Children at the School for Boys pose with administrators in this photo from the 1950s
Within the past year, anthropologists working for the University of South Florida (USF) have exhumed the remains of 55 children on the grounds of the now-shuttered Arthur G Dozier School for Boys. The boys were buried in simple coffins in the Boot Hill cemetery section of the school. The remains were recovered along with items like belt buckles, buttons, and in one case, a marble.
From 1900-2011, the Dozier School in Marianna, Florida, was a state-run reform school for boys who found themselves in trouble - whether stealing cars, skipping school, or in the case of some children as young as one, needing an orphanage when none was available.
"There was blood on the walls, blood on the mattress I was on, blood on the pillow," says Alan Sexton of his time in the building the boys called the White House.
"It smelled to high heaven. They turned on a great big industrial fan to keep people from passing by hearing the screams."
Sexton was a student at the Dozier School in 1957. He was only taken to the White House once, and given 37 licks for making unapproved phone calls. But other men, like Jerry Cooper, the president of an advocacy group called White House Boys, reportly received over 100 lashes. It was the stories told by the White House Boys, who mainly attended the school during the 1950s and 1960s, that drew attention to Dozier and helped attract Erin Kimmerle, a USF forensic anthropologist, to the site.
Specifically, she was drawn to the stories of family members desperate to locate their loved ones'
remains.
Using archaeological field methods, Kimmerle and her team estimated that about 50 students (55 have been found so far) would be buried at the site - an increase from the 31 estimated by the state in 2009.
"In terms of that initial work, we were close," she says.
"Who they are specifically and what happened to them, we just don't know that."
The USF investigation is focused on finding those who had family members buried at Dozier so they can collect DNA and try to match remains, a task done in collaboration with the University of North Texas Health Sciences Center.
In 2010 a state investigation into the school found "no tangible physical evidence" to "either support or refute allegations of physical or sexual abuse" during the White House boys era.
The following year, the government shut down the Dozier school, citing economic factors. Around the same time, the US Department of Justice released a report which says it found "harmful practices... that threatened the safety and wellbeing of youth" at Dozier and another reform school in Jacksonville, Florida. ( Just what did that mean, exactly?)
Before the property could be sold, Kimmerle and her team won the right to excavate the grounds. She has until next August to search the ground relying on radar, dogs, old maps, and the testimony of former students.
He believes the excavation at Dozier may be one of the last chances to prove the allegations they have been making for years. In February, crews were observed excavating the ground behind the White House but had found no remains.
Still, says Kimmerle, it is too early to rule out foul play in regards to any of the 55 sets of remains recovered. She also notes that their investigation indicates that the children who died in the fire were locked in their rooms with no means of escape, while those who died in the flu epidemic were abandoned by the staff without food or medicine.
"I want it out there, what happened to us," says Cooper, who has spent years advocating for the White House Boys. It was largely thanks to his organization, along with dedicated reporting from the St Petersburg Times, that the story has remained in the public eye.
"Don't feel sorry for us," he says.
"Feel proud that we brought it out into the open."
I think we should also be grateful that some of the boys survived that hell on earth, to tell their story.
Why don't we have frequent, random checks and thorough investigations of all institutions charged with the permanent care and welfare of children; be they homeless, orphaned, physically or mentally challenged or delinquent? Because of the cost? Is that the reason?
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