The life of a "White House Boy" I

The first thing that crossed my mind when I was interviewing Mr. Sapp was the struggle African Americans have had in the United States from slavery; being treated as if they are not human and during their lengthy and continuing struggle for basic humanity and civil rights.

Their struggle continues today with our first African American President Obama.  I ask myself if it will ever end.  It’s not just their struggle it’s every American’s struggle and it is in our mutual and national best interest to come to terms with our past and current misdeeds.

And we don’t have to look far to find common ground; only to our own childhoods and families. In the introduction to a prior edition of her inspired treatises on growing up and raising kids in America, Teenage Liberation Handbook,Grace Lewellynstates that “Teenagers are the new niggers.” This, in our opinion, is true. But I guess that statement carries too much truthfor today’s politically correct audience so it has been excised from recent editions of that book. (The book is still worth reading).

I had the singular pleasure of interviewing Mr. Julian Michael Sapp. Born 1945,  Mr. Sapp is a survivor of the Dozier “School” for Boys in Mariana, Florida.  Mr. Sapp knows first hand how an individual can be dehumanized by the system so that they may be treated in a manner so horrible that we prosecute as criminals those who  mistreat animals in such a despicable way. But, for some damned reason, we turn a blind eye when it happens to “bad kids”.

When Julian was just 5 years old his biological mother dropped him and his two younger siblings off with his Aunt Polley and never came back. Aunt Polley had no children of her own and is now deceased.  Julian recalls “She would run my fingers through the washer rollers.  She beat me or slapped me whenever and with whatever she had in her hand or otherwise.  Sexual abuse was not uncommon.”

When I asked Julian why she mistreated him like this he said, “She was a fanatical religious person who believed spare the rod spoil the child.”

He cited as an example when just age 12, he knew his report card was not going to be very favorable.  He was afraid of what might come when his Aunt Polley found out that afternoon.  She always drove him and his two younger siblings to the bus stop in the morning.  He knew he could not take another beating; he was afraid.  So he hatched a plan to burn down the house that morning thinking somehow he might avoid the beating sure to come that afternoon.

The house was an old Army barracks with the wires exposed inside. He wrapped some newspaper around the wires and lit them on fire on the way out the door to the bus stop.  He said, “the fire trucks passed us going the opposite way as we were going down the street to the bus stop.”

The house and all their belonging were destroyed in the fire. No charges were brought against him as they did not know at the time that he set the fire.

The first time Julian got into trouble with the law he was when he stole some candy from a store on his way to school. In January 1960, he was sentenced by Judge Sample to Okeechobee Boys School. While at the school, Julian was assigned to the dairy.  There he milked and watched the artificial insemination of cows.  Julian would later say, “the insemination was pretty damned gross.”

One evening while playing football he broke his left wrist and as a result was unable to work the dairy any longer.  He was assigned mail duty and would ride into town to retrieve the mail with one of the superintendents.  On one of the trips the superintendent left the keys in the ignition of the car when he got out to get the daily mail and Julian jumped into the driver seat and took off.

I asked him why he did that.  He said, “I guess it was impulse, I really don’t have a reason.”

A chase ensued with the Sheriff right behind him.   I asked him if he had ever driven a car before?  He said, “No, and I was doing it with my right arm because my left wrist was in a cast.”

The Sheriff’s car bumped his rear bumper and knocked him off the road and Julian went through the windshield and he added, “I still have the scars from that to this day.”

Julian was arrested and charged with Auto Theft.  He appeared before judge G.E. Bryant who sentenced him to the Dozier “School” for Boys.  Date of commitment 05/23/1960 and date of admission 06/11/1960.  I asked him where he was held for the 20 days between May 23rd and June 11th 1960.  He said, “I was in solitary confinement in the Okeechobee County jail.”  He was just 14 years old.

Julian was then transferred by a Deputy Sheriff to Marianna County, Florida and turned over to the Dozier “School” for Boys.  Julian said, “When the Sheriff took the handcuffs off Mr. Hatton grabbed me by the arm and lead me out the back door. I could see the kitchen on one side and this white building to my right. He took me to the white building and we went inside and he sat me on a cot; then he and another man who was in the room whom he later found out was Mr. Tidwell.; nicknamed by the boys ”Slot Machine” or “One Armed Bandit.”  Julian said, “the kids had given Tidwell the nicknames because he had one arm, so that’s what we called him.”  Mr. Tidwell and Mr. Hatton went into the back of the building.

They soon came out and Julian said, “Hatton motioned me to come with him to another bed and I saw the strap.”  Julian said, “Hatton then told me to, lay down and don’t holler and don’t try to get up. ‘You stole the superintendent’s car and he said for me to take care of you.’ Then he beat me on my buttocks.  I could hear his  foot turn scraping on the floor right before he would hit me and tense up. After about the the 3rd hit I don’t recall much.

“The next time I recalled anything was later that day I was in the shower and there is a guy there named Riley White who was a cottage father. He told me to let my pants get soaked before I took them off because pieces and threads of my pants were buried in my skin. I had to pick them out before I applied the state grease ’suave medication’. That’s what we called it.

“Day one concluded with them placing me in solitary confinement for two weeks.”  When Julian was released from solitary he said, “the first person I met was Dr. Robert L. Currie. We had a short conversation and I told him if you ever beat me down like that again I am going to burn this whole place down to the ground.”

The “White House Boys” can be reached at http://officialwhitehouseboys.com/

Brill Smith may be reached at brillsmith@gmail.com

Part II FEDS must investigate Dozier “School” for Boys

Copyright (C) 2009 Orange Toilet News, Incorporated (EXCLUSIVE)