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Remains Of Dozier Victims Could Go To Tallahassee
August 21, 2016
The remains of dozens of boys who were victims of beatings and abuse at the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys should be reinterred in Tallahassee, the city where lawmakers and governors were responsible for the now-closed reform school, a state task force decided Friday.
The task force also decided to recommend creating memorials to the Dozier victims in both Tallahassee and Jackson County, the Panhandle community where the reform school operated from 1900 to 2011.
After the school closed and boys who were held at the facility began to tell stories of abuse and sexual assault, a team led by University of South Florida researchers found 51 sets of remains in an unmarked graveyard known as the Boot Hill Burial Ground at the 1,400-acre Dozier property. University anthropologists identified some of the remains through DNA and other methods.
The Legislature this year created the task force to decide what to do with unidentified or unclaimed remains and how to commemorate the victims. The law also authorized funeral payments to families who claimed Dozier victims.
The final decisions on reinterring remains, which are now being held at the University of South Florida, and the memorials will be made by Gov. Rick Scott and the state Cabinet, as well as the Legislature.
Friday’s debate during a five-hour hearing, held a few miles from the Dozier site, was sometimes raw and emotional, although the panel eventually reached a consensus on the recommendations.
Dale Landry, a task force member representing the Florida NAACP, said the state capital was the proper place to bury the Dozier boys because it was also the city where officials were responsible for creating the reform school and overseeing it.
Landry originally suggested the reinterment, which may take the form of a mausoleum or a cemetery, should be on the state Capitol grounds, noting there are nearby memorials for the Vietnam and Korean wars.
“It was the people in that building that housed the Legislature and the governor that allowed that foolishness to happen over here in Marianna,” Landry said, adding it would be a good idea for officials to walk by the site asking, “what am I doing today to protect Florida’s children.”
“They are still wards of the state of Florida, and Florida has a responsibility,” he said.
But the panel modified the recommendation to designate Tallahassee as the location, leaving it to lawmakers and other state officials to decide exactly where the remains should be reinterred. A Tallahassee cemetery owner has offered a site on the north side of the city.
Suggestions to reinter the bodies in Jackson County, neighboring Gadsden County and Tampa were rejected by the panel.
Many members of the “White House Boys” group, which was named after a Dozier building where beatings and other abuse occurred, strongly opposed reinterring the victims’ remains back on the grounds of the reform school.
Bob Baxter, a Gainesville resident who was at Dozier from 1950 to 1951, said the remains should never be returned to Dozier, remembering how the bodies of the boys were treated at the Boot Hill burial ground.
“It wasn’t a cemetery. It was a damn dump site,” he said, adding returning the boys’ bodies would be like “killing them again.”
Jerry Cooper, a task-force member who was sent to Dozier as a runaway teen and leads the White House Boys group, said the overwhelming majority of his group wants to see the White House demolished.
“Most of the men feel it would be a sore that would fester and fester over the years” if it remains, Cooper said. “We would like to see the building come down, and we would like to be present.”
But Timothy Parsons, head of the state Division of Historical Resources and chairman of the task force, said it was outside the panel’s jurisdiction to make recommendations about what should happen to buildings at the Dozier site.
The task force also unanimously agreed to create memorials in Tallahassee and Jackson County to remember the boys who lived and died at Dozier, as well as victims, including two staff members, who died in a 1914 dormitory fire at the facility.
The panel left the decisions on the design and location of the memorials to lawmakers and the governor and Cabinet.
The decisions on reinterment and memorials won the support of Marianna and Jackson County officials who were members of the task force. Local officials have been pushing the state for the ability to develop some or all of the former Dozier site to help the community’s economy.
by The News Service of Florida
Comments
11 Responses to “Remains Of Dozier Victims Could Go To Tallahassee”
Every effort should be made to investigate allegations of abuse, pertaining to surviving staff members and the former inmates/witnesses of the school.
By gathering depositions and possibly bringing these guards before a grand jury, this would grant some small measure of justice to every boy who passed through the school, those who were fortunate to survive and those who died at the hands of their tormentors.
It is never too late for justice, why leave them to the judgment of Christ and hell.
Lets us examine and punish them in this life.
Few articles have ever affected me as much as this one. My grandfather and his brother were both homeless orphans living in Jackson County in 1918. My grandfather was lucky enough to get a job working turpentine in the forest. He was 12 years old and my uncle 13. I thank God my granddaddy wasn’t one of the boys living in that hell hole because there were plenty living there that were put there due to life’s circumstances, not because they were bad.
May God bless those poor angels who suffered and died at Dozier.
This is such a tragedy, but what i don’t understand is why it took so long for it to be discovered that these boys were dead or missing. Wouldn’t the families wonder where they were or why they never heard from them? Did they not visit their sons?
I am confused. Someone dug up 51 sets of remains at a Florida reform school and without proof of how they died or any evidence to indicate they were abused or beat and for that matter any proof they were even incarcerated at the reform school and now they are going to be interred on the State Capitol grounds with a memorial next to hero soldiers memorials who were killed during U.S. wars.
Bob Baxter, well said sir. I wholeheartedly agree with your post.
I believe that is a wonderful idea! I agree with you @BobBaxter! Maybe these boys were there for rehabilitation but, I think the parents/guardians/adults needed the rehabilitation more than the boys.The boys that died AND the boys that survived did NOT deserve the treatment they received by this school, the local authorities, society, NOR their family. Society is forever trying to make up for slavery, discrimination, AND racism. The LEAST that could be done is to place them in a mausoleum on the capitol grounds as a forever memorial and reminder of what happened and how these boys did not get a chance in life, and how the SYSTEM (and everyone around them) failed them. Especially, since the ones that abused them cannot be held responsible. This should MOST DEFINITELY be put in the book of history! It disturbs me so, that people these days can holler abuse without a mark on them, but these young boys were abused to the point they were MURDERED and the entire NATION barely knows about this. I think this should be on the news in EVERY STATE, and every state should research every school that existed like this. Bet they will find more than they expected!
This is all coming from a sister of a boy that was at Dozier for 7 months at 13yrs of age! I CAN say that there is always more behind the behavior of a child than people want to admit! Every month my brother was there, they sent home a letter requesting more money for “medical care!” (i.e. stitches for a busted lip, broken arm) Isnt it convenient that the paperwork is all gone and none of this can be found documented, nor can be proven?
So, doing MORE THAN RIGHT for the deceased is also doing good for the still living.
I want to thank The State of Florida for listening to our pleas.. I am the daughter of the oldest living Whitehouse Boy ( Neil J Davis) he was in Marianna
In 1942 for 10 months.. My Mother & Father were married 62 years before she died. My Daddy keep her home under hospice care.. … That was 3 1/2 years ago.. We are Daddys caregivers.. I just found out 7 or 8 months ago that my Daddy was sent to The Industrial School for Boys.. I was stunned & couldn’t believe it.. Daddy told me He never told anyone! My Daddy is 90 years old.. Still sharp as a tack but, is slowing down.. He said when he was at that Ugly place that a man used a long thick wooden paddle on the boys!!! My Daddy always had an anger issues but the family didn’t understand why!!! Now We do.. I also want to mention that after his stay at that Ugly Place he went on to get an Honorable Discharge from Army/ AirForce & Marines.. Also 25 years at GTE in Tampa.. I want to thank Ben Montgomery for helping me & Also the WhitHouse Boys Organization.. They know who I am talking about.. My Daddy is 90 but my husband & myself took the time to take Daddy to the Task Force Meeting in Marianna Fl on August 19,2016. I believe We can move forward & continue to come together & get this matter behind not only the young Boys but also The State of Florida that dropped the ball so many years ago.. All the Boys need an apology from the State of Florida & also All the Boys that was sent to that Ugly place.. In my opinion The state should Not use Dozier but The Industrial School for Boys!!! Thank You & May The Lord Bless the State of Florida for doing the right thing after 100 years..
Bring to court the criminals who did this at dozier school
The State of Florida should accept the remains of those children and place them in a mausoleum on the capital grounds , It was there failure that caused the body dump site to exist at all. As I have said many times “evil can only exist when good men do nothing” As Jerry Cooper pointed out in one of his statements . The State under the guidance of Governor Scott has closed 23 other facilities since this all started in 2008 . Thank God for that but the history of child abuse that was allowed in Florida must never be forgotten . If this isn’t handled properly and swept under an already dirty rug the state will forever have a big black mark on it’s history . I pray the State has the wisdom to put this in the history books and never allow it to occur again ,
thank you
Bob Baxter USMC Korean Vet and a former ward of the State at The Flotida School for Boys 1950-51
Good job to all that has worked to make this happen. Leonard Patrick Okeechobee boy. 64/65
What a sad memorial