The Story of William Haynes-a White House Boy

Willy Haynes asked to go to the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys when he appeared before a judge in the late 1950’s. Willy had heard the school had a football team, a band, maybe Boy Scouts, and it was free. It sounded so much better than the life he was living.

Willy was picked up for allegedly stealing a car; Willy couldn’t drive, but neither the police or the judge seemed interested in that fact. Willy just wanted a chance, and the state school in Marianna sounded like the perfect place. Willy could not have been more wrong.

William Haynes will be sixty-nine this coming July. He’s a Vietnam veteran, has a college degree and he worked for the Alabama Department of Corrections for decades as a corrections officer. He survived beatings at the Florida School for Boys the likes of which we cannot even imagine. One of his beatings was at the hand of Arthur G. Dozier himself, another from Troy Tidwell left a scar on William Haynes’s back, along his waist. He received no medical treatment, no stitches, nothing. Few boys ever did.

What people don’t realize is that this abuse, this torture, went on for over 80 years. The school, first named after Arthur G. Dozier was opened in 1900. Scandal erupted just three years later, when inspectors found children chained, in leg irons, like adult criminals. And yet, the school survived. State officials discovered in the first twenty years the school was open that administrators were hiring boys out to work with adult state convicts. Inspectors also learned that children were beaten with a leather strap attached to a wooden handle. At that point, the superintendent lost his job. And the school survived.

Small reforms, drops of water on a raging inferno, but no permanent solutions. The men doling out the “spankings,” as Troy Tidwell called his particularly brutal beatings, were never removed, never arrested, never told to stop. And into this madness came William Haynes, a boy whose family life was incredibly dysfunctional, a boy who saw the Florida School for Boys as an opportunity to grow and learn and live a life not available to him in Six Mile Creek.

The first time William Haynes was taken to the White House was less than a week after his arrival. William refused to be a “puke,” a snitch, and the school disciplinarian, R.W. Hatton told him “You’re going down.” Willy was dragged across the lawn and through the door of the White House. Lay down. Turn to the wall and grab that rail. Bite the pillow, if you make a sound, I’ll start all over. Jerry Cooper told me they could hear that strap, that 3 ½ inch thick strap, whistle through the air as it was whipped toward their bodies. Mr. Cooper also said the sound changed when the strap was turned on its side, no longer flat, turned to cut the skin. And the school survived.

Willy Haynes goes by Bill these days. He’s retired, has a good life, and a wife he credits as “the most wonderful girl in the world.” Mrs. Haynes has been the brunt of Bill’s short temper, but he told me he has never physically hurt her, and I believe him. You can hear the honesty in Bill Haynes’s voice, you can hear his sorrow and his strength. Bill Haynes, like many of The White House Boys, wants the state of Florida to compensate him for the horrors they experienced at the hands of Florida state employees. And like many of The White House Boys, Bill would give any monies directly to a charity close to his heart. “I don’t need the money,” he stated. What he and the other survivors need is for the state that hid this and lied and covered for sadists to pay.

When Bill Haynes came home from Vietnam, he was told he could avail himself of services at the VA, but if he had his own insurance, they’d prefer he used that. And for his entire life, that’s what he did. He didn’t want to use a service he didn’t need, and possible deprive a veteran who couldn’t live without it. Bill Haynes went to college because one evening, while he was working as a corrections officer at a women’s prison, one of the inmates had a chat with him. Bill pushed inmates, men and women, to get their GED, to take college courses, because if anything, college would teach you to think first. This woman asked Bill what education he had. He replied “None,” and the woman said “You better start practicing what you preach, don’t you think?” He enrolled the next day.

Jerry Cooper and Bill Haynes have nightmares and scars. They have both struggled to control their anger and continue to battle internal demons no one should have to battle. Both these men are incredibly intelligent, empathetic, giving and outgoing. All they want is for the people who hired and protected these sadists to be held responsible. All they want is for Troy Tidwell to take a polygraph, as they have. Bill Haynes offered to pay for not only Tidwell’s polygraph but his travel expenses. Tidwell refused. Both men, along with many others, paid for their own polygraphs, because the state of Florida has no interest at all in justice.

For over 100 years, the Florida School for Boys was a place of unspeakable acts of abuse and terror. History must be spoken, it must be shared, it must never be forgotten. Florida wants to forget this ever happened. Men like Bill Haynes, Jerry Cooper and the rest of The White House Boys are here to make certain we never forget.

Thanks to The Tampa Bay Times, which featured Ben Montgomery and Waveney Ann Moore’s amazing article on The White House Boys and the history of the Florida School for Boys.  All my thanks and gratitude to Bill Haynes for speaking with me so openly and for his kindness. Please stay with Mad Mike’s America for my interview with Jerry Cooper later this week.

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