The Jim Crow and segregation era is a period where the truth is murky and overlooked for the ‘betterment of society.’ In comparison, American history acknowledges the efforts and achievements of figures like MLK, Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, and Maya Angelou. Other moments in history did not have a happy ending or a justifiable means to an end. Events like the Tulsa Massacre, Plowing of Seneca Village, Lake Lanier, and Sugar Hill uncover a dark and disgusting part of that era. With the release of Nickel Boys, another unveiling of dark history has seen the light.
In 2019, American novelist Colson Whitehead published his book Nickel Boys, a story about Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, a reform school in the 60s whose brutal history was uncovered. The book earned Whitehead a Pulitzer Prize Award, with judges deeming it “a spare and devastating exploration of abuse at a reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida that is ultimately a powerful tale of human perseverance, dignity, and redemption.”
In 2024, Director Ramell Ross took the book to the big screen. “I didn’t know about Dozier School for Boys until I read Nickel Boys, and while hundreds of thousands of people read the book, there are people who watch the film with zero knowledge of the school or its history,” Ross said about what led to the creation of the film. “I learned about the history of the school from the Florida Memory Project, and they have a cache of images and a 156-page forensic account of what they found on school grounds.”
The Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys operated in Florida from 1900 to 2011 and was the largest juvenile detention center in the USA. Throughout its 111-year history, the school gained a reputation for abuse, beatings, rapes, torture, and even murder of students by staff. Despite periodic investigations, changes of leadership, and promises to improve, the allegations of cruelty and abuse continued.
After the school failed a state inspection in 2009, the governor ordered a full investigation. Many historic and recent allegations of abuse and violence were confirmed by separate investigations by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement in 2010 and by the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice in 2011. State authorities closed the school permanently in June 2011. At the time of its closure, it was a part of the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice.
After the investigation, evidence found 55 burials on school grounds and documented over 100 deaths near the campus and was able to identify seven DNA matches, with another 14 being presumptive identifications of remains. The reform school housed Black and White kids. Evidence revealed that there were three times the number of Black kids’ bodies found compared to the White kids.
The film is shot from a first-person perspective through two students, Elmwood Curtis and Jack Turner, as you see their experience at the school. “There are two perspectives in the movie, and we want to put viewers in a neutral state of mind when fleshing out these perspectives as Whitehead did in the book because they’re important to the story. Nickel Boys is currently in select theaters across the nation. Your support will make the film available worldwide across every theater.
