Jackson County declares war on "fake news"...in 1872!

Jackson County's Courthouse as it appeared not long
after the end of Reconstruction.

"Fake News" is a favorite national obsession these days. Liberals accuse conservative media outlets of spreading untruthful stories while conservatives say the national media is left-wing and slants the news accordingly.

Inaccuracy in reporting is nothing new. The citizens of Jackson County, in fact, declared war on "fake news" all the way back in 1872.

The issue was the county's murder rate.

Republican members of the State Legislature were alarmed by growing resistance in Jackson County to Reconstruction era rule in Florida. They wanted the U.S. Army to march back into the county to enforce prohibitions against such things as public gatherings and private gun ownership. Florida was still under military rule a full seven years after the War Between the States (or Civil War) and many Constitutional rights had been suspended.

They also believed that the presence of the soldiers would suppress Democrat votes while encouraging the county's Republican voters to turn out in larger numbers. Most of the freedmen or freed slaves in Jackson County were then Republicans, but the party was fracturing and bitter division was developing between the factions.

Marianna during the 1870s.

Jackson County had been the scene of several violent outbreaks during Reconstruction, particularly in the fall of 1869. These had been bloody but relatively short in duration. Hostility was growing in 1872 as property owners felt the weight of increasing taxes. The Republicans in Tallahassee had doubled taxes during their seven years of control.

In addition, graft and fraud was widespread in the Jackson County Courthouse. A trio of public officials - all appointed by the state's governor - had devised a plan to enrich themselves by increasing the assessed values of key properties. Assessments were later found to have been fraudulently increased by as much as 400% on targeted properties. When the owners could not afford to pay these taxes, the land was sold on the courthouse steps and usually wound up in the hands of one of the crooked county officials.

Everyday citizens, white and black, were also being hurt by a dramatic increase in fees. John Q. Dickinson, the former Union officer now serving as appointed Clerk of the Circuit Court, had dramatically increased the amount that citizens had to pay for document stamps, marriage licenses, deed filings and for filing lawsuits. This put the legal system beyond the reach of many county residents because they simply did not have the money to pay the fees.

These tactics led to growing resistance and, as mentioned above, a fracturing of the previously solid Republican voting block of freedmen.

Florida Capitol as it appeared in the 1870s.
State Archives of Florida/Memory Collection

Several individuals in the state legislature tried to clamp a lid on the situation by having occupation troops sent back to Marianna. They used wild claims of rampant killings and murders to add weight to their demands.

The campaign of "fake news" reached its peak in 1872 when members of the legislature alleged that 184 people had been assassinated or murdered in political violence in Jackson County in a three year time period.

Carpetbagger-allied newspapers like the Tallahassee Sentinel joined in and Jackson County found itself at the vortex of one of Florida's first recorded media frenzies. Lurid headlines spread across the nation and demands grew for the return of federal troops to the county.

There was just one problem. The claims were not true.

The outraged editor of the Marianna Courier went page by page through the county's records to determine the real truth of the matter. The result was a determination that 74 investigated deaths had occurred in Jackson County over a seven year time period, nearly half the number that state legislators claimed had taken place in just three years.

Lest anyone think that local officials suppressed the real numbers, it should be remembered that the Circuit Judge, Clerk of Courts and Sheriff were then all Republican officials appointed by the governor. If anything, they would have tried to inflate the numbers to support their friends in the legislature.

Of the the 74 deaths mentioned in the county records, the Courier dug deeper and found that many were not murders and that others were the result of police shootings and domestic disputes:

• 14 - Killed by accident.
•   9 - Justifiably killed by law enforcement.
•   8 - Killed in the commission of a criminal act.
• 17 - Killed in brawls or fights.
•   3 - Killed by causes unknown.
• 23 - Murdered (including political assassinations).

Another view of the State Capitol in the 1870s. The building
looked like this when legislators launched their "Fake News"
campaign against the people of Jackson County, Florida.
State Archives of Florida/Memory Collection

The final number for murders was 23. This number did include some political assassinations, but also included a number of murders that had nothing to do with politics. Averaged out over a seven year time period, this came to about 3.3 First Degree Murders per year - including political assassinations.

The total was a bit high, but it is a long way from 3.3 to the 61.3 First Degree Murders per year claimed by the "fake news" reports coming from the state legislature and allied newspapers in 1872.

Put simply, politicians in Tallahassee had accused Jackson County of having a murder rate 18.6 times higher than it really did. The media jumped on board. It was a brutal assault on the reputation of the community and its people and they were quick to fight back:

The people of Jackson County, Florida, of which Marianna is the seat, offer a reward of $50,000 for a substantiation of the charges of Ku-Kluxism made against that county, and a true and correct list of the names of the “one hundred and eight-four “murders, fifteen of the number being “women and children,” which are averred to have been committed in the county. This reward is offered in view of the slanderous report of the legislative committee. - Charleston Daily News, March 21, 1872.

No one ever claimed the reward offered of $50,000 offered by the people of the county for proof that 184 people had been murdered there in 1869-1872. 

The unproved allegations still find their way into books today, fake news from another century that continues to hound a peaceful, rural county to this day.

Cabinet hears Dozier Report, apologizes for "unspeakable horrors"

A group of Jackson County's Citizens of the Year warn the
media in 2014 that it was being one-sided in its coverage and
that no evidence of murders of students by staff would be
found at the Dozier School for Boys "Boot Hill" cemetery.
Photo courtesy of the Jackson County Times.

In a meeting that began late and was filled with jokes, the Florida Cabinet today heard the University of South Florida's project at Dozier School for Boys in Marianna.

Please click here to read a summary of that report or to read the entire document.

Cabinet members and Governor Rick Scott apologized to former Dozier students for the "unspeakable horrors" inflicted on them by the Jackson County residents who worked at Dozier School for Boys. The Cabinet members also praised Dr. Erin Kimmerle of the University of South Florida (USF) and the former students of the school.

Kimmerle presented her final report to the Cabinet. She called it a "historic project" and said the results achieved were "remarkable."

She said that the objective was to locate the burials and to identify the individuals buried in the graves so their remains could be returned to their families. She also said a main objective was to study the 1,400 acre campus to find other graves that might be located there.

Kimmerle told the Cabinet members that her team pursued all leads on the history of the Campus, a deliberately incorrect statement as she and her team refused to examine thousands of pages of documents offered to them by this writer.

She said that prior to the beginning of the exhumations, she and her team did ground truthing to determine which features were graves and which were fence posts, etc.  At the time, however, USF denied that it had dug into any of the graves and said it was only doing "stratigraphic" analysis.

Kimmerle also mentioned that her team found and removed thousands of artifacts. She did not mention that other artifacts were left behind in the tracks of her team's vehicles.

Among the coffins found, according to Dr. Kimmerle, were seven infant coffins that contained the remains of students and employees who died in the 1914 fire at one of the school's dormitory.

She mentioned that "a number of the boys" had burial shrouds, a standard mortuary practice of the early 20th century.

The professor, however, left out key information when she told Cabinet members that a lead pellet consistent with a lead shot was found in one of the graves. She mentioned the pellet, but did not tell the Cabinet that FDLE has examined the artifact and determined it was likely from a muzzle-loading black powder weapon. Guns of that type were antiques by the time the Florida Reform School (later Dozier School) was even built.

She said her team used "fire hoses" to push water through screens while digging at the site of the burned dormitory. Kimmerle indicated that small fragments of bone were found at the burned dormitory site, all believed to be associated with the individuals who died in that fire more than 110 years ago.

Kimmerle also said that USF has positively identified only 7 of the individuals that her team exhumed from the cemetery. Four have been reburied. The other 47 individuals exhumed remain in boxes at the University of South Florida.

Although the university earlier claimed to identify the remains of one of the employees who died in the 1914 fire, Kimmerle today said that they cannot positively identify his remains and that he will likely be buried with the "unknowns."

She made no references to murders in her discussion. Later in answer to a question from the Cabinet members, the professor said that, "We feel like our field work is done. "We feel like we have exhausted everything we can do in looking for additional burials."

Kimmerle was followed by Dr. Christian Wells, a professor of archaeology at USF. He indicated that the university investigated a number of other locations pointed out by former students as "burial" sites. "We surveyed 35 different regions," he said. None of those areas, he reported, revealed any evidence of human remains. In other words, claims that "hundreds" of graves and a "second cemetery" would be found on the campus were completely false.

Wells also indicated that contamination was found on areas of the campus. He encouraged the Governor and Cabinet to follow up on the issue.

Antoinette Jackson, another USF professor, then spoke about "the living." She said that "segregation" resonates today at the campus, which is now abandoned. She noted that some communities disagreed with the project and that the university needed to incorporate them into their narratives, something they have yet to do.

Jackson mentioned the need for additional "financial support." She focused on education, although many of the university's public forums and discussions about Dozier have focused on "restorative justice."

She mentioned that the team will be traveling to Japan - presumably at taxpayer expense - to tell the Dozier story.

Jackson concluded by encouraging those with "stories" to come forward. While the project was underway, however, USF absolutely refused to view thousands of pages of documentation in the possession of this writer.

None of the professors ever mentioned the word "murder" in relation to the graves. Kimmerle also finally admitted that all of the burials were found in a 50 by 150 foot area on Boot Hill. A few pieces of bone were also found in the ruins of the burned dormitory but did not contain enough material for DNA analysis.

NO other graves were found on campus. There was no second cemetery nor were any hidden graves found.

Jerry Cooper, a former student, addressed the Cabinet and urged that the bodies "not be returned to that area" saying the reasons why were "apparent." He said, "I don't know what happened at Marianna."

Charles Fudge, another former student, then spoke and said he was "Troy Tidwell's office boy" and swore there is a second cemetery with at least 30 graves on campus. He asked that the White House Boys be allowed to go look for it. The area he claimed contains the cemetery was among those investigated by USF and nothing was found.

Other former students said they wanted the dead interred "somewhere other than Jackson County." "Please don't leave those children there," the widow of a student begged, claiming that there are more graves still to be located at the campus.

Robert Straley, a former student, said that he has suffered an unfortunate accident recently that left him with his sixth concussion. He pointed out that many in Marianna are being forced to live with the blame for something they did not do. He called for a monument to be built and spoke of forgiveness and reconciliation.  He said the "whip has no place in our society." Corporal punishment at Dozier School ended more than 40 years ago.

Andrew Puel said he had heard "very credible testimony" that boys had been murdered at the school. USF, however, found no evidence of murders. Puel said he had "sworn statements" from former juveniles that they had seen killings, including a shooting, at the school.

Puel went on to say he wasn't telling the stories to be "sensational." He requested access for researchers to the ledgers that remain sealed due to juvenile privacy laws. FDLE, however, does have access to these ledgers as part of its current investigation.

Jerry Cooper then reappeared before the Cabinet and said that many former students had cancelled plans to attend "at the last minute." Others were present and he introduced them.

Dale Landry from the NAACP then appeared before the Cabinet. He called for a place that they can "sanctify" to hold the remains until they can be identified. He called for turning the old chapel on campus into a mausoleum until the remains can be identified, even if it takes decades. He also called for turning the "White House" into a permanent memorial to the "horrors" that took place at the school. Landry also asked for the state to fund reburial of identified remains.

Jim Dean, City Manager of Marianna, then spoke. He said he appeared with a group of civic and business leaders including County Commissioner Chuck Lockey and others. He offered the community's support to bring closure to the process.

Elmore Bryant, former Mayor of Marianna, spoke and asked for the land to be given back to Marianna. He said the leaders of Marianna were "men of character." He said that "We will make you proud of what we do with that land. We've been banged, but there are some good things that people don't talk about." He noted that the people of Marianna "respected me as the first black mayor of Marianna."

"When you come to Marianna, there are many good sides," Bryant continued. He invited the governor to come and talk.

Attorney General Pam Bondi then said to the White House Boys, "We know that you have suffered terrible, unspeakable atrocities." Bondi apparently didn't know the name of Jackson County, which she called "Marianna County, a beautiful county." She called Bondi a "Hero."

Earlier in the session, Bondi yelled out "Yayyyyyyyy!!" when told that USF students were in the room and praised Kimmerle for her "ground-breaking" work.

The university spent more than $600,000 in state and federal taxpayer funding on its Dozier project, even after FDLE had determined that there was no evidence of criminal activity by employees involving the cemetery. Meanwhile, USF President Dr. Judy Genshaft told Cabinet members that her institution has eliminated more than 50 other educational programs, including industrial training.

Please click here to read a summary of the key points in the USF report or to read the full report itself.

To learn the true history of the Dozier School cemetery, please consider my book Death at Dozier School: The Attempted Assassination of an American City (available in both paperback and Kindle formats).

No Mass Grave at Dozier School Cemetery: Media Falls Silent

Dozier School Cemetery Site

Employees from the University of South Florida (USF) appear to have completed the exhumation of the graves from the Dozier School Cemetery. No mass grave was found.

The cemetery proved to be exactly what former school employees and local residents said it would be, an old cemetery where most of the graves were interred more than 75 years ago.

The media, which covered the beginning of the dig with carnival-like excitement, has vanished.

The university is expected to continue its research at Dozier for another eight months, trying to find a "second cemetery" that some claim must exist at the school. Former employees and local residents say there has not been a second cemetery within the memory of anyone alive in the community. State and Federal maps and plats dating back to the 1930s show only one cemetery, the one that has now been dug up by USF.

Wire from the original cemetery fence.

All of the graves found were inside the old fence line of that cemetery, which the media has sometimes confused with the small memorial erected at the site during the 1960s. In fact, an old wire fence surrounded a somewhat larger area and all of the graves were inside that area. The remains of that fence were visible in the spoil piles left behind when USF used heavy equipment to clear the historic site earlier in the year.

USF has not commented on the results of the dig and all media coverage stopped after the work revealed the bodies interred at the cemetery had been buried in coffins according to standard religious and mortuary practices of the time, not "dumped in holes" as some had claimed. USF employees - before falling silent - said during the first days of the dig that some of the coffins were "quite decorative."

Former employees of the school and local citizens with knowledge of its history had long said that the graves were not hidden or clandestine. They pointed out that people - both students and employees - had died at the school over its more than 100-year history and were known to be buried in the cemetery. They indicated that the bodies were buried in coffins and that funerals were held. A long-time maintenance employee of the school even pointed out that the graves originally had wooden markers, but that time and the elements had rotted them away. They disputed claims that the cemetery was a "dumping ground" for human bodies.  Despite the ridicule they faced in the media and on the internet, they maintained their stand.  In the end, they were right.

Although the university isn't talking for now, one thing is very clear: there were not 150 or more bodies in the cemetery as claimed by some former students of the now closed reform school. One former student told the media on the day that the dig began that there were "at least 100 more bodies up there" than the 50 or so thought by USF employees before the dig began.

The claims of hundreds of bodies in the cemetery received widespread coverage in state, national and international media. There has been no coverage since the claims proved false.

In answer to questions about why he had stopped covering the dig once it became clear that most of the allegations surrounding the cemetery were false, one journalist indicated he was "waiting for the final report because I don't want to report anything that isn't correct." Oddly, such journalistic standards were not at issue before the dig began. Wild stories then included allegations of everything from hundreds of graves in the cemetery to claims that it was a dumping ground for people murdered by the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).

Attorney General Pam Bondi and the NAACP pushed for the dig, claiming repeatedly that "atrocities" had occurred. A leader with the NAACP even compared Dozier School to the infamous Nazi death camp of Dachau. U.S. Senator Bill Nelson did as well, posturing for television cameras with statements such as, "where there's smoke, there's fire."

More than $600,000 in state and federal tax money funded the dig, but in the end no clandestine mass grave was found.  The USF employees and volunteers have gone back to Tampa to analyze the remains and try to identify bodies for the handful of next of kin they actually found. The media has gone silent.

The little memorial placed decades ago by school employees and students in memory of those buried in the cemetery was destroyed by the dig. The graves it commemorated are gone.

Bondi confirms Dozier ruling is "adverse" to exhumation plans

Dozier School Cemetery

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi (R) has confirmed that yesterday's court ruling denying a petition to dig up the Dozier School Cemetery in Marianna was "adverse"  (Please click here to read the story on the ruling).

In a prepared statement released last night from Tallahassee, Bondi indicated that her office would continue to look for another way forward in the matter:

I remain committed to assisting with the efforts to help resolve unanswered questions regarding deaths at the Dozier School for Boys. In light of today’s adverse ruling, we will be meeting with the interested parties and considering the next course of action to explore other avenues.

The Attorney General did not say when she would be meeting with "interested parties" nor did she indicate who those "interested parties" might be.  Her office did not meet with any "interested parties" in Marianna or Jackson County prior to filing the petition to dig up the graves on behalf of the Medical Examiner, Dr. Michael Hunter.

Nick Cox, a statewide prosecutor with Bondi's office, told representatives of Jackson County at a meeting after the Board of County Commissioners voted to intervene in the matter that unless a court order allowing the exhumations was issued, no exhumations would take place. 

Now, however, he appears to be hedging on that statement. When asked if he planned to honor his original commitment now that the order had been denied, he responded tersely: "Be glad to discuss with the community as we continue forward."

While Bondi's statement indicates that her office will "explore other avenues," her employee's statement clearly indicates a plan to "continue forward" despite the Judge's ruling.

The Attorney General's office has indicated in court filings that it has no evidence of wrongdoing in association with the graves at the known cemetery, which contains the remains of both students and employees who worked at the Florida Industrial School for Boys, now commonly known as Dozier School..

For a list of the students and employees known to be buried at the cemetery and their causes of death, please visit: http://twoegg.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-mystery-graves-at-dozier-school.html.

To read Judge Wright's entire order, please visit:  http://myfloridalegal.com/webfiles.nsf/WF/JMEE-97ZSCN/$file/DozierMay24.pdf.