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).

The Tampa Atrocities: Officially-sanctioned beatings, torture and death in Hillsborough County, Florida.

Skyline of Tampa, Florida
Photo by Lauren Pitone

by Dale Cox

This is a story that the Tampa Bay Times would not not tell.

There is a place in Florida where beatings of jail inmates was commonplace. It is a place where those in custody were stretched out face down in public view and lashed with a leather whip for minor offenses. It is a place where the officials called upon to investigate the practice voted instead to legally authorize it. And it happened during the 20th century.

Marianna and Dozier School?  Some other sleepy small town nestled in the pines and steeped in Old South tradition?  No, that place is Tampa and Hillsborough County, home to the University of South Florida and the Tampa Bay Times.

The use of the lash by authorities in Tampa and Hillsborough County was widespread and accepted deep into the 20th century. It continued for decades and no prisoner was immune to the threat of flogging on the whim of city and county officials. Judges even beat children in the courtrooms of the city.

The Tampa Tribune reported in 1909 that the practice of flogging prisoners had been initiated there ten years earlier by Judge Whitaker of the municipal court.  He "set a precedent," the historical account noted, "by personally applying the lash to two boy offenders convicted in his court."

The word "precedent" according to Merriam-Webster means "something done or said that can be used as an example or rule to be followed in the future."  When Judge Whitaker beat two children in Tampa's municipal court, he set an "example or rule to be followed in the future." Hillsborough County was not shy in following that example.

Road Gang Members in the 1920s

On April 10, 1921, for example, the Tampa Tribune reported that it had received a letter from a "well-known woman resident of Clearwater" who alleged that she had witnessed the "brutal flogging of a convict."

The unidentified eyewitness said that she and several others were traveling by car between Oldsmar and Tampa on the afternoon of Thursday, April 7, when she witnessed "the most brutal act I have ever seen." In a letter to the editor of the Tribune, she described seeing a county road camp prisoner face-down on the ground beside the road as a guard beat him "with all his might with a leather strap." The sound of the beating was so loud that the witnesses could hear each of the blows as they struck the man.

The woman was unable to say how long the beating went on, but she said that it continued for the entire time she and others in the car were within sight of the road crew. She also said that it caused her to wonder what else happened in the county prison camp "where there was no public to look on."

The eyewitness raised a good question. If a guard was so bold as to force an inmate to stretch out face down by a public road for a beating that continued for an untold length of time, what else could have been taking place in Hillsborough County away from the eyes of the public?  Could inmates of the county's prison camp have been maimed or even killed by the floggings they received?

The incident took place in the County Commission district of John T. Gunn, who told the Tribune that he had no reports of "extreme conduct on the part of the guards." He promised to make a "thorough investigation" of the allegations.

Hillsborough County Courthouse in 1921
Burgert Brothers photos, Courtesy Florida Memory Collection

True to his word, Gunn did investigate. In fact, he was so impressed with the details of the beating that he recommended the implementation of flogging as a standard punishment in Hillsborough County.  In fact, the Hillsborough County Commission called the county's sheriff on the carpet before a meeting of the board to demand he explain why 15 federal prisoners housed at the county jail were not turned over to the county to be used as forced laborers on its roads.  The sheriff had previously told Commissioner Gunn that he was willing to allow the county to use the prisoners, but that they could not be flogged. Before the commissioners on that day in 1921, however, he changed his mind and "withdrew his restrictions."

On April 14, 1921, the Tampa Tribune ran letters from readers both supporting and opposing the beating of county inmates with whips. On the same day the newspaper reported that Superintendent McIntosh, who managed the work camp, had given assurances that "no color discrimination" was being made in selecting inmates for flogging. McIntosh proudly described the whipping of three men in one day, two of them white and one black. The road camp "boss" told the newspaper that floggings also took place in the state convict camp in Hillsborough County as well.

The county's investigation of the beatings at its road camp ended with a commission vote giving full sanction to flogging as a suitable punishment for inmates.

St. Petersburg, Florida
Photo by Lauren Pitone

Flogging, in fact, became so popular in the Tampa Bay area that it soon spread to St. Petersburg. In 1931, ten years after Hillsborough County officially adopted flogging, a civilian group in neighboring Pinellas County started a "flogging for hire" organization.  For the right amount of money, they would arrange the flogging of anyone you wanted flogged.

The commercial floggers, however, went afoul of the law when they flogged... the law. On March 8, 1931, the group kidnapped and flogged Constable F.A. Howard of Ballast Point. Arrests followed.

Despite such evidence that flogging was reaching out of control proportions around Tampa Bay, the practice continued. On November 30, 1935, officers of the Tampa Police Department seized three Union labor organizers without a warrant and carried them to police headquarters. The men were illegally questioned about their political and organizing activities as a "mob" gathered outside. When the three Socialist Party members - Joseph Shoemaker, E.F. Pulnot and S.D. Rogers - were released, they were seized on the grounds of the Tampa Police Department by the "ruffian band" that lay in wait. Carried to a remote area, they were flogged and then scalding hot tar and feathers were poured on their bodies.

Pulnot and Rogers survived the barbarous treatment, but Shoemaker did not.  He died one week later from hideous injuries. Rev. G.F. Snyder of St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Tampa boldly spoke out against the atrocity, aiming his finger at "the very citadel of justice and law administration." A mass meeting was held, but public officials did not attend.

The focus of the nation fixed itself on Tampa. Florida Governor Dave Sholtz demanded a thorough investigation and labor leader Norman Thomas accused law enforcement of mishandling the investigation to "save the face of Tampa police and higher-ups." The president of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) threatened to cancel his group's planned national convention, set for Tampa in 1936.

Tampa Police officers in 1935
Courtesy Florida Memory Collection, Florida State Archives

Then came the bombshell. Six Tampa policemen were arrested on the night of December 18, 1935, on charges that they were members of the so-called "ruffian band." Shoemaker's death, it was alleged, did not result from an attack by a mob, but instead was an execution carried out with a lash and hot tar by Tampa police. A member of the city's fire department also was arrested.

A second bombshell came on January 23, 1936, when Tampa Police Chief R.G. Tittsworth was indicted by a special grand jury as an accessory to the crime. In the end, a total of 10 arrests were made in connection with the incident and Governor Sholtz appointed a special prosecutor to handle the case, saying in the process that he meant no disrespect to the Hillsborough County Solicitor, C.Jay Hardee.

The police officers were acquitted. The family of Joseph Shoemaker never received justice. There was no closure.

Nine hate groups are active around Tampa Bay
Photo by Lauren Pitone

A national civil rights publication called it a "Whitewash" and alleged that the police officers were members of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). Whether they were or not is impossible to prove, but the Tampa Bay area is still infested with hate groups. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) in Montgomery, Alabama, there are 9 hate groups active in the Tampa Bay area. These include the New Black Panther Party, Neo-Nazis, Christian Identity and the racist Skinhead group Confederate Hammerskins. By comparison, Miami and North Miami are home to three hate groups, only one-third as many as Tampa Bay.  Marianna and Jackson County, home to the former Dozier School, have none.

The Tampa Bay Times has run story after story on the allegations of murders at Dozier School, even though 52 of the 55 people exhumed from the Dozier Cemetery are believed to have been buried there more than 75 years ago. How many stories has it published in the last two years about the officially-sanctioned beatings and death in Hillsborough County from the same era?  None.

I told Ben Montgomery, a reporter with the Tampa Bay Times, about the Tampa floggings in April 2013 and he told me he had never heard of them. I encouraged him to look into them. As of today, his paper continues to publicly ignore the horrors that took place in Tampa even while "seeking the truth" about Marianna. Montgomery has not responded to an email asking why he elected not to report on events that took place in his own community.

Think the official violence in Tampa and Hillsborough County ended long before the days of the "White House Boys" at Dozier School in Marianna?  Watch this video and think again: 2008 Abuse at Hillsborough County Jail.

The Tampa Bay Times at least covered that one.  And then there is this one, reported just today by the Tampa Tribune:  Woman dragged by Tampa police officer.

So far as is known no Tampa area media outlet has tried to find either the survivors of beatings or the families of individuals who were abused by authorities in Hillsborough County during the early 20th century. They continue, however, to run interviews and stories about alleged events that took place in Jackson County at exactly the same time in history.

The University of South Florida, meanwhile,  is spending more than $600,000 of taxpayer money in a "humanitarian effort" to identify 55 unknown graves at Dozier School.  How much money has USF spent to identify the 187 unknown graves at Woodlawn Cemetery within 15 minutes of the doors of its Anthropology Department?

Pam Bondi, Florida Attorney General
She has made no calls for justice in Hillsborough County atrocities.

How much money has the university spent to learn whether any beaten and abused inmates disappeared from the Hillsborough County Road Camp in the 1920s and 30s?

How much money has USF spent looking for a "lost" cemetery associated with the atrocities suffered by adults and children in Hillsborough County?

How many times has Attorney General Pam Bondi commented on the documented atrocities that took place in Tampa and Hillsborough County?  How often has she called for closure for the families of the victims?

Officers from the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Department spent time in Marianna assisting USF in its exhumation of the graves from the Dozier School Cemetery. How much time did they spend last year looking into the skeletons of their own past?

I think you already know the answers to these questions.

This is the first in a series of articles on this topic. Watch for part two in coming days.

Death at Dozier School (Part One: 1900-1913)

Memorial Crosses at Boot Hill Cemetery
Dozier School for Boys - Marianna, Florida

Note:  What follows is the first installment in a series I plan to post on the history of deaths and probable burials at the former Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida.To check for additional posts in this series, please check back regularly at http://twoegg.blogspot.com.

Death at Dozier School

A History of “Boot Hill Cemetery” at the former Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida

by Dale Cox

Dozier School for Boys, originally known as the State Reform School, was a facility for juvenile offenders that operated for more than 100 years in Marianna, Florida. During the course of that long history, a number of students and employees of the school died from a variety of causes. Many were buried in the school cemetery, which is known locally and by former students and staff members alike as “Boot Hill.”

The cemetery is now the focus of a controversial research project by Dr. Erin Kimmerle and a team from the University of South Florida (USF). They are exhuming graves from the cemetery, which has been a known part of the local landscape for some 100 years.

Groups of former students claim that murder of juvenile offenders by staff members was common at the facility, even though no documentation or evidence has surfaced thus far.  The matter was investigated by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE), which determined there were no grounds for criminal charges against former employees of the school and that the graves in the cemetery should not be exhumed.

The three-member Florida Cabinet subsequently overruled FDLE, the circuit judge of the 14^th Judicial Circuit, the State Archaeologist and the Secretary of State and authorized USF to begin a project to exhume the graves. That project is underway at this time.

The purpose of this series is to present a documented history of known deaths at the school, with a focus on probable burials in the school cemetery.

--

The earliest known deaths at what would become Dozier School for Boys were not included in “Documentation of the Boot Hill Cemetery”, the interim report prepared in 2012 by Dr. Erin Kimmerle and other researchers from the University of South Florida (USF).[1]  

According to an October 1906 article written for the Marianna Times-Courier by Frank McDonald, two deaths took place at what was then the State Reform School during its first six years of operation:

The inmates are rosy-cheeked and robust, and their health is and has been excellent. There have been but two deaths since the institution was started, and of these one came to the school with organic disease of the heart, while the other was recaptured escape, who succumbed, notwithstanding the best of care and medical attention, from the inroads of long exposure at an inclement season.[2]

The identities of the students were not included in McDonald’s article, in which he noted that the population at the school then consisted of 39 boys and 4 girls. In the six years that had passed since the opening of the reform school, he reported, 171 juveniles had been received there and 128 discharged. Several of those discharged were escapees who were recaptured and sent on to other correctional facilities.[3]

The earliest records of the school were destroyed when the dormitory that also contained the superintendent’s office was destroyed by fire in 1914, so nothing else is known at this time about the two student deaths mentioned by McDonald. It is not known whether they were buried at the school or returned home for burial.[4]

USF researchers evidently did not locate this article while preparing their interim report for the Florida Division of Historical Resources.

Dr. Kimmerle, the head of the university’s research team, was invited by State Archaeologist Mary Glowacki to attend a meeting in Marianna on April 15, 2013, the purpose of which was to discuss concerns over the nature of the research at the Dozier School Cemetery and to improve communication so documentation could be presented to the USF team. Although Dr. Glowacki attended the meeting, as did I and Julia C. Byrd of the Florida Bureau of Archaeological Research, Dr. Kimmerle did not show, indicating that she was having lunch with her team members instead.[5]

Ms. Byrd subsequently requested that I continue to maintain an open stance with regard to sharing information with Dr. Kimmerle and her team. I notified her on April 16, 2013, that I was open to doing so. In the six months that followed, I received no contact from them and my only attempt to contact the school was referred to USF’s legal team.[6]

Believing that all information regarding deaths and potential burials at the school should be of significance to a team researching deaths and potential burials at the school, I sent the article quoted above to Gerard Solis, of the Office of General Counsel for USF. He has been cordial in his communications with me and informed me by email on September 24, 2013 that he had forwarded my email to Dr. Kimmerle.[7] 

The next known deaths at the State Reform School took place in 1914, but it is certainly possible that others occurred between October 1906, the date of the article quoted above, and November 1914, the date of the fatal fire that destroyed a dormitory and the school’s records. Future research in newspaper archives may reveal information on additional deaths that may have taken place in this 8 year time period.

The next installment in this series details the facts of the deadly fire that took place at the school in 1914. To continue to it, please visitDeath at Dozier School (Part Two: The 1914 Fire).

---

[1] Kimmerle EH, Estabrook R, Wells EC, Jackson AT. 2012. Documentation of the Boot Hill Cemetery (8JA1860) at the former Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, Interim Report, Division of Historical Resources, Permit No. 1112.032, December 10, 2012.

[2] McDonald, Frank, “History and Progress of State Reform School,” Marianna Times-Courier, October 1906, reprinted in The Pensacola Journal, October 24, 1906, p. 4.

[3] Ibid.

[4] “Ten Lives Lost when Florida Reform School Burns at Marianna,” Tampa Tribune, November 19, 1914, p. 1.

[5] Julia C. Byrd, Bureau of Archaeological Research, to Dale Cox, April 12, 2013; Dale Cox to Julia C. Byrd, Bureau of Archaeological Research, April 15, 2013; Julia C. Byrd, Bureau of Archaeological Research, April 16, 2013; Mary Glowacki, State Archaeologist, to Dale Cox, April 16, 2013.

[6] Julia C. Byrd, Bureau of Archaeological Research to Dale Cox, April 16, 2013; Dale Cox to Mary Glowacki, State Archaeologist, April 16, 2013.

[7] Dale Cox to Gerard D. Solis, Office of General Counsel (USF), September 22, 2013; Gerard D. Solis, Office of General Counsel (USF), to Dale Cox, September 24, 2013.

Tampa reporter targets my deceased father over Dozier story

At 11:06 p.m. on Friday night (September 6, 2013), Ben Montgomery of the Tampa Bay Times (formerly the St. Petersburg Times) informed me that he is investigating my late father.

Mr. Montgomery sent me an email informing me of this action on his part roughly 10 minutes after sending out a Tweet demanding that I change the content of a story I posted on this blog two days ago about a dog being exhumed by the University of South Florida at the Dozier School Cemetery. I have refused to make the change requested by Mr. Montgomery.

Subsequently, ten minutes after making his demand for the story change, he sent me the following email:

 ----- Forwarded Message -----

From: "BMontgomery@tampabay.com"
To: Dale Cox
Sent: Friday, September 6, 2013 11:06 PM
Subject: Re: Dozier

Dale --

Do you know what your father's role was at ACI? I've requested his employment records, but I was wondering if you might shed any light on his time there. I know trustees from ACI were often involved in helping track down Dozier escapees, but do you know whether your father would have been involved in any of those efforts? 

Ben

Sent from my iPhone

--

As you can see, Mr. Montgomery indicates he has requested my late father's employment records. 

I find this action on his part to be uncalled for and disgusting. My father was never an employee of Dozier School for Boys and died at about the time the whole "White House Boys" story first developed. He was never involved with the story.

Mr. Montgomery followed at 12:06 a.m. today with another email explaining that he was investigating my late father because he was "just trying to figure out why you're so vociferous." In other words, he is investigating my late father because I have exercised my Constitutional right of Free Speech.

The media considers itself the guardian of the First Amendment, yet in this case Mr. Montgomery is targeting my late father because I have spoken publicly about the Dozier School story. You can judge for yourself whether that is right or wrong.

My dad, as all who knew him will testify, was an honorable and decent man. To know that a reporter who disagrees with me on the Dozier issue has decided to investigate him is disgusting and sickening.

If you would like to voice your opinion on this matter, I encourage you to do so by writing to the managing editor of the Tampa Bay Times. He is Mr. Montgomery's boss.  His email address is mike@tampabay.com.


Dale Cox
September 7, 2013

Archaeological Ethics, USF and Dozier School for Boys

The following was written by Dr. William Lees, a well-known archaeologist and the Executive Director of the Florida Public Archaeology Network.

It took great courage for Dr. Lees to become the first archaeologist to publicly question the ethics of the University of South Florida's ongoing quest to dig up the cemetery at the Dozier School for Boys.

Whether you agree or disagree with the project, please take the time to read the thoughts presented by Dr. Lees as they open the door for a higher level discussion that we should have in Florida about the sanctity of human burials.

http://www.flpublicarchaeology.org/blog/blog/2013/08/01/the-dozier-school-for-boys-and-archaeological-ethics/

Dozier School Cemetery dig DENIED by Florida Secretary of State

Florida's Secretary of State has denied a permit application from the University of South Florida seeking permission to exhume the graves at the Dozier School Cemetery.

The University confirmed in a letter to the state last week that its investigation was not criminal in nature and that the Dozier Cemetery was NOT a crime scene.  As a result, the State Department had no authority under law to grant permission to dig up the graves.

Here is the actual letter: