***
At Boys’ Home, Seeking Graves,
and the Reason
MARIANNA, Fla. — Nobody is
quite sure how many boys’ bodies lie beneath the grounds of the notorious
Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, or which one is Thomas or Owen or Robert.
Nobody is quite sure how most
of them died — the cause is often listed as “unknown” or “accident” — or why a
great number were buried with such haste.
The scattered graves bear no
markings: no names, no loving sentiment. The only hint of a cemetery are the
white crosses that the state planted in the 1990s, belatedly and haphazardly.
From the time it opened in
1900, as the state’s first home for wayward children, until it closed in 2011,
as a residential center for high-risk youths, Dozier became synonymous with
beatings, abuse, forced labor, neglect and, in some cases, death. It survived
Congressional hearings, state hearings and state investigations. Each one
turned the spotlight on horrific conditions, and little changed.
Read full article here:
***
No comments:
Post a Comment