The White House Boys: An American Tragedy
The
White House
Boys
The
White House
Boys
An American Tragedy
Roger Dean Kiser
Health Communications, Inc.
Deerfield Beach, Florida
Permissions
Carol Marbin Miller, “Reform school alumni recount beatings, rapes” from The Miami Herald (October 19, 2008). Copyright © 2008 by McClatchy Company. Reproduced with permission of McClatchy Company via Copyright Clearance Center.
Brendan Farrington, “Unknown graves at Fla. reform school investigated.” Copyright © 2008 by Associated Press. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.
Tallahassee Democrat, editorial, “Our Opinion: Memories of state abuse can’t be erased” (October 23, 2008). Reprinted by permission of the Tallahassee Democrat. All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
is available through the Library of Congress.
©2009 Roger Dean Kiser
eISBN-13: 978-0-7573-9758-5 (ebook) eISBN-10: 0-7573-9758-1 (ebook)
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.
HCI, its logos, and marks are trademarks of Health Communications, Inc.
| Publisher: | Health Communications, Inc. |
| 3201 S.W. 15th Street | |
| Deerfield Beach, FL 33442–8190 |
Cover images from the Florida Archives
Cover design by Larissa Hise Henoch
Interior design by Lawna Patterson Oldfield
Interior formatting by Andrea Perrine Brower
T
o all those who had very little to share
but shared what little they had with me anyway.
In doing so, they taught me the meaning of
goodness, kindness, and generosity, providing me
with the foundation for a meaningful life.
“If nature intended for me to be who I am,
then why did the system try to beat me
into something I am not?”
—Roger Dean Kiser
Contents
Foreword
by Lee Simonson
Looking Back and Moving Forward
PART ONE: HAUNTING RECOLLECTIONS
Psychological Help: My Rehabilitation
“I Earned the Right to Be Afraid!”
The Reason I’m Not Smiling, Mr. Hatton,
Is Because I Can’t
The Fear, the Anger, the Acceptance
PART TWO: THE CHILD NOW SPEAKS AS A MAN
My Thoughts on Today’s Juvenile Guards
Appendix II.
Roger Dean Kiser’s Speech, October 21, 2008
Appendix III.
Rumors, Unanswered Questions, and Theories
Appendix IV.
News Article Recounting the Horrors
Appendix V.
News Article on Unmarked Graves
Appendox VI.
OP-ED Article on Memories of State Abuse
Appendix VII.
A Brief History of the Facility
About the White House Boys Organization
From the Florida Archives
I
f you were to drive down a long, narrow, winding grassy road, hidden far from sight, deep in the beautiful, thick underbrush of the north Florida woods, you will find unmarked graves containing the remains of thirty-two bodies, most likely all boys, some possibly as young as nine. As of now, who they are and how they got there is a mystery. It is believed that some of those boys were beaten to death in the name of discipline. Some suspect that many more bodies might be scattered about somewhere in the murky, shallow swamplands and fields of the lush state of Florida.
The United States Department of Justice, along with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is investigating the allegations to determine the truth about a deep, dark secret that has been hidden for almost fifty years.
A Florida State juvenile facility set up for the safety and rehabilitation of children went totally awry, virtually from the time the doors opened in January 1900, basically becoming a concentration camp for wayward boys. It is only recently that the abuse—physical, mental, and sexual—suffered by the children at the Florida Industrial School for Boys is being taken seriously, now that so many of the survivors (many of them in their sixties) have stepped forward and banded together. The insane cruelty and alleged murders have been ignored or covered up by the authorities for more than fifty years . . . but no more.
One of the most horrendous places at the juvenile facility was a building known as the “White House”—which was later dubbed the “White House Torture Chamber.” This building, which still stands today, is a small white concrete building where boys were whipped and beaten mercilessly for trying to run away or for breaking one of the many other rules, rules so strict that the boys were afraid, in some cases, to look at someone in charge “the wrong way.” Without fences, gates, or perimeter guards, the fear of being sent to this torture chamber was the only means the state had to control the young “inmates.”
The beatings many of the boys suffered were beyond brutal. Some were beaten so badly that when they returned from the White House, it was hard to tell who they were. Of course, treatment this brutal instilled fear into each and every boy incarcerated at the facility.
Mind you now, White House beatings weren’t only for very serious offenses such as running away. Perhaps that was the original purpose. However, a time soon followed when beatings and whippings or threats of beatings and whippings were handed out for smoking, talking back, cursing, not making your bed correctly, not wearing a smile on your face, smiling too much, eating too slowly, not walking fast enough, stepping off the path, accidentally tripping in line, coughing, sharing food, dropping a pat of butter on the floor, or eating a blackberry off a bush while on a work detail. Sometimes, there was no reason. And sometimes . . . boys never made it out of the White House alive, or at least they were never seen or heard from again.
The unmarked graves, date unknown.
From the Florida Archives
