They call themselves the White House Boys, these four men in their sixties, taking their name from the building where they were often punished. They were inmates of the former Florida Industrial School for Boys (now Dozier School), a reform school just south of the Alabama line in Marianna.
The stories they remember are horrifying--- recollections of being beaten senseless with a metal-reinforced double leather strap, of being sexually assaulted, of seeing boys disappear and never coming back.
"(Steven) Colon said he remembers entering the laundry one day, and his life has never been the same.
Inside a large tumble dryer was a black teen.
The White House boys, who are all white, said black kids at the school were beaten even more savagely than white kids.
"I said to myself, 'What's going to happen to me if I take him out?' " Colon said.
He recalled being about 15 feet away from the boy in the dryer. He thought about helping him but was afraid.
"I said to myself, 'I can't do it, 'cause I'm gonna be the next one in the God------ dryer if I take him out,' " he said.
"I turned my back and walked out, and it torments me every day of my life." "
These grown men might still be tormented by their memories, but their reconnection of these has led to a state investigation of their allegations ordered by Florida Governor Charlie Crist. The state hopes to discover who lies beneath the thirty-two unmarked crosses on the school ground.
What's clear, though, is that federal oversight of juvenile facilities is desperately needed. It was needed fifty years ago when the White House Boys were incarcerated. It was needed twenty years ago, when Julia Scheeres, and later myself, were locked up at Escuela Caribe. It's needed now.
How many more stories need to be told to make it happen?
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