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Subscribe to RSSAfter months of studying the grounds of Florida's largest reform school, a team of anthropologists identify 19 more graves suggesting more boys were allegedly tortured and killed there. WFLA's Yolanda Fernandez reports.
Scientists have found 19 previously unknown grave shafts on the grounds of a notorious Florida reform school, suggesting that many more boys died there amid brutal conditions than had previously been known, the researchers said Monday.
The Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, which was also known as the Florida State Reform School, closed in June 2011 after state investigators and the U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division confirmed widespread abuse over many decades.
The state attributed its decision to close the school to budgetary reasons. Yet long before then, the institution had been the target of investigations and lawsuits alleging not only physical and mental abuse but also forced labor, rape and even murder of the young charges sent to its care since it opened in 1900.
The prominent writer Roger Dean Kiser, author of "The White House Boys — An American Tragedy," about the horrors he experienced while incarcerated there in the 1950s as a child, has called the school a "concentration camp for little boys." He wrote that "a devil was hiding behind every tree, every building and even behind every blade of manicured grass."
They're called the White House Boys because much of the abuse occurred in an 11-room building on the school grounds known as the White House, where former students say they were beaten with leather straps. A group of the former students sued the state in 2010, but the case was dismissed because the statute of limitations had expired.
Previous investigations and records had reported that 31 boys were buried on school grounds, and that most of them died in a fire and an influenza outbreak at the school in the early 1900s. But researchers at the University of South Florida, in Tampa, say they now estimate there are at least 50 grave shafts in the area of the school's cemetery and the surrounding woods. Some graves may have been the final resting place for more than one boy, the researchers said in an interim report released Monday.
Records recovered and examined by the researchers indicate that at least 96 boys and two adults died at the school from 1914 to 1973. Most of boys who were committed to the school and died there were African-American.
Read the full report (.pdf — contents may be distressing for some readers)
But that may be only the tip of the iceberg: The researchers didn't have access to student records after 1960, when such documents became subject to privacy laws. Moreover, researchers couldn't test the entire area because of overgrowth and vegetative conditions, they said.
And more chillingly, there may be other, secret graveyards somewhere on the grounds, given the number of still-unaccounted-for cases and the practice of segregating cemeteries during the first half of the last century, Erin Kimmerle, an assistant professor of anthropology at the university, said on a conference call with reporters. It's highly unlikely that white boys were buried with black boys during those decades, but as yet, the researchers haven't found a previously hidden whites-only cemetery.
"I didn't realize going in how much of a story of civil rights it was," Kimmerle said.
The research team used ground-penetrating radar and other methods to map the school's cemetery and chemically analyzed the soil to identify the number of graves.
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"We anticipated finding about 25 to 30 grave shafts," said Christian Wells, an assistant professor of anthropology who led the anthropological work at the site, "but in fact we found a minimum of 50" — all of them on the north side of the campus, called Boot Hill, where African-American boys were segregated.
A full picture of the sheer scale of the abuses remains difficult to paint, because there are significant gaps and discrepancies in the records, "and the cause and manner of death for the majority of cases are unknown," the report said.
"Many questions persist about who is buried at the school and the circumstances surrounding their deaths," the report said. But Kimmerle said the team had determined that at least 20 boys died within the first three months of having been remanded to the school's custody — probably because they were unable to cope with the crowding and the conditions — and that burial locations were unspecified for nearly three times more African-American boys than for white boys.
University of South Florida
Anthropologists from the University of South Florida marked previously undiscovered graves at the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Fla., during field work in May 2012.
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My America, our legacy.
i bet the state of florida is in ass covering mode. but the sad part is all those young boys are dead florida knew it and did nothing about it and no one will be punished. this tells me that there is no justice for average people only the rich get justice. florida had a serial killer on their payroll and did nothing about it. it is time for the people to take our government back from the bureaucrats.
I read as much as what I could stomach to read of the pdf. files on this. This was not just a school for boys who had committed crimes but also included girls and children, as young as five years old, who were unwanted and orphaned! I'm appalled and angry at what this state-ran school got away with for over 100 years.
This story reminds me of when they tore down the catholic convent in EAST LOS ANGELES off of Whittier blvd & boyle street where they discovered hundred of bones of unborn children and babies. But that was covered up real quick by the L.A.dioese. My MOM & Aunt were both in that institution were forcrd to practice that religion.
Now I know this going to upset some of you but facts are facts.
That's our government for you, they collect taxes, and pretend they are doing something. Why would it take decades of investigation....because nobody gives a damn and those that do are only adding there two cents to comments like these.
Go to you tube check out Alex Jones....what happened to a nation that cared or did all of the courage die with our forefathers.
People who think our society is bad now, just don't realize all the atrocities many years ago. All was kept hidden. No constant news, no internet, etc. It was much easier to hide atrocities. Now you know why everything, and I mean everything is reported on now. To stop atrocities - physical, mental, and financial.
Poor, poor boys!
This is NOT a civil rights story, it's a murder story!
Is all of the above...
Agreed.
in my book there is no statute of limitations when abuse of children are involved. i believe the those whom are still alive whom where involved and i don't care the age should be brought to justice and any surviving family should be compensated some how someway.
Here we go again!!.... Typical right wing religious fascism at its best/worst
Here we go again; typical left-wing whiners living by hypocrisy and finger pointing.
I'm really impressed by everyone's compassion for these poor boys. I want to build a residential treatment center for this type of child. In your neighborhood. The Zoning Board meeting is next Wednesday. Come show your support.
Build it in my neighborhood. You'll get no objections.
well thats florida for you at the turn of the century, figured it was easier to dump the black boys than it was to feed them, was a reform school also in georigia that did the same thing many years ago,happens,talked to a old guy in georigia who said his uncle was the headmaster at the place, said his uncle scared him told him that he should be glad he was a white boy cause if he was black? he wouldnt be eating dinner again,said at the time he didnt know what he was talking about but as he got older he figured it out,it was a common practice in the south, probably still is, in certain areas
From the guy on the news who was imprisoned there in the 1950s it sounds as if the boys were turned loose, told to run, and then hunted for sport. That may sound pretty far out to most of the country, but the gun crowd here in West Florida would find it amusing even now to hunt black boys. The NRA owns the state of Florida lock, stock and barrel. The people running the institution may well have run the institution as a hunting preserve for the racial bigots.
Damn!!... Finally someone sees everything clear!! You probably are not an American.... Most of the people in this country have their heads up their "culo"!
Democraps controlled the state of Florida from 1900 until 2001.So don't go patting your self on the back to hard,you might fall over.It wasn't teabaggers,as you call them that was responsible for these deaths.
Waaaah! There were white children abused and murdered there as well, ya goon. So leave the bigot crap alone.
Speak for yourself, JFD; or can you speak with your head up there?
Read below.The "gun crowd" in the South,especially Florida ,in the 1950's would have been almost entirely made up of dimocraps.They would have been the clowns,by appointment running this institution,the guards would have been dims,the administration dims,the regional administration dim,dims all along the food chain.You would not have found a single republican in office in Florida in the 1950s'.
Don't the teabaggers call that tough love?
@Roadless traveled, there are NO statutes of limitations on murder.
This was allowed to continue until 2011?!
Just another example of the greatest country in the world!
It is the greatest country in the world.You would not be seeing this public cleansing in most countries of the world.Besides every country or people have made mistakes.Only dimocraps think everything they have done is correct.Remember,during this time,dimocrap ran all forms of government in Florida and most Southern states.
Ahh, yes, because this kind of stuff (and worse) NEVER happens in other places, huh? Moron. We ARE the greatest country in the world. If you live here, move away; if you don't, your cesspool is a joke.
I lived with segregation in the school in the 1950s and 60s.I could never understand segregation especially the part about seperating people once they had passed on.
Hmm, well played, American lib media. Does it really matter what color the boys were/are? Why not mention the European descent of the Caucasian boys? Oh, no; that wouldn't get the troops fired up enough, huh? Moronic media has it's agenda and mentioning the white children doesn't fit it there.
You're just too stupid to understand they were talking about grave markers. Never mind, hop around some more, yell a little, get a little more pissed off. Raise your blood pressure a few more points. That's cool.
Florida, steals elections, tries to suppress the vote, so why not a reform school scandal too? Sad and I hope that those who did what they did to those Boys have to stand before the ALMIGHTY and have Judgement passed on them for their actions.
"statute of limitations had expired"? There are no limits in time for genocide! Nazis are prosecuted and jailed until today even if they are 100 years old.
Looks like the unmarked graves with multiple bodies in them reeks of foul play there is no statute of limitations on murder. Pursue the state of Florida till it screams uncle from the sheer size of the civil suit, punish the state with gigantic monetary suits. Pursue, Prosecute and punish the state.
What makes the blue blood Bushs' so gung-ho about leading the pack? Unmarked school graves, 3 perfect 911 demolitions, WMD, desert storm, JFK's coup d' etat , and only God knows how many more Skulls and Bones in their closets. "Clinton's Rise to Power" video is also a must see sickening life story guaranteed to make you puke.
what surprises me most is the number of ignorant people out there that don't realize that not just early American history but all of human history is littered with stories like this. We must remember where we came from. I've said it for years and I still mean it. We come from a long line of butchers, rapist and thieves. There is hardly a human alive today that if possible would be able to trace their lineage back to a woman who was raped, possibly several in the tree. This same person would also be able to trace back and find several murderers and thieves as ancestors as well. The current human race was not made from sugar and spice and everything nice. We traveled a long and bloody road. How many people believe that Blacks (African Americans if you prefer) were the only people to endure horrible forms of slavery? How many people believe that the Native American genocide was an isolated incident based largely on cultural misunderstandings and ignorance in general? The answer is far too many. Those of you who long for the good old days should consider stories like this before you say such things. If you are an American living today regardless of your social status, education and your current opinion; the truth is you are one of the luckiest people alive. An American alive today is experiencing a life far better than over 99% of all other humans that have ever lived and yes I'm even including most of our homeless. Humans are amazing creature capable of a great feats; be them works of art, construction or of will and mind. However humans are also capable of horrendous feats as well, unspeakable acts of depravity. The number of ways we've wrecked havoc upon our fellow man goes beyond count. Those of you who have horrible suggestions for the treatment of the people that were either complicit with the behavior at this reform school or administered the depraved behavior are no better than those who are guilty of said acts. Reread your post you sound no different than the individuals that committed such acts. You do your ancestors proud. Breading is everything after all. If you really want to make a difference learn about our history and attempt to not make the same mistakes. We may not be able to change our past and but we can learn from it. We also may not be able to forgive those in history that are monsters in our eyes but is because we live in such comfortable times; be grateful for that.
He's right, you know. We still have to strive for betterment though.
wow, that's alot of votes obama lost...
Uh... he WON, you dumb sh!t. And he can't run again, so there ARE no more votes. Even your name is idiotic in that respect.
And now you'll get to ruin your health over Hillary in 2016. Have a nice next 4 years! ;-)
the dead can't vote dipshat. every one of those broken home blacks would have voted for him had they lived, hell, welfare blacks are his voter base. ergo, those bodies mean obama lost a lot of votes, learn to read before you claim to be a god a-hole...
As sad as this story is I see the writer M. Alex Johnson still felt a need to fabricate a racism story or trump one up. Obviously these boys both African-American and Anglo-American (Black and White) suffered abuses in this setting. Generally Mariana Boys Reform school was for the hardcore boys and was a last stop before prison. It was no less traumatic for Whites than it was for Blacks. Most of this occurred over or near 100 years ago. Good luck proving anything. It is not right or proper to assume something without evidence.
This wasn't about race. It's about history.
You're just too stupid to understand, you're the one making it about race.