AP —Hundreds of people who say they suffered physical or sexual abuse at two state-run reform schools in Florida are in line to receive tens of thousands of dollars in restitution from the state, after Florida lawmakers formally apologized for the horrors they endured as children more than 50 years ago. At its peak in the Jim Crow 1960s, 500 boys were housed at what is now known as the Dozier School for Boys, most of them for minor offenses such as petty theft, truancy or running away from home. Orphaned and abandoned children were also sent to the school, which was open for more than a century. Nearly 100 boys died between 1900 and 1973 at Dozier, some of them from gunshot wounds or blunt force trauma. Ahead of a December 31 deadline, the state of Florida received more than 800 applications for restitution from people held at the Dozier school and its sister school in Okeechobee, Florida, attesting to the mental, physical and sexual abuse they endured at the hands of school personnel.

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Persons: Jim Crow, Bryant Middleton, Middleton, Dozier, “ I’ve, ”, “, Claude Kirk, ” Kirk, “ you’d, Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer, Whitehead Organizations: Dozier School for Boys, Dozier, Army, Florida School for Boys Locations: Florida, Marianna, Okeechobee , Florida, Vietnam