This article discusses abuse and sexual violence.
Director RaMell Ross shines a light on a dark, sorely overlooked piece of American history with the release of the 2024 filmNickel Boys. Set in the Jim Crow era, this historical drama follows young Elwood Curtis, a young Black man falsely labeled an accomplice to a car theft and sent to Nickel Academy, a segregated reform school rife with violence and corruption. While the movie’s set up guarantees drama, the true story inspiration is perhaps even more shocking.
Nickel Boyswill be screened in select theaters on December 13 before dropping on Amazon Prime Video. Exploring issues of racial segregation and child abuse, this shocking and immersive movie has been lauded at multiple film festivals, and it seems likeNickel Boyscould be aBest Picture nominee at the 2025 Oscars. This film deserves such recognition, as the experiences that Elwood and his peers have at Nickel Academy are a harsh but realistic depiction of the horrors Black American youths faced at the time. But the inspiration behind thisnew Black history moviemakes this school even more terrifying.
Nickel Boys Is Based On A Book Inspired By Real Events
Nickel Boys’s Source Material Features A Fictional Version Of An Actual School
Nickel Boysis no mere work of fiction.Moss’s film adapts author Colson Whitehead’s 2019Pulitzer Prize-winning bookThe Nickel Boys.However,both the book and the film are based on the true story of a segregated Florida reform school similar to Nickel Academy. The real-world school in question is the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, also known as the Florida School for Boys, located in the town of Marianna in Northwest Florida.
According toThe Guardian, the Dozier School for Boys had students sent there for charges of theft or running away from home. Other students were simply considered"incorrigible"by their families.Some were just orphans who had nowhere else to go. The school was also racially segregated until 1967, but this was only one of countless other crimes that the school’s staff were accused of committing.
The True Story Of The Dozier School For Boys That Inspired The Nickel Academy
The Dozier School’s History Is Allegedly One Of Violence, Abuse, And Murder
InThe Nickel Boys, authorities investigate the Nickel Academy and its history of abuse, which includes staff sexually abusing students, delivering physical punishments, and burying dead bodies in secret on the campus.The shocking history of this school in Whitehead’s book is very similar to that of the Dozier School, and the allegations against the latter date back to 1903.
An article byThe Guardianclaimsthe crimes said to have been perpetrated by Dozier’s staff on students also include acts of physical punishment, such as chaining children to walls or beds and beating them into unconsciousness. Some students even said there was a room in which guards sexually abused boys no older than 12 years old.
The 10 Best Black Movies On Netflix
Netflix’s Black Stories Collection features plenty of powerful and important stories that rank among the streaming service’s best Black movies.
The Guardianalso states thatseveral bodies were supposedly buried on the Dozier school groundsafter dying from drowning, disease, or even murder. One student was even allegedly found dead in an industrial laundry dryer, and another was supposedly found beaten and left for dead in a bathtub.
Authorities found insufficient evidence of physical or sexual abuse during their investigation, and prosecutors did not press criminal charges against the Dozier staff members who were still alive. However, not long before Dozier closed down, a group of former students known as the “White House Boys” shared incidents in which they or other students had experienced beatings, torture, or sexual assault, particularly in the building called “The White House.”
What Happened To The Dozier School For Boys
Dozier’s Doors Remained Open For Far Too Long Before The Truth Finally Came Out
Despite receiving a long list of allegations since opening in 1900, Dozier operated for 111 years, shutting down in 2011. The school neared the end of its days after it failed its annual inspection in 2009, which drove the state governor to order a much deeper investigation. Though there were a few investigations throughout the school’s history, the depths of the school’s long history of abuse and violence finally came to light.
Thereport by the United States Department of Justicefound that the state of Florida intended to combine Dozier with the Jackson Juvenile Offender Center,but a"budgetary crisis"led to the school shutting down once and for all.NPRstates that about 100 boys between the ages of six and 18 died at Dozier between 1900 and 1973. As of 2016, 55 burials were found at the school with forensics experts still trying to identify the remains.
The fact thatNickel Boyswas inspired by an actual school accused of so many crimes for so long is deeply horrifying. The truth behind its origin only makes the film an essential watch. One can hope a place like Dozier and Nickel Academy never exists in the present day, but it is through stories likeNickel Boysthat the public can acknowledge and remember the young boys' experiences and avoid repeating the past.
