
We Carry Their Bones
The Search for Justice at the Dozier School for Boys
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Narrated by:
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Janina Edwards
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By:
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Erin Kimmerle
"With We Carry Their Bones, Erin Kimmerle continues to unearth the true story of the Dozier School, a tale more frightening than any fiction. In a corrupt world, her unflinching revelations are as close as we'll come to justice." –Colson Whitehead, Pulitzer-Prize Winning author of The Nickel Boys and The Underground Railroad
Forensic anthropologist Erin Kimmerle investigates of the notorious Dozier Boys School—the true story behind the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The Nickel Boys—and the contentious process to exhume the graves of the boys buried there in order to reunite them with their families.
The Arthur G. Dozier Boys School was a well-guarded secret in Florida for over a century, until reports of cruelty, abuse, and “mysterious” deaths shut the institution down in 2011. Established in 1900, the juvenile reform school accepted children as young as six years of age for crimes as harmless as truancy or trespassing. 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.
In the wake of the school’s shutdown, Erin Kimmerle, a leading forensic anthropologist, stepped in to locate the school’s graveyard to determine the number of graves and who was buried there, thus beginning the process of reuniting the boys with their families through forensic and DNA testing. The school’s poorly kept accounting suggested some 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’s work did not go unnoticed; residents and local law enforcement threatened and harassed her team in their eagerness to control the truth she was uncovering—one she continues to investigate to this day.
We Carry Their Bones is a detailed account of Jim Crow America and an indictment of the reform school system as we know it. It’s also a fascinating dive into the science of forensic anthropology and an important retelling of the extraordinary efforts taken to bring these lost children home to their families—an endeavor that created a political firestorm and a dramatic reckoning with racism and shame in the legacy of America.
Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2022 Erin Kimmerle (P)2022 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...




















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Heartbreaking & Slow
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Did not hold my attention and sounded like it kept repeating itself.
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However, I was turned off by how the author spent the majority of and entire chapter talking about herself! Everything from her first job as a babysitter to reconnecting with her biological father to her schooling to her kids extracurricular activities!
I guess it was supposed to make her more relatable, but, in a book about an institution of systemic state-sanctioned child abuse and murder, mostly against young Black boys, it seemed incredibly self-indulgent to insert a chapter that amounts to the author's autobiography and resume!
Important story but overshadowed by author's focus on them self
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Compelling and critically important
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Thorough description of context in which this can happen.
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Very repetitive...
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Whitehead's book is fiction, this is not. Kimmerle's is not. Kimmerle is a noted Forensic Anthropologist who, when urged by survivors of Dozier, began the long, difficult path to open the prison to scrutiny. She was not welcome. The community surrounding Dozier did not want the past revealed. The government wanted to sweep things out of sight. But eventually she was able to bring the best of forensics to reveal the past.
The children were probably separated by race, often imprisoned for life for crimes of running away, missing school, or for being orphaned(!) The sentencing was dictated by the prison, not the judge. The prison would demand more boys! As I am concurrently reading about a Boys home in Ireland that was terrible. I will be choosing something lighter soon.
This book is detailed and very sad. The school/prison operated from 1900 until 2011. A second campus opened in 1955.
This is a must read.
What Was Learned -Florida's Dozier School for Boys
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The Dozier School was not a school. It was a prison and torture system for wayward boys, boys who ran away and cut school. Most of the inmates were from low income families with few resources to get their boys back. The inmates were not allowed to be called boys, children, students or residents. Often presumed guilty without trials, the boys, some under age ten, were beaten, starved, murdered and sexually assaulted by their keepers. Some of the children and teens were beaten to death by guards. Many were buried in unmarked graves.
Dr Kimmerle set out to identify as many bodies as she could, through DNA.
The reason for my mediocre review is several chapters were devoted to the political process of getting permission to excavate the school. While important for the archives of history, I didn’t care which politicians helped and which blocked uncovering the truth. I wanted to know about what happened to the boys how Kimmerle helped get a modicum of justice for the thousands of boys who lived at Dozier in the 117 years it ran.
Maddening
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Powerful, Tragic story
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Well Told Story of Dedication to Truth and Recognition of the Foresaken
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