Advertisement
We're Discourse BHAM, a pop-up public lecture series bringing the most interesting academic talks to Birmingham's bars & breweries. It's like a college class, but there's drinking.Tickets are $15. Seating is limited.
A Discourse by the academy award nominated producer of The Alabama Solution.
A drug-infested landscape characterized by subterranean brutality, where record numbers of murders and assaults happen at all hours of the day and night. No, this isn’t a foreign country governed by an authoritarian regime. It’s a system run by the largest law enforcement agency in the state of Alabama.
This talk will take you inside the Alabama Department of Corrections, the deadliest prison system in the nation, where unconstitutional conditions include routine kidnappings, a homeless population and corruption so deep that most facilities operate like organized crime rings.
The landmark trial between the U.S. Department of Justice and ADOC is set to begin November 30, and guess who's paying for the legal defense of the system? We are. $94 million and counting.
Learn about this human rights disaster, the historical roots of Alabama’s addiction to penal cruelty and leave with stories of hope and redemption from inside this crisis.
Beth Shelburne is an Alabama-based independent writer and investigative journalist whose work is focused at the intersection of justice and injustice in the deep South. For over 14 years, she’s reported extensively on the crisis in Alabama prisons. She co-produced the 2025 Oscar nominated documentary film The Alabama Solution. Her written work has appeared in publications throughout Alabama as well as The Los Angeles Times, The Daily Beast, The Bitter Southerner and Facing South, and she regularly publishes reported essays on her Substack called Moth to Flame.
In 2023, Beth released a critically-acclaimed podcast series called Earwitness that investigates the wrongful conviction of Toforest Johnson, an innocent man who remains on Alabama’s death row. Previously, she spent 20 years working as a TV news anchor and reporter in several major markets, including San Diego and Boston. Her broadcast journalism has been recognized by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the National Edward R. Murrow Awards, and the Associated Press Media Editors Annual Awards. She holds a Master’s Degree in creative writing from University of Alabama at Birmingham and a BA in Mass Communication and Journalism from Auburn University. Additionally, Beth serves as an adjunct writing instructor at UAB and Samford University.
Advertisement
Event venue
Monday Night Brewing - Social Club (Monday Night Brewing Social Club), The Piedmont Group of Alabama, 1201 1st Ave S, Birmingham, AL 35233, United States
Tickets
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups — all the happenings, one place.