Reform school stories of abuse are nothing new. They crop up from time to time to remind the general populace that some should not have authority over others, regardless of past indiscretions committed by those others. Such is the case of the century of abuse being reported by the Associated Press and other news outlets concerning the Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida, where young boys were sent for committing crimes and receiving poor grades.
Calling themselves the “White House Boys,” so described because of the shared experience of being taken to the “white house” for beatings while placed at the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, five men have called for an investigation of unmarked graves behind the school. After a ceremony where the situation of Florida admitted to the abuse of those sent to the school and permanently sealed the White House building, the White House Boys described some of the abuses they endured at the hands of those that ran the Dozier School of Boys.
Some of the stories are of acts of outright physical child abuse. Some stories hint at murder. And cover-up.
The graves behind the Dozier School for Boys are headed with crosses without names. The White House Boys believe that some of the graves contain the bodies of children beaten and/or abuse to the point of death during the reform school’s 108 years of operation.
Much of the story can be read at thewhitehouseboys.blogspot.com. The set details many abuses and alleged deaths that occurred at the reform school. An account of the act of flogging, a punishment that was outlawed in the residence of Florida for men in 1922, exposes the unusually cruel practice being mature on boys and young men at the White House until 1967. A veritable torture chamber, being taken to the White House was to be feared because some did not return.
What could secure a boy sent to the White House? Talking to a black inmate, saying the wrong thing, or having the wrong facial expression at the wrong time could get one sent to the White House building, which contained two rooms where the beatings and abuses took place. One room was for black inmates, the other for whites.
But not all agree with the stories of torture and abuse. Some say it was discipline meted out to those that deserved it. One Alabama native sent to the school for low grades in 1957 said that the beatings were severe, but that the reform school was no “house of horrors.”
But men like Roger Kiser and Dick Colon do not explore the Dozier School for Boys as a place that oversaw the just disciplining of wayward youths. Colon recalls seeing a young boy tumbling inside a laundry dryer. Panicked of what might happen to him, he left the building and said nothing. The boy in the dryer was never seen again. Roger Kiser supports the story and recalls a school psychologist warning him to remain silent about the matter.
That young boy may be in one of the graves, the White House Boys believe.
Mary Zahasky, the reform school’s current superintendent, says that she cannot imagine children being buried in the graveyard. “It makes me sad. I feel bad if there are little children over there in those little graves.”
Florida Governor Charlie Crist ordered the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate the allegations made by Roger Kiser and the other White House Boys. The Department of Juvenile Justice is cooperating but has no records that explain the existence of the cemetery at the reform school. One theory concerning who may be in the graves centers around the deaths of six boys after a 1914 fire, but that would epic for only a few of the 30 or more graves at the Dozier School for Boys.
Marianna, Florida, is located about 70 miles northwest of Tallahassee.
******
Sources:
Associated Press
thewhitehouseboys.blogspot.com
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