part Two
This film is a depiction of what took place when a boy at FSB was whipped in the punishment room at the "white house" building. Whereas nothing or no one person could accurately capture the fear and horror that these 11-14 yr old boys were subjected to as they awaited their turn, hearing the groans, screams, cries and pleadings of their peers, the act of the beatings (floggings) are filmed in exact detail. We strongly refute Tidwell's lie that "he never raised the whip over his head."
Robert Straley http://thewhitehouseboysonline.com/
As of September 18, 2007 to March 25, 2012
A journal of events, names & places compiled by RDK & RWS
We have been involved in the exposé of the brutal abuse of children at FSB since September 2007. The historical record is now widely publicized: for 111 years state officials, elected, appointed and employed, whipped boys (flogging) from 8-17 years of age with leather whips, inflicting 15-25-50-75 and up to 100 lashes if they tried to run away. They beat, tortured, sexually violated and raped the children given them for custodial care. The record exposed the use of child labor to benefit the private citizens of the Marianna area. Newspaper articles and visits from various elected and private individuals repeatedly made know the systemic, inhumane treatment laid upon these children. In spite of their efforts it was not until 1968 that the lashings were stopped by O.J. Keller
under the Governor Claude Kirk administration. Previously, in 1922 Governor Hardee banned flogging of all prisoners as "too brutal a punishment for even hardened convicts" when a young man, Martin Tabert, was whipped to death. The flogging of boys at Marianna went on for 45 more years after that ban.
In recent investigations and reportage it has been proven that these atrocities were open knowledge among the citizens of the Mariana areas: indeed, the state men who perpetrated these crimes openly talked about it with their neighbors and kin. These are facts based in overwhelming testimony and reportage. There are 300+ men who
were boys at the school and will attest to the brutality of the beatings. They are currently involved in a claims bill against the State of Florida. Here are the names of the men who in the past years witnessed these horrific lashings:
Source: http://www.law.fsu.edu/library/flsupc...
Andrew Bowers, a chaplain at the Dozier School from 1959 to 1963, recalls: For most of its history, Dozier freely practiced flogging as a method of discipline, or as a matter of whim. Mr. Bowers remembers, "they would spank the boys when they did wrong or really whenever they wanted to. Some of them they treated pretty bad. Sometimes they'd spank the children until they couldn't sit down for days. Many beatings were administered with a "weighted leather flogging strap." Source: http://www.law.fsu.edu/library/flsupc... starting at page 15-18. Testimony from a court document.
Source:The Miami News, March 6, 1958: A study made of 250 white boys committed at one time to Marianna showed that at that point been given 691 whippings among them. Eleven year old boys received 260 or 38% of the beatings, and 17-year-old boys receive 21, or 3%. The older the boy, the fewer the beatings he received, records of the school showed at that time.
Source: Ben Montgomery, St. Pete Times
In 1968, a state supervisor for the Marianna school witnessed a beating that, all these years later, still makes his
blood pressure rise. Reached recently by phone, Audie E. Langston said he didn't want to talk. "I just happened to be there when they caught a kid who was a runner. They caught him and took him into that building and one of the guys said, 'You should see this,' " Langston said in a short interview. "It was not a good thing. The people who were doing it thought they needed that method of control." Back then, Langston wrote a letter to his boss, O.J. Keller. He called what he saw "sickening."
"A young boy [was] taken into a stark, bare, dimly lit room where he was compelled to lie on a small cot and receive licks with a heavy leather strap. The strap was wielded by a man who was at least six foot 3 inches tall and weighed well over 200 pounds. His swing could be likened to a strong tennis serve as with a whip like effect at the end of the downswing. The results are sickening. The child quivers and writhes in a contorted manner from the pain of a sadistic treatment. Not only repulsive but somewhat criminal in nature.
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