For Their Own Good
Wallace State’s Common Read Committee and The Evelyn Burrow Museum present
FOR THEIR OWN GOOD
Photography by Pulitzer Prize-nominated photojournalist Edmund Fountain
Fountain captured these images for the St. Petersburg Times’ “For Their Own Good” series about the abuse which occurred at the Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Fla.
Wallace State’s Common Read selection this year, “The Nickel Boys” by Colston Whitehead, is based on the story of the Dozier School.
ABOUT EDMUND FOUNTAIN
New Orleans photojournalist Edmund D. Fountain is an award-winning editorial photographer and photojournalist specializing in portraiture and documentary storytelling.
He grew up in Houston, got a degree from the Rochester (NY) Institute of Technology, and spent nearly a decade as a staff photographer for the Tampa Bay Times (formerly St. Petersburg Times) covering local, national and international news. He has covered stories in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Mexico, Panama, and all over the United States.
In 2010 Mr. Fountain was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize along with two reporters for a series of stories examining a century of abuse at a Florida reform school. These stories ultimately helped shut down the school and sparked ongoing exhumation work to identify the remains of children buried in unmarked graves on the school’s campus. The remains of several children have since been returned to their families.
He is a recipient of the Dart Award for Excellence in Coverage of Trauma and the Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism. His photographs have been honored multiple times by the National Press Photographers Association, The Society for News Design, The Atlanta Photojournalism Seminar, Best of Photojournalism and the Florida Society of News Editors. A selection of his photographs reside in the permanent collection of the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts.