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Show Originally Aired: 7/8/2004 CALL 1 800-423-TALK
Institutional Rebellion
Former Fernald State boys (photo from: State Boys Rebellion by Michael D'Antonio) Email to friend
For close to 150 years, America locked away children that doctors deemed "defective." Hundreds of thousands of them were warehoused in institutions up into the 1970s. They were marched through state IQ tests which identified them as imbeciles and morons -- though often their only defect was being poor or parentless. Their punishment was routine physical and sexual abuse.
Very few of the men and women who were in these institutions speak about those bleak years. One of them, a man called Fred Boyce, told his story, and it's now featured in a book called "State Boys Rebellion." We meet the author, and hear Fred's stories of life inside.
