Editing Marianna, Florida (section)

==History==

[[File:Marianna FL US 90 hist bldgs01.JPG|thumb|left|Part of the historic downtown area]]
Marianna was founded in 1828 by Scottish entrepreneur Scott Beverege, who named the town after his daughters Mary and Anna.<ref name=Writers>{{cite book
 |title=Florida. A Guide to the Southernmost State |date=1939 |place=New York |author=Federal Writers' Project |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]}}</ref>{{rp|442}} The following year, it was designated as the county seat, superseding the earlier settlement of Webbville, which soon after dissolved and no longer exists.{{citation needed|date=April 2019}} Marianna was platted along the [[Chipola River]]. Many planters from [[North Carolina]] relocated to Jackson County to develop new plantations to take advantage of the fertile soil. They relied on the labor of enslaved African Americans brought from the Upper South in the domestic slave trade.

===Civil War era===

Governor [[John Milton (Florida politician)|John Milton]], a major planter who owned the Sylvania Plantation and hundreds of [[slavery in the United States|slaves]], was a grandson of Revolutionary War hero [[John Milton (Georgia politician)|John Millton]], and a descendant of Sir Christopher Milton, the brother of the famous English poet, [[John Milton]]. However, Milton did not have to rely solely on a distinguished American founding family name. A Marianna resident, he was elected as [[List of Governors of Florida|governor of Florida]], serving during the [[American Civil War|Civil War]] years. Governor Milton opposed the [[Confederate States of America]] rejoining the United States.

As federal troops were preparing to take control of [[Tallahassee]], Governor Milton received word that the Civil War had ended and that Florida would again be part of the United States. On April 1, 1865, as the Southern cause was collapsing, Milton died of a gunshot wound from his gun at Sylvania. A ''New York Times'' article, written in polemic style, attributed Governor Milton's sudden death to suicide, which conflicted with local reporting from Florida. The Governor's words, likely political oratorical hyperbole, that he "would rather die" than suffer the humiliation of Federal invasion, were linked to his sudden death by the New York Times.<ref name=":2">{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1865/05/01/archives/suicide-of-gov-milton-of-florida.html|title=Suicide of Gov. Milton, of Florida.|date=1865-05-01|work=The New York Times|access-date=2019-01-13|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> The West Florida News reported the sudden death of Florida's fifth Governor as a hunting accident.<ref name="Cox">{{Cite book|title=The History of Jackson County, Florida: The Civil War Years |last=Cox |first=Dale |publisher=CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform |year=2010 |isbn=978-1448685141 |location=Two Egg, FL|pages=191}}</ref> Governor Milton was buried in the St. Luke's Episcopal churchyard at Marianna. The New York Times article's account persisted in the difficult days of Reconstruction.

Marianna was the site of a [[Battle of Marianna|Civil War battle]] in 1864 between a small home guard of about 150 boys, older men, and wounded soldiers, and a contingent of approximately 700 [[Union (American Civil War)|Federal]] troops.

===Reconstruction period===

During the early years after the Civil War, violence flared in Marianna and Jackson County, where 150 to 200 [[Republican Party (United States)|Republicans]], some black, were assassinated in what was known as the [[Jackson County, Florida#Jackson County war|Jackson County War]] by members of the [[Ku Klux Klan]] in an effort to secure [[white supremacy]].<ref name="People">{{cite book
|title=A People's History of Florida 1513–1876. How Africans, Seminoles, Women, and Lower Class Whites Shaped the Sunshine State
|first=Adam
|last=Wasserman
|edition=4th
|year=2010
|place=Sarasota, Florida
|isbn=9781442167094}}</ref>{{rp|548–550}} Locals claimed this was the work of "ruffians" from border states and [[carpetbagger]]s. Bishop [[Charles H. Pearce]] of Massachusetts, an [[African Methodist Episcopal Church|AME]] minister who became a state senator in Florida, had first-hand knowledge of the situation. He placed the blame on the planters of Jackson County, who supported action against black Republicans. Disputes over farm land caused much of the disorder, as poor whites objected to negro ownership of choice farms.<ref name=Writers/>{{rp|443}}
[[File:The Abstract Office historical marker, Marianna.jpg|thumb|Historic Abstract Office, Downtown Marianna]]

===Post-Reconstruction to mid-20th century===

Violence continued in the state after Reconstruction, reaching a peak in most areas at the turn of the 20th century. This was the period in which southern states also [[Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era|disenfranchised most blacks]] and thousands of poor whites by raising barriers to voter registration. From 1900 to 1930, Florida had the highest rate of [[Lynchings in the United States|lynchings]] per capita in the South and the nation. Refusing to accept the violence, thousands of African Americans left the state during the [[Great Migration (African American)|Great Migration]] of the early 20th century, going to northern and midwestern industrial cities for work and other opportunities. [[File:Marianna Hist Dist bldg19-04.jpg|thumb|left|Dekle-Brunner House, Marianna Historic District]]

====Lynchings in Marianna====

In 1934 [[Lynching of Claude Neal|Claude Neal]], a local African-American man, was accused of the rape and murder of a young white woman. He was moved between jails, but a [[lynch mob]] found him in [[Brewton, Alabama]]. The mob abducted him and brought him back to Florida, killing him near the Chattahoochee River and [[Greenwood, Florida|Greenwood]]. The men brought his body to the Cannady farm, where a larger mob of an estimated 2,000 persons was waiting; people shot and mutilated the body. Neal's body was [[Hanging|hanged]] from a tree at the Marianna courthouse square.
     As recounted in "Behold, America" by Sarah Churchwell (Basic Books, copyright 2018, page 177): "The torture and mutilation that the papers at the time would not name were itemised by a white undercover investigator for the NAACP, to whom an eyewitness boasted ten days later:
'They cut off his penis. He was made to eat it. Then they sliced off his testicles and made him eat them and say he liked it. Then they sliced his sides and stomach with knives and every now and then somebody cut off a finger or toe. Red hot irons were used on the n----- to burn him from top to bottom '...From time to time during the torture [the investigator continued] a rope would be tied around Neal's neck and he was pulled up over a limb and held there until he almost choked to death, when he would be let down and the torture begun all over again.'" 
 The next day, whites rioted in town, attacking blacks and destroying some of their houses. The governor ordered more than 100 troops of the [[National Guard of the United States|National Guard]] to Marianna to suppress the violence. About 200 blacks and two police were injured. The six white [[vigilante]]s who led the lynching remain unidentified.

[[File:Marianna FL Chipola Hotel01.JPG|thumb|left|Historic Chipola Hotel, Downtown Marianna]]
In 1943 [[Cellos Harrison]] was taken from the county jail at Marianna by a white mob and hanged (lynched) near [[Greenwood, Florida|Greenwood]]. His case had been in the courts for two years in appeals after the African-American man was arrested and twice convicted by [[all-white jury|all-white juries]] and sentenced to death for the 1940 murder of a white man. He had confessed without benefit of counsel, and his convictions were overturned by the [[Florida Supreme Court]] as a result. But whites were tired of waiting for the case to be resolved, and lynched him. President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] directed the Department of Justice to investigate Harrison's lynching; he felt it was unjust that blacks were getting lynched at home while the U.S. was ostensibly fighting for freedom in Europe. No one was ever prosecuted for Harrison's death.<ref>Tameka Bradley Hobbs, ''Democracy Abroad, Lynching at Home: Racial Violence in Florida'', Oxford University Press, 2015</ref>{{page needed|date=October 2018}}

===Florida School for Boys===

[[File:Florida Industrial School for Boys Marianna.jpg|thumb|Florida Industrial School for Boys]]
{{main|Florida School for Boys}}
The [[Florida School for Boys]], a large state [[reform school]], operated in Marianna from January 1, 1900, to June 30, 2011. For a time, it was the largest juvenile reform institution in the United States. Throughout its 111-year history, the school gained a reputation for abuse, beatings, rapes, and torture of students by staff. It was rumored that students had died there as a result of injuries. Despite periodic investigations, changes of leadership, and promises by the state to improve conditions, the allegations of cruelty and abuse continued.

Many of the allegations were confirmed by separate investigations by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement in 2010 and the Civil Rights Division of the [[United States Department of Justice]] in 2011. State authorities closed the school permanently in June 2011. In 2015, a multi-year investigation of the cemetery and grounds by the [[University of South Florida]] (USF), which was attempting to find undocumented burials on the grounds, revealed details of a secret "rape dungeon", where boys younger than 12 were sexually abused. It positively identified five bodies from remains recovered on the grounds.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Luscombe |first1=Richard |title='Rape Dungeon' Allegations Emerge in Abuse Report on Dozier School for Boys |url=https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/06/dozier-school-for-boys-abuse-florida-new-allegations |access-date=7 February 2015 |newspaper=The Guardian |date=6 February 2015}}</ref> By January 2016, the end of the USF's studies of the grounds and exhumation of remains, it had identified 55 previously unknown burials, made a match for seven bodies through [[DNA]], and presumptively identified another 14 sets of remains of 51 found. Twenty-seven more graves were discovered in 2019.<ref>{{cite news
|title=Additional 27 suspected graves identified at Dozier School for Boys
|first=Jake
|last=Stofan
|date=April 11, 2019
|url=https://www.news4jax.com/news/florida/additional-27-suspected-graves-identified-at-dozier-school-for-boys
|newspaper=[[WJXT]] (news4jax)}}</ref> The team created a website containing documentation of their investigation and will continue to work with state agencies and families of former students to identify more remains.

=== Hurricane Michael ===

The city was one of several [[Florida Panhandle]] communities devastated by Category 5 [[Hurricane Michael]] on October 10, 2018.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nwfdailynews.com/news/20181019/hurricane-michael-cottondale-marianna-pick-up-pieces|title=HURRICANE MICHAEL: Cottondale, Marianna pick up pieces|last=Osbourne|first=Heather|date=2018-10-19|website=Northwest Florida Daily News|language=en|access-date=2019-01-30}}</ref> The downtown area was heavily hit, with several historic buildings collapsing and blocking Lafayette Street, which is the main road. The city was without power for three weeks, which caused extensive school cancellations. More than 80% of homes and businesses in Marianna were heavily damaged or destroyed due to Michael's extreme winds. Millions of dollars in insurance claims were filed and the area also suffered millions of dollars in economic losses. This hurricane is the worst natural disaster to ever strike Marianna, surpassing the damages caused by a F-3 tornado spawned by [[Hurricane Ivan]] in September 2004.