Troy Rafferty and the Levin Papantonio Rafferty law firm championed the survivors, many of whom are their 60s, 70s and 80s. Rep. Michelle Salzman (R-Cantonment) and Darryl Rouson (D-St. Petersburg) guided the bill through their chambers.
Before the House floor vote, Salzman thanked Speaker Paul Renner, “We would never be here if it wasn’t for you. I don’t think people really understand how much weight you had to put on this to get it across the finish line for both chambers. It’s a lot of money. It’s a big task. Unprecedented. Nothing like this has ever been done in the state of Florida, which made it so hard.”
She explained why she took on the heavy lift of creating the compensation program.
“I just want to take you to a place for just a moment,” Salzman said. “There’s poor, and then there’s dirt poor. You can literally smell poverty. If you’ve lived in it, you can always smell it. It’s the smell of the rat poop. It’s the smell of the roaches, the roach eggs, the dirt, the mold, because it’s not properly ventilated. You can always smell that.”
She shared a bedroom with her sister. “We would sleep together on the bed, and we would put our socks on, and we’d tuck in really tight because we wanted to stay as close as we could and as tight as we could because we didn’t want the roaches and the bugs to crawl in our bed.”
They rarely got a good night’s sleep because of their alcoholic father and uncle.
“Sometimes they would be so drunk, they would come into our room, and I’d hurriedly hide under the bed, and maybe they wouldn’t even notice that I’m under the bed and I’d be okay” Salzman said. “But the physical, emotional and sexual abuse was rampant through my childhood. And there’s no words to describe what it’s like to be a young child and be ripped out of bed in the middle of the night from somebody that’s supposed to be protecting you and taking care of you and beaten and sexually abused on a regular basis. There’s no words.”
She continued, “My sister and I, as we got older, we learned to use our voice. We would start complaining. We would say, ‘Hey, don’t make us go there, please.’ But we would be sent anyway. They would say, “That’s the way it is’.
“So years pass and the business got easier. We got older. They became less interested because we weren’t young enough. And just imagine for a moment, sitting at various family gatherings at Christmas, at Easter, whatever, and you’re sitting across the table from that demon, and you can’t say anything because nobody even cares though, not listening.
And then as we get older, we start seeing young cousins at the table set real close to that uncle and that father with that same look in their eye, that look of fear. And then you see that little gleam and his eye and what’s going on.”
The state lawmaker believes that her childhood put her in a position to understand the trauma suffered by “The White Boys.”
“Members, I don’t belong here. I don’t belong here. This place is not my fit. You hear me say it all the time, but you can’t have testimony without the test,” Salzman said. “God places us in situations because he needs us to experience those scenarios so that you can go on and be better for other people and help other people get through those situations.”
She added, “I stand here as the testimony for those that cannot fight for themselves. Those, like these victims in the gallery, Dozier and Okeechobee boys needed me to be right here, right here in this chamber, speaking the truth and sharing their story through every conversation with the agencies, the house members, the leadership, the governor’s office. I have shared the atrocities that occurred under our watch as a state, our watch.”
“I’ve been asked, what led you to carry this legislation? And aside from the fact that my good friend Troy Rafferty, who’s right there asked me to, I’ll tell you, it was an easy choice for me. It was an easy choice because as I read the words off of the pages, as I listened to the testimony from these victims, as I watched these documentaries, the heat just came over me. My face got flush, my throat swelling up. My stomach is turning, and I can smell the smell of that room. I can still smell it.
She identified with the survivors. “While I never attended Dozier. Our stories are similar. A broken home abuse, neglect, and never justice. Never. Except for now. Now for these little boys, those young innocent children today, today, they’ll receive justice, members”
“I often hear stories from you guys in debate about how you should protect children and how you can’t imagine what it would be like to bear the scars of the most unforgivable thing that’s happened to you. I hear them. I don’t need a scenario. I lived it. I lived it. That smell will never go away and not for me, and certainly not for any of these boys up here.”
Salzman turned to address the men in the gallery. “Gentlemen, we see you. We hear you. You are so loved. This is not your fault. You did not deserve this. What happened to you was not your fault. And today, your Florida legislature is going to put their money where their mouth is and their vote, where their heart is. And today you will have justice. You have been heard.”