brutal injury, and legal battle expose the roots of the carceral state, Auburn Prison, and early prison capitalism. She breaks down the history schools never taught: indentured servitude, gradual emancipation, white supremacy in law, and the racial dynamics that shaped modern prisons. This conversation connects 19th-century injustice to today’s policies, punishment, and profit — while a…