Georgianon here has heard about that Dozier school in Florida for years, long before I ever saw the chans.
Seems like one of the long-format shows like 60 Minutes did a segment on it (I can't remember, it's been a long time)
There are more survivors who've talked to the media.
No idea whether one of them has contributed to a book.
The Dozier school does need our attention, though. The worst part is that the Dozier school is far from a single example. There are more, and Florida is not the only state with places like Dozier.
God bless the souls of those tortured and lost boys, and grant them eternal peace and comfort.
A few digs.
First, meet Mel and Betty Sembler:
http://sunshinestatenews.com/story/lawmakers-why-would-you-listen-mel-and-betty-sembler
The Tampa Atrocities: Officially-sanctioned beatings, torture, and death in Hillsborough County, Florida
https://twoegg.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-tampa-atrocities-officially.html
This one was hard to take
Long-format article: "For Their Own Good"
St. Petersburg Times, Sunday, April 19, 2009
by Ben Montgomery and Waveney Ann Moore
Includes photos and interviews with several survivors.
https://dartcenter.org/sites/default/files/For_Their_Own_Good_reduced.pdf
"The boys remember the same things. A one-armed man. A leather strap. Bloody pajamas.
FOR THEIR OWN GOOD
Fifty years ago, the state taught these men a lesson they’ll never forget.
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. Now come the men with nightmares and scars on their backsides, carrying 50 years of wreckage — ruined marriages and prison time and meanness and smoldering anger. Now comes a state investigation into unmarked graves, a lawsuit against a dying old man. Now come the questions: How could this happen? What should be done? Those questions have been asked again and again about the reform school at Marianna, where, for more than a century, boys went in damaged and came out destroyed.
One man told of how he had holed up in the library, reading Tom Sawyer 11, 12, 13 times, to hide, to stay out of trouble. One remembered a kid who tried to run away and died from expo-sure while hiding under a cottage. Another had a story about a boy who was taken to the White House and never seen again. Most of the men recalled being beaten by two staffers: R.W. Hatton and the one-armed man, Troy Tidwell. At least three men described being sexually abused by other guards in an underground room they called the rape room. And there was something else. Newspapers had published a photograph of a small cemetery. Thirty-one white crosses. No names. As stories of deaths and disappearances emerged from their collective memory, the White House Boys began to believe that they were the lucky ones."
There is a web site for survivors:
http://thewhitehouseboys.com/indexspare.html
My God, my God. No words.