Florida 'White House Boys' Share Stories of Abuse

Two days ago, those strangers came from around the country to meet face to face for the first time. "You're probably less than a minute or two from me right now," says Roger Kiser.

It's a day Kiser has been waiting more than 50 years for. "I've sort of written this out. Hopefully, I can do this without getting too emotional. I'm not sure if this is a happy gathering or a sad gathering. Hopefully, it will be a healing experience for all of us," Kiser told the group who call themselves the White House Boys.

The boys, who are now men, were sent to the Florida Reform School for Boys in Marianna, back in the 1950s and 1960s.

One by one each man stood up to tell who he was. "I'm an electrical contractor in Baltimore, Maryland. I was in Marianna from '57 to '59," says Dick Colon.

Another man stands up, "I was there from '57 '58...17 months. When I got out, boy was I ready. First thing I done was an armed robbery."

Another recounts, "I spent 10 months, 6 days and one hour in that hell hole.

The men all have one thing in common. They say, while at the school, they made a trip to a little white building called the white house. They say what happened there was horrifying.

"I went down eight times. Five of those times was well over 100 lashes each," says one man. "I went down six times myself and I refused to go over and hold boys down, and I got written up for it many times," says another.

More than 150 men have come forward since we first told you the white house boys story four months ago. Sixty of those men came to Brunswick, Georgia, over the weekend for the reunion.

They will tell you that the school, they simply call Marianna, has affected their lives in more ways than one.

"For many years, my life spiraled out of control. One marriage after another. One job after another job, and another and another," says Kiser.

One man told the crowd how for years he had been keeping a secret from his family. "I never spoke a single word to anyone about this out of pure fear. I've been married 41 years to the same woman, and I never even spoke one word of this to my wife of 41 years. When this broke, in the papers, I broke down and cried like a baby and told my wife the story."

It's a story that you can still see the effects from years later. Just ask Henry Williams. He is from Jacksonville.

Williams says he was in and out of prison after he left the school in 1956. "I wanted to come here today. Simple reason is I held back so long. It gives me an opportunity to say what I been wanting to say and didn't know how to say. It's like a release to me."

And then there is Frank Marx from Lake City. He was in Marianna in 1959.

"They beat me 'til I passed out. Woke up in the hospital with 18 stitches and three days in the hospital." Marx says he made three trips to the white house.

The toll the abuse took on him is clear. "I've been married five times. I apologized to each and every one of them for my wrongdoing and my anger, the beatings they took from my sickness, and I made peace with all of them."

One by one, the men share what they saw and what they experienced. "They would bring them down in cattle trucks. They'd march white boys down there, brought blacks down there in cattle trucks...8, 10, 12 boys at a time," says Don Stratton.

Stratton and the other men say some of the boys did not make it out alive. "He took him screaming from the kitchen straight to the white house. We went to the window and all watched. They all come out wiping blood off their face. The little boy never come out of there. They carried him out. They beat him to death. They killed him," says Stratton.

The men believe those boys are buried in one of the 32 unmarked graves on what was once the school's property. The state has no record of who is buried out there.

"I know every one of these men, we always wondered maybe it was just me. Maybe I was the only one who couldn't take the beating. Maybe I was the only one who was afraid. Maybe I was the only who couldn't tell their wives or children they loved them. The white house torture chamber did the same thing to every one of these men," says Kiser.

While the reunion is part of their healing, it is also a way to say thank you to their families. Some of the families are just finding out about the abuse.

"The heroes, in this story, are the women who are here today that stood by and tried to love men and the kids no one else wanted. Today we honor you," says Kiser.

Even though it is hard, the men chose to relive that pain over and over again for one simple reason. "Never again, simply never again. Let's do not let this happen again."