Students from the Jessye Norman School of the Arts reflect on what they learned in the first episode of the podcast about Charles Oatman’s 1970 death in a Richmond County jail. They also draw on comparisons to Sandra Bland, who died in a Texas jail cell in 2015.

Bonus: Could Charles Oatman’s Death Happen Today?

"Shots in the Back: Exhuming the 1970 Augusta Riot" tells the story of one of the first major Civil Rights Era riots in the South. The immediate cause of the riot in Augusta, Ga. was the brutal murder of Charles Oatman, an African American teenager held by police in the county jail. During the riot, six Black men were killed by white police officers, all of them shot in the back. In a collaboration, students at the Jessye Norman School of the Arts join GPB in telling this story.

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Bonus: Could Charles Oatman’s Death Happen Today?

Bonus: Could Charles Oatman’s Death Happen Today?

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