http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26980611
Who are the 55 bodies buried at the Dozier school?
Forensic anthropologists are disinterring the remains of children at a Florida reform school. Former students hope the dig will provide answers about child abuse within the school's walls.
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.
In the past decade, hundreds of men have come forward alleging abuse and neglect on the part of the school - specifically, horrible beatings given out at a small white building on campus.
"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 to hear 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, report being beaten repeatedly and given hundreds of hits each time.
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.
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Who are the 55 bodies buried at the Dozier school?
- cronus
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Who are the 55 bodies buried at the Dozier school?
What will the world be like after its ruler is removed?
Re: Who are the 55 bodies buried at the Dozier school?
I'd imagine a Depression-era reform school in the Flora-Bama pellagra and chain gang belt was just one big barrel of laughs...
- JimC
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Re: Who are the 55 bodies buried at the Dozier school?
There are similar, if not so gruesome stories of "boy's homes" and orphanages in Australia in that era. At the time, no one batted an eyelid
The zeitgeist has moved on, thankfully...
The zeitgeist has moved on, thankfully...
Nurse, where the fuck's my cardigan?
And my gin!
And my gin!
- mistermack
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Re: Who are the 55 bodies buried at the Dozier school?
It's an unfortunate name for a school, anyway.
If being beaten to death isn't bad enough, they have to live with being called the ''dozier kids''.
That's really harsh.
If being beaten to death isn't bad enough, they have to live with being called the ''dozier kids''.
That's really harsh.
While there is a market for shit, there will be assholes to supply it.
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Re: Who are the 55 bodies buried at the Dozier school?
"You'll get sent to Marianna" struck fear into the heart of every boy back in the day. Couple of my mates spent time there, they didn't have anything nice to say about it.
Yeah well that's just, like, your opinion, man.
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