AIexpress– Hundreds of people who claim they were physically or sexually abused at two state-run reform institutions in Florida are set to receive tens of thousands of dollars in restitution from the state, after Florida lawmakers formally apologized for the atrocities they experienced as youngsters more than 50 years ago.
At its peak in the Jim Crow 1960s, the Dozier School for Boys housed 500 boys, the majority of whom were incarcerated for minor infractions such as petty larceny, truancy, or fleeing their homes. Orphaned and abandoned children were also taken to the school, which has been open for almost a century.
In recent years, hundreds of men have come forward to tell their stories of severe beatings, sexual assaults, deaths, and disappearances at the renowned Marianna school. Between 1900 and 1973, about 100 boys died at Dozier, many of whom were shot or suffered blunt force trauma. Some of the lads’ bodies were transported back home. Others were buried in unmarked graves, which scholars only recently discovered.
Before the Dec. 31 deadline, the state of Florida received more than 800 reparation petitions from people imprisoned at the Dozier school and its sister institution in Okeechobee, Fla., who testified to mental, physical, and sexual abuse at the hands of school personnel. Last year, state officials set aside $20 million to be split equally among the schools’ surviving victims.
Bryant Middleton was one among several who spoke up in 2017, when lawmakers officially acknowledged the abuse. Middleton recounted being spanked six times for violations such as eating blackberries off a fence and mispronouncing a teacher’s name after being sent to Dozier between 1959 and 1961.
“I’ve seen a lot in my life. “There was a lot of brutality, horror, and death,” recalled Middleton, who served in the Army for over 20 years, including action in Vietnam. “I would rather be sent back into the jungles of Vietnam than to spend one single day at the Florida School for Boys.”
Allegations of cruelty have loomed over the Dozier School since it opened in 1900, with accounts of youngsters being shackled to the walls in irons. When then-Gov. Claude Kirk visited in 1968, he discovered the prison in disarray, with leaky ceilings, holes in the walls, no heating during the winter, and buckets used as bathrooms.
“If one of your kids were kept in such circumstances,” remarked Kirk, “you’d be up there with rifles.”
Dozier was shuttered by Florida officials in 2011, following state and federal investigations and press stories that documented the abuse.
As the men who were molested in schools await retribution, the new film “Nickel Boys,” based on Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, honors their resilience. Whitehead stated that Dozier served as the model for the book, which he hopes will raise awareness “so that the victims and their stories are not forgotten.”
Kate Payne is a corps member with The Associated Press/Report for America’s Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service organization that deploys journalists in local newsrooms to tackle underreported stories.
