We Carry Their Bones

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For over a century the Arthur G. Dozier Boys School in Florida was the scene of cruelty, abuse, and "mysterious" deaths. The boys sent there, many of whom were Black, were subject to brutal abuse, routinely hired out to local farmers by the school's management as indentured labor, and died either at the school or attempting to escape its brutal conditions. When the institution shut down in 2011 Kimmerle, a forensic anthropologist, stepped in to locate the school's graveyard to determine the number of graves and who was buried there, hoping to reunite the boys with their families through forensic and DNA testing. Records suggested thirty-one boys were buried in unmarked graves in a remote field on the school's property; the real number was at least twice that. Kimmerle provides a detailed account of Jim Crow America and an indictment of the reform school system as we know it. -- Adapted from jacket