Two White House Boys urge residents to come forward

With memories so dark they spawn nightmares, it took more than 40 years for Robert Straley to share his childhood secret. Now, he’s asking residents of Jackson County to do the same.
Straley and Michael O’McCarthy are working diligently to reveal what they say is the truth about what happened to children at the Florida Industrial School for Boys in the 1950s and ‘60s.
Straley and O’McCarthy are two leading members of the White House Boys, a growing group of men who claim to have been severely abused at the hands of a group of guards at the 108-year-old reform school in Marianna.
Last October, the Department of Juvenile Justice acknowledged the abuse by placing a plaque in front of the White House.
The site where the majority of the abuse took place, the White House still stands on the grounds of what is now the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, a high-risk juvenile residential detention facility.
Following a request from Gov. Charlie Crist, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement is currently investigating those claims, as well as the remains that might lie under about 30 unidentified graves located where the then-segregated black side of the school once was.
O’McCarthy and Straley were in the Panhandle last week for depositions with FDLE, and stayed in Marianna long after the interviews were over to “search for dead bodies,” as O’McCarthy put it.
The bodies, the two allege, belong to inmates of the reform school during the ‘50s and ‘60s.
Straley and O’McCarthy were also in town to talk to residents and urge others to come forward, even anonymously, with any information they might have about what happened back then.
“One of the reasons we’re here is were gonna call upon the good folks of Marianna. Now’s the time to tell the truth, to free themselves of the burden of this secret they’ve been carrying now for 50 years ... Before they die, depending on their faith, if they wanna come clean, now’s the time to do it, to help us heal,” O’McCarthy said.
O’McCarthy and Straley said 300 to 400 people have come forward so far, all of whom claim they were also victims of abuse at the school.
Additionally, the two said, a handful of anonymous elderly people in the area tell them that their search for victims’ bodies is not in vain.

Suffocation

All of his adult life, Robert Straley hasn’t been able to breathe it all in. In relationships, he could never fully trust or completely bond; never totally enjoy a moment without wondering what might happen next.
In 2006, Straley was hit by an image the inspired him to exhale.
He saw video footage of the ordeal that some say led to the death of 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson at the Bay County Boot Camp.
In that moment, Straley felt knees pressing into his back. It was a flashback of a night at the reform school — the night, he said, he was escorted to what former prisoners call the “rape room.”
He realized then that sharing his story might stop someone else from feeling the suffocation only the abused find familiar.
He chose journalist Michael O’McCarthy, known for his coverage of civil rights violations, not knowing that the writer himself was also a victim of the Florida Industrial School for Boys.

Thriving on misery

Not every adult at the Florida Industrial School was abusive, Straley noted more than once.
From Staley’s account and that of many other former prisoners of the school, it was just a handful of men, “the night watchers,” he called them, who roamed the grounds at night terrorizing young men.
He and O’McCarthy believe there are people still alive who probably never hurt a child, but saw or heard something.
“This wasn’t a secret kept confined to the White House,” O’McCarthy said. “Kids obviously would have visitors, and they would tell their parents or whomever, if they were luck enough to have relatives.”
Those who worked at the facility would have seen the gory results of the abuse, and probably told their wives or family, he said.
“We knew kids were being used as child labor in the agricultural community around here. We knew that when they told us if we escaped and got away, either they’d get us, the swamp would get us or the farmers would get us, because we were told that the farmers would get a bounty of 50 bucks a head. So you’ve got this whole geographical and economic community that thrived upon our misery,” O’McCarthy said.

The tilling fields

In their efforts to shed light on to every moment of the era of abuse at the reform school, Straley and O’McCarthy have made available several methods of communication through which people can tell their stories, or their secrets.
They claim to have received multiple calls from elderly people in Jackson County.
“They say, ‘You’re doing the right thing, but you’re looking in the wrong place,’” Straley said.
The unidentified callers claim the most unfortunate boy-prisoners were “disposed of” by being tilled straight into the soil of local agricultural fields, he said.
Straley and O’McCarthy believe many of these victims were probably also victims of the what happened in “the rape room,” an underground room that is supposedly still located underneath the current Dozier School administration building.
Sexual abuse didn’t stop there, the two said.
A psychologist was brought in in the late ‘50s, O’McCarthy said, who would only ask boys questions about their sexual fantasies, preferences and experiences.
Eventually, the two said, that doctor oversaw an entire wing at the reform school.
The men are convinced that whatever was happening on the white side of the school, the boys on the black side were enduring it ten-fold.

The right to wholeness

“Don’t we have a right to be made whole?” O’McCarthy responded emotionally, when questioned about the fact the some members of the White House Boys are involved in related book deals or screenplays.
“I’m a journalist. My job is to report the truth,” O’McCarthy said.
What, he asked, is so wrong about documenting that truth for the world to see?
Straley said he’s “four thousand dollars in the hole” while getting to the bottom of what happened.
The two men said that the time, money and emotion spent as a result of their abuse, and the heartache and damage it has caused them and their loved ones, should at the least make them entitled to some financial restitution.
“If I had been hit by a state university bus and was hospitalized and had permanent damage, people would be telling me that I should sue the state,” O’McCarthy said.

Pieces of the puzzle

Certain that the abuse happened, the two men, along with state and federal agencies, are gathering pieces of the puzzle.
They think some people might be hesitant to come forward for fear of retaliation against as whistleblowers. For those fearful of speaking out, Straley and O’McCarthy urge them to at least speak anonymously.
“My hope is that the town in general will think back on this era and think about all of the abuses that were done to those boys. It’s not a point of did it happen, because over 300 people have written in with their accounts of mostly vicious beatings,” Straley said.
“Marianna doesn’t deserve this reputation,” O’McCarthy said. “Let’s clear the air.”

SIDEBAR:

To share what you know:
Those who wish to provide information on what might have occurred at the Florida School for Boys may contact any of the following people:
• The Florida Department of Law Enforcement, (850) 410-7000.
• Robert Straley or Michael O’McCarthy, at thewhitehouseboys@gmail.com.
• The news department of the Jackson County Floridan, at 526-3614, ext. 4113.