'A concentration camp for little boys' unearthed in KKK county

[Jan Klimkowski]

Pain and trauma to shape and control minds.

Of those who survived.

'A concentration camp for little boys': Dark secrets unearthed in KKK county

Excavators discover 50 bodies buried in the grounds of a boys' borstal, which was only shut in 2010

Florida

Sunday 03 March 2013

The Indpendent

For years, almost no one at the Dozier School even knew about the burial ground in a clearing in the woods on the edge of campus. It was forbidden territory. The soil here, churned in places by tiny ants, holds more than the remains of little boys. Only now is it starting to give up its dark secrets: horror stories of state-sanctioned barbarism, including flogging, sexual assault and, possibly, murder.

That the Arthur G Dozier School a borstal for delinquent boys founded in 1900 was not a gentle place was well-established. Boys as young as six were chained to walls, lashings with a leather strap were frequent and, in the early decades, children endured enforced labour, making bricks and working printing presses. When it was closed in 2011, it had already been the subject of separate federal and state investigations.

But, as suspicions deepen about how the boys in the burial ground died, pressure is growing again on the state to shine new light into the darkest days of the school in Marianna, a Florida Panhandle town that once was a bastion of the KKK and the site of the 1934 lynching of Claude Neal. The pressure is coming from some of the school's survivors, from relatives of boys who died here, and from Florida's top US Senator, Bill Nelson.

"Where there is smoke, there is fire," Senator Nelson declared last month, calling on the state to delay plans to sell off the 1,400 acres occupied by the old school so that a team of forensic anthropologists from the University of South Florida can complete a project begun last year to comb the campus for more graves. He wants any bodies found exhumed, identified and returned to the families they came from.

So far, the team, led by Erin Kimmerle, has focused its work around the once-secret cemetery. It knows that as many as 98 boys died at the school between 1914 and 1973. Since starting last year, Professor Kimmerle has found 19 previously undiscovered graves in addition to the 31 marked by steel-pipe crosses. That means 50 graves so far. Forty-eight have yet to be located, assuming graves were dug for each body.

"It's more than we anticipated," she says. "Our purpose is to explain who these children were, what happened to them and to understand what the story is that should be told." The official stance that all the children died from accidents, such as fires and drownings, or natural causes does not impress her. She cites the case of one child, Billy Jackson, whose cause of death was listed as kidney failure. There is a record of his being beaten two weeks earlier and admitted to hospital. "Common sense", she asserts, says he died from the beating.

The place of Dozier in Florida's history is already set and it's a shameful one. That is thanks in part to a group of Dozier survivors who call themselves the "White House Boys" because that was the colour of the small building where the floggings used to take place. A decade ago, they began finding one another by email and social networks and sharing their painful memories. In a book that Roger Dean Kiser eventually wrote about his time at the school The White House Boys: an American Tragedy he called it a "concentration camp for little boys".

Robert Straley, who has built a web site called whitehouseboys.com, was 13 when he was remanded there. Even now, he recalls the wardens with fear, including the one-armed Troy Tidwell, who, he says, beat him on his first day. "They were just totally out of control up there," he said. "The ones that got the most beating were the 11-year-olds. They liked to beat the little ones because they didn't have to be afraid of them coming back after them with a brick in the hands. The older the boys, the less beatings they got."

In the town of Marianna, conversations about the school are difficult. Calvin Creamer, 62, knew the school cobbler who made boots with markings in the heels so they could track the boys down if they ran away and the leather straps for the floggings. "They were mean people to start with," he said of the men who dispensed the discipline. "Back then, it was torture for those boys. And the police didn't care either. They would strip them down and strap them to 50-gallon drums bear naked, and then they'd beat them."

Thomas McSwaine, 42, runs a pet adoption shelter in one of the old warden's cottages on the campus and has heard all the stories. About the worst is of one night when the wardens woke up some boys on the white side of campus this was before desegregation brought them to a field in the dark, gave them guns and told them to shoot anything that was moving. "When they flipped those lights on they saw all these black kids running across the field and they had to shoot them."

John Trott, 70, was a student of juvenile justice in Florida when he went on a class visit to the school in 1965 or maybe the year after. "They took me to see a dormitory and the bunks were packed in so tight they were right up against each other. There were 50 or more kids and no one was awake watching them. I knew that wasn't right," he says, before adding, "I am sure there were sexual assaults, kids on kids, but as for staff on kids, I didn't see that."

Years later, working for the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice, Mr Trott found himself visiting Dozier annually. Now retired and living in Marianna, he spoke of what he knows. The more grave allegations he has trouble accepting. "I am not going to deny they used the strap. But the bodies and things … I don't buy the murder allegations. But I can't prove they didn't happen."

Professor Kimmerle plans to extend her search far beyond the little cemetery on Boot Hill into other areas of the campus. She is also seeking permission to begin the process of exhuming bodies and transferring them to a state medical examiner. If such stories as the one told by Mr McSwaine are true, and she finds evidence of boys having been shot, Dozier would instantly become a crime scene and Florida would be forced to open a much wider criminal investigation, which in turn could lead to prosecutions.

For now, though, she has the more modest goal of helping people such as Glen Varhadoe, whose uncle, Thomas, arrived at the school on 22 September 1934 and was dead before the end of October. A letter was sent to his mother two weeks later, too late for a funeral and too late for questions to be asked. The alleged cause of death: pneumonia and anaemia. "How could a child of 13 who was in perfect health go to a school in Marianna where the mean average temperature was about 29C and die of pneumonia in 35 days unless he was being mistreated somehow?" he asked last week.

No one has ever been able to say where exactly Thomas Varhadoe was laid to rest. Now, his nephew thinks there is some small chance that Professor Kimmerle and her team will find him at last. If they do, he will reclaim him. "That's my mission. I just want to bring him home." Away from Marianna.

'They had literally ripped the skin off from his lower back to below his butt. It was like hamburger meat'

Robert Straley was sent to the Dozier School in 1963 for running away from home. He was 13 years old and, as he tells The Independent on Sunday, he got into trouble straight away.

"I was 105lb then and I was already being pushed around a little in the dormitory. I went and sat with a group of boys and they were talking about running away. I was tired of running and I didn't think the place looked so bad. I said, 'No, I am going to stick it out here.' But someone behind heard us talking and snitched on us. At about eight o'clock, Troy Tidwell [a warden] took us down to the White House. They opened the door and they lined us up against the wall. They had turned on an industrial fan to make a big racket to smother the noise of the boys.

"I was at the end of the line. I had never heard anyone scream and cry out in real pain like that and it was shocking. When the boys came out, their heads were down and their hands were buried in their crotch; they had glazed eyes and they were walking kind of stiffly.

"When it was my turn, I was already in shock. It was like a dream. You can't believe it's happening.

"I walked in and there was this single cot with a stained mattress. They told me to lay down and not to let go of the bed rail. I did let go of the rail because I had to see what it was they were hitting me with. When I turned, two men were on me, they grabbed my arms and legs and I got 10 more lashes. But I could see what it was: it was maybe four inches wide and least one inch thick and double-sewn, and it had a metal sheet in between. It was as heavy as a baseball bat.

"If you ran away they would give you 100 lashes with this strap. I will never be able to forget this one boy. He was 15, I think maybe a little bigger than me and they had literally whipped the skin off from his lower back to below his butt. It was just like hamburger meat."

[Jim Hackett II]

All right you foul enemies of mine.
Leave our children and your children and everyone's children ALONE, Damn the child killing bastards! Damn the child harming untermenschen!
I never use that word or the like but in this case I can't think of better except ENEMY.

Nothing good comes of hateful people.:orly:

I am so hurt and angry again that I gotta go fer now.
Yes I knew of the like before but it is a deeply held contempt I hold for the enemy.
I would not be a good peace-officer.

[David Guyatt]

Another heads up to the Slog for this story:

Nineteen unmarked graves found at Florida boys' reform school where students were 'beaten with leather straps, raped and murdered'[URL="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2246378/Dozier-School-Report-reveals-19-unmarked-graves-Florida-boys-reform-school.html"]
[/URL]

Dozier School for Boys opened as a reform school in 1900 but was closed in 2011 amid decades-long allegations of physical and sexual abuse
31 white crosses at school cemetery - but 50 grave shafts found
Scientists believe there is a second burial site and research continues
Found a total of 98 deaths at the school - but could be many more as records after the 1960s fall under privacy laws
By LYDIA WARREN
PUBLISHED: 14:12, 11 December 2012 | UPDATED: 21:33, 11 December 2012
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Scientists have found evidence of 98 deaths and more graves than they previously thought at a Florida boys' reform school, where students were allegedly brutally beaten, raped and murdered.
Researchers from the University of South Florida in Tampa found at least 50 grave shafts at the Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida - 19 more than had been identified by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement in a 2010 investigation.
In total, scientists believe a minimum of 96 children - aged from six to 18 - and two adults died between 1911 and the 1973 at the infamous school, with many of the burials going undocumented.
And there could be even more victims: Researchers do not have access to records after 1960 because of privacy laws, and overgrowth on the grounds has hindered them from full searches.
Scroll down for video


Horrors: Crosses mark graves at a cemetery at Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida. Investigators have said they had found at least 50 graves - 19 more than officially reported - on the grounds
A report released on Monday details the alleged cover-ups by the school, which opened in 1900.
It was closed in June 2011 by the Department of Juvenile Justice after a years-long controversy over widespread physical and sexual abuse.

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The horrifying findings - and expectations of still more to come - raise troubling questions for the now-shuttered school, its staff and the state.
Previous investigations and lawsuits have been brought by the 'White House Boys' - so called because much of the abuse took place in an 11-room building known as the White House.


Scene: Students called themselves the White House Boys as much of the abuse took place in this building


Investigation: Researchers believe that 96 boys died at the school and expect to find more burial sites
A group of former students sued the state in 2010, but their case was dismissed as the statute of limitations had expired. Other students have written books about their experiences.
Following the claims, researchers at the University of South Florida in Tampa used ground-penetrating radar and soil samples and now believe there are many more bodies buried there than previously reported.
The largest gravesite is on the northside of the campus, where African-American boys were buried. It is at this site where the 31 graves are marked with white crosses, but researchers believe they do not correspond with actual burial sites.
'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.'


Institution: Dozier was opened as a state reform school in January 1900 for misbehaving boys


Treatment: The boys were allegedly forced into hard labour, while others were beaten, raped or killed


Culture: A memorial or burial service around 1950. More than 20 students' burials were undocumented
'IT WAS A CONCENTRATION CAMP FOR BOYS': MEMORIES OF ABUSE
In 2009, writer Roger Dean Kiser published The White House Boys - An American Tragedy detailing the horrors he experienced while incarcerated at Dozier School for Boys.
He was sent to the reform school in 1959 when he was 12, and suffered brutal, bloody beatings in the infamous White House building.
'Little did I know that America had its own concentration camp for little boys right here in the good ole U.S. of A,' he wrote. 'A devil was hiding behind every tree, every building and even behind every blade of manicured grass.'
He writes on his website: 'The terrible screams I heard and the brutal beatings I witnessed as a 12 year old will remain in my memory forever.
'The beatings I suffered are not my horrors today. My horrors are the beatings of crying boys that I had to witness before my own beatings. The horror of knowing that I was next.
'The thick concrete walls and the loud industrial fan easily muffled the horrible screams of the boys as they were beaten bloody. Some were carried to the hospital in wheelbarrows and some had to have their underwear or pajamas surgically removed from the buttocks.
'For almost thirty minutes, at age sixty-two, I stood alone in the exact room where I was almost beaten to death. With my heart racing and the side of my neck pulsating, I lit a cigarette and I cried without feeling shame.'
Dozier's own records show that more than 50 children were buried on the grounds, while more than 30 other bodies were sent elsewhere to be buried. But the school failed to record burial locations for 22 other children who researchers learned died on the site, the Miami Herald reported.
Some of the children - and two adults - died in a fire and influenza outbreak in the early 1900s, while others were reported to have suffered from ill health or physical traumas.
In January, the researchers will return to the south of the campus, where the white children lived. They said they expect to find more graves here, with the boys also segregated in death.
African-American children at the school were three times more likely to be buried in an unspecified location than the white boys, the report found.
'I didn't realise going in how much of a story of civil rights it was,' Erin Kimmerle, an assistant professor of anthropology at the university, told reporters.
Seven boys are believed to have died following escape attempts, according to the report
Among the children who were overlooked was a white boy named Thomas Curry, who died of blunt head trauma. Records claimed he died away from the campus after he escaped.
The school records claim that boys who escaped happened to meet a violent death, including two who died of gunshot wounds to the chest or head.
Former students of the Dozier School, now aged 60 or older have told horror stories of how they were beaten as boys, in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.


Discovery: University of South Florida radar research shows burial sites do not correspond with the crosses
Ovell Smith Krell, now 83, said that her brother, Owen Smith, was sent to the Dozier School for Boys in the spring of 1940, after running away from home and later stealing and wrecking a car.
According to a 2009 letter written by Mrs Krell, the family never heard from Owen again. She said that her mother wrote to the school to inquire about her son's whereabouts, but was told Owen escaped.
The school then said he was caught and captured by the sheriff's department. When their father came to claim his son, he was told that he was sent back to Dozier.
It is unclear what then happened to Owen. Mrs Krell said that she talked to a former student who said that he saw Owen being taken into what was known as the White House, a place where boys were disciplined on campus.




Victims: Officials said the body of Owen Smith, left, was found decomposing under a house after he ran away. Thomas Varnadoe, far right, died of pneumonia 34 days after his arrival - yet his family said he was healthy


School grounds: Scientists believe there are bodies buried in wooded areas and unmarked graves


Ongoing: Researchers will look at a different area in January, where the white boys were buried
She wrote: When they brought him out, they were carrying him. The boy said they heard his screams and that he was taken to the infirmary.'
Mrs Krell's mother continued to write to the detention centre for months, until the school finally said that Owen's badly decomposed body had been found under a house.
The school said that he had most likely died of pneumonia and was under the house to try to keep warm. However, the doctor and lawyer living in the house told Mrs Krell that they never heard or smelled anything.
Mrs Krell told CNN that she hopes to give her brother the burial he deserves. 'I would take him and put him down with my mom and dad in their cemetery,' she explained. 'I hope I get the chance.'

[Magda Hassan]

Florida To Reopen Dark Chapter In State's History

by


August 06, 2013 4:08 PM







On Tuesday, Florida's Cabinet decided it will allow researchers to begin exhuming unmarked graves at the Dozier School for Boys, a now-closed notorious reform school. Former residents say boys were routinely beaten and subjected to other harsh treatment and that some died as a result. Now, families of boys who died there want answers.



AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Florida officials today voted to reopen a dark chapter in the state's history. Governor Rick Scott and his cabinet voted to allow researchers to exhume some 90 unmarked graves at a state-run reform school. The Dozier School for Boys was closed two years ago, but over its 100-year history, it was notorious for physical abuse. As NPR's Greg Allen reports from Miami, the hope is that today's decision will unearth answers about the children who died there and why.
GREG ALLEN, BYLINE: Over the last five years, former residents of the Dozier School started speaking out about the harsh treatment and physical abuse they received there. More than 300 men, many now in their 70s and 80s, formed a group called the White House Boys, named for a small white building on the school grounds where boys were beaten.
Last weekend, Johnny Lee Gatti(ph) was one of a group of former African-American residents who visited the school grounds. Gatti said guards used a leather strap and insisted the boys call them beatings, not spankings.
JOHNNY LEE GATTI: The first time I got hit, I had never been hit like that before in my life. I said, my god, what's happening here?
ALLEN: Gatti was just 11 years old when he was sent to Dozier in 1957. He recalled receiving 35 to 40 blows that left him bloody. Other boys, he said, received far worse treatment. He remembers seeing one boy, a runaway, beaten so badly that Gatti believes he died.
GATTI: They said, we've taken him home. We didn't see the guy no more. We know that that guy didn't go home. They killed him. He was beaten to death when he left us. You didn't leave this place.
ALLEN: In recent years, books and news accounts drew attention to the Dozier School's sordid history, but many leaders seemed content to allow that chapter of the state's history to remain closed. Researchers from the University of South Florida, however, received permission to begin an investigation and soon found 90 unmarked graves on school grounds, dozens more than previously known.
Backed by relatives of boys who died there, the researchers asked the state for permission to exhume the bodies so remains can be identified and returned to their families. At first, the administration of Governor Rick Scott refused, but after weeks of pressure, today the governor brought it up for a vote at his cabinet meeting.
GOVERNOR RICK SCOTT: Any comments or objections? Hearing none, the motion carries.
(APPLAUSE)
JERRY COOPER: I'm going to be honest with you. When I heard the yays all the way across the board, I felt like a ton of weight has been lifted off of my heart.
ALLEN: White House Boy Jerry Cooper traveled from his home in Cape Coral to be in Tallahassee for today's vote. Although Governor Scott had appeared reluctant, other members of the cabinet, led by Attorney General Pam Bondi, supported the researchers. Another cabinet member, Agriculture Secretary Adam Putnam, said the families of the boys who died there deserve answers.
SECRETARY ADAM PUTNAM: It is not a judgment or an indictment whatsoever on the community that hosted this state facility. This was a state facility that was ignored for too long by state officials.
ALLEN: With today's vote, a team from the University of South Florida will soon begin exhuming remains at the old Dozier School. Since last year, the researchers lead by forensic anthropologist Erin Kimmerle have used ground penetrating radar to survey a burial ground at the school known as Boot Hill. Kimmerle says some of the graves found by the team were in a wooded area and some under a nearby road.
ERIN KIMMERLE: You know, these graves and individuals were never in marked plots from the beginning and there were never good records about who was there, so it's not a cemetery in the conventional sense.
ALLEN: While Kimmerle and her team have been making plans for the exhumations, they've also been carrying out other work that may raise new questions. The Dozier School was segregated. The burial ground where Kimmerle will be working is on what was the black side of the school grounds. Many of the White House Boys say they believe there is another burial area on the white side.
Along with the 90 found so far, Kimmerle believes there may be many more unmarked graves at the school yet to be discovered. Greg Allen, NPR News, Miami.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story...t=1&f=1013

[Jan Klimkowski]

Another "Home for Boys":