St. Pete Times reports on the infamous Florida reform school. The men beaten there 50 years ago

[madfloridian]

Most of us who grew up in Florida had heard tales of Mariana and the boys' reform school there. It looks like the St. Pete Times is now the voice of the men who were in effect tortured there for years. It was called Hell's 1,400 Acres in this 1968 article from the Times which really was a white wash back then. It has been reprinted this week in the St. Pete Times.

"If one of your kids were kept in such circumstances, you'd be up there with rifles," Gov. Claude Kirk said after his first visit to the Marianna School for Boys March 19. Kirk said the reform school is in "absolutely deplorable condition."

Most of the governor's criticism was directed at the physical layout of the facility, but he also said training programs could be improved and the medical facilities are terrible.

There is a video up now of the men, older now, who were in that reform school. Their stories are shocking and they break into tears at times in the retelling.

For their own good

They were screwed-up kids, sent to the reform school in Marianna for smoking, fighting, stealing cars or worse. The Florida School for Boys -- that'd straighten them out.

Fifty years later they are, by their own account, screwed-up men -- afraid of the dark, unable to love or be loved, twisted by anger, scarred by the whippings they endured in a cinder block hell called the White House.

The video is about 7 minutes long.

There are many unmarked graves near the school. Governor Crist has ordered an investigation. I admire him for doing what governors before him failed to do.


Gov. Charlie Crist has ordered the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate 31 graves near the school. “Please determine whether any crimes were committed and, if possible, the perpetrators of these crimes,’’ Crist wrote.

Here is the article dated April 19, 2009.

For their own good: a St. Petersburg Times special report on child abuse at the Florida School for Boys

MARIANNA — The men remember the same things: blood on the walls, bits of lip or tongue on the pillow, the smell of urine and whiskey, the way the bed springs sang with each blow. The way they cried out for Jesus or mama. The grinding of the old fan that muffled their cries. The one-armed man who swung the strap.

They remember walking into the dark little building on the campus of the Florida School for Boys, in bare feet and white pajamas, afraid they'd never walk out.

For 109 years, this is where Florida has sent bad boys. Boys have been sent here for rape or assault, yes, but also for skipping school or smoking cigarettes or running hard from broken homes. Some were tough, some confused and afraid; all were treading through their formative years in the custody of the state. They were as young as 5, as old as 20, and they needed to be reformed.

It was for their own good.

Here is the portrait gallery of the men speaking out today.

Portrait Gallery

Click a portrait for more about them.

Kudos to the St. Pete Times. Kudos to Governor Crist. Where have the others been all these years?

[madfloridian]

1. "The men gathered at the Florida School for Boys on Oct. 21, 2008."

" The last time they had stepped on this sprawling campus, they were fresh-faced punks with the world before them. Now their hair was gray and their faces sagged. Their backs ached from a night in motel beds. They carried pictures of children and grandchildren in their wallets.

Dick Colón had flown in from Baltimore, where he owns an electrical contracting company. The 65-year-old was tormented by the memory of seeing a boy being stuffed into an industrial dryer. Next to him stood Michael O'McCarthy, a writer and political activist from Costa Rica, who was beaten so badly he was treated at the school infirmary. To his left was Roger Kiser, a Chicken Soup for the Soul contributor who had driven down from Brunswick, Ga., bent on retribution. On the end was a quiet man named Robert Straley, who sells glow lights and carnival novelties. He drove up from Clearwater. He had been having recurring nightmares of a man sitting on his bed.

Then there was Willy Haynes. He was 65 and went by Bill now. A tall, broad man, Haynes had worked for 30 years for the Alabama Department of Corrections. Haynes didn't feel good. There were plenty of places he'd rather be. But he knew he had to do this.

The men now called themselves the White House Boys."

http://www.tampabay.com/features/humaninterest/article992939.ece

[d_b]

2. thanks

watching now :(

[madfloridian]

4. I just plain cried.

I cried for their pain. We heard of this school for years.

[madfloridian]

3. Plaque: "In memory of the children who passed these doors"

"They found a friend in Gus Barreiro of the state Department of Juvenile Justice. He set up this ceremony to close and seal the White House. He even ordered a plaque to be mounted on the building:

In memory of the children who passed these doors, we acknowledge their tribulations and offer our hope that they have found some measure of peace.

May this building stand as a reminder of the need to remain vigilant in protecting our children as we help them seek a brighter future."

[d_b]

5. holy shit that's insane

and the one cocksucker is still alive. Damn I think I'd hunt him down and kill him if I were one of those guys...


And the fucking building still stands; and they have another school named after that dipshit. Unbelievable.

[ThomCat]

7. I wouldn't kill him.

I'd make him wish he was dead. x(

[madfloridian]

6. Times editorial "Waiting for Justice" picture of the infamous "white house"

Boys were dragged in twos and threes for punishment to the White House at the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna

Waiting for Justice

Nobody ever knows what is going on. No one is ever responsible. There is blood on the walls. There are children who cannot sit down in class because they have been whipped so brutally. But the people in charge ignore it — or worse. When finally called to account, they claim any corporal punishment meted out was authorized. One has to wonder how they live with themselves.

For more than 100 years there have been allegations of savage abuses at the Florida School for Boys in Marianna. And over about the same time investigations have been launched, outrages found from severe overcrowding to children being hogtied, and reforms instituted — only to have the same problems reappear after the public attention waned. In a nod to the ironic, the reformatory was renamed the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys after a longtime superintendent, a man who is also alleged to have participated in abuses.

In their exhaustive report today, St. Petersburg Times writers Ben Montgomery and Waveney Ann Moore have laid bare the breadth of the scandal, chronicling the systemic way the children at the school were beaten and raped by their caretakers and by fellow students. But in all the years of its controversial existence there has yet to be a full accounting of what happened there and who is responsible. There has yet to be an attempt to compensate the victims. Dozier's name has yet to be removed from the school. Why is that?

Some of these men have set up their own website:

http://www.geocities.com/fsbmarianna/

[madfloridian]

15. The boot camps...Martin Lee Anderson...2006

They say they closed them after his death. I don't know much about present juvenile facilities in Florida now. I think they are privatized mostly now. Just a few years ago there was Scared Straight run by Mel Sembler, who was so revered by Bush he became ambassador to some country...can't remember.

Martin Lee Anderson died 2006 in custody in Florida.

[ThomCat]

8. It is maddening that any adult can do that to kids

and still consider himself a good person. x(

Every adult involved was a monster. All of them. I almost wish there really was a hell just so people like that could go there.

[malaise]

14. What is even more maddening is that it is still going on

in so called reform homes across the planet.

[lostnfound]

9. The St Pete Times is owned by a not-for-profit journalism institute. They care about journalism

and have always been a cut above.
If I'm not mistaken, it was set up by its publisher Nelson Poynter who established the Poynter institute.

[intaglio]

10. Thanks, this needed to be exposed n/t

[retread]

11. This was always the ultimate threat to hold unruly boys in line. "If you do that

again you're going to be sent to Marianna." The offense could be as simple as smoking, speeding, or drinking beer. Some high school teachers would even use it to try for order in class. The ones actually sent were usually poor and from single parent homes.

[madfloridian]

12. Yes, I remember teachers doing that.

And I don't think any of us really understood how bad it was there.

[retread]

18. I wonder if those making the threats knew? Who did know? n/t

[madfloridian]

19. Well, LeRoy Collins refused to take it seriously.

And most Floridians took him seriously. That was in the 50s.

I really don't think many knew. I remember one boy in junior high who talked about things there, but no one paid attention because he was new to the school.

[retread]

21. I'm thinking of the officers of the juvenile court system. In addition to sending children to

Marianna, if I recall correctly, they had control when they returned.

Then again, we still abuse children, only we call them "boot camps" now.

[madfloridian]

22. Juvenile court system officers must have known. They had to have known..

And those missing kids...if there are 32 graves there must be some not reported missing. Govs Collins and Kirk turned a blind eye...so did those after them for ages.

[madfloridian]

13. St. Pete Times lists actual articles since 1932.

One comment by Governor LeRoy Collins in 1958 really surprised me. He said he would not approve or disapprove of the whippings there. He also said a boy did not die from a beating. Gov. Kirk did a little more investigating than that at least.

http://www.tampabay.com/specials/2009/reports/marianna/documents.shtml

[malaise]

16. No words

:cry: :cry: :cry:

[madfloridian]

24. There are no words for such treatment of humanity.

You are right. ;(

[madfloridian]

17. CNN March 5 this year...Abuse was reform school's lesson, family says

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/03/05/florida.boys.school.victims/index.html

Tragic story.

"Edward told his wife and son that he was regularly beaten and sexually abused and once was ordered by guards to shoot at classmates at the school.

They say the school turned Edward into an angry, violent, alcoholic man who beat them in the same way that he was beaten as a child at the school.

"We were the ripple ... effect of their abuse on my husband, his abuse on us," Elizabeth said, her eyes brimming with tears."

There are incidents mentioned in the article that need thorough investigation. I hope they do it.

[Elidor]

28. Investigation?

This is a time for reflection, not retribution. It's time to focus on the future, not look to the past. These men thought that what they were doing was legal, and for that reason we shouldn't punish them.

:sarcasm:

[madfloridian]

29. Clear and to the point.

:applause:

[tomreedtoon]

20. The envy of modern-day educators.

NO, THIS IS NOT SARCASM. Let's get that straight right now.

Nearly every teacher I have ever met - or had - would love to wield this kind of discipline. It isn't necessary to go to Abu Gareb, or a Saudi Arabian stoning pit, to find cruelty. It's just down the block, in classrooms and principal's offices, and nobody in the neighborhood gives a damn.

[retread]

23. I call bullshit. n/t

[tomreedtoon]

26. I call a teacher in self-denial.

We know what you guys are about. And it isn't education. It's domination. Some adults forget; I don't.

[madfloridian]

27. Your posts in this thread are an insult to teachers.

Very inflammatory and so not true.

[retread]

30. I'm sure that was the intent. n/t

[madfloridian]

25. Posted a CBS video of an interview with 2 of these folks who remember the white house.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x298943