Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America

Gilbert King

Mar 2012 · Sold by Harper Collins

About this ebook

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize

“A must-read, cannot-put-down history.” — Thomas Friedman, New York Times

Arguably the most important American lawyer of the twentieth century, Thurgood Marshall was on the verge of bringing the landmark suit Brown v. Board of Education before the U.S. Supreme Court when he became embroiled in a case that threatened to change the course of the civil rights movement and cost him his life.

In 1949, Florida's orange industry was booming, and citrus barons got rich on the backs of cheap Jim Crow labor with the help of Sheriff Willis V. McCall, who ruled Lake County with murderous resolve. When a white seventeen-year-old girl cried rape, McCall pursued four young black men who dared envision a future for themselves beyond the groves. The Ku Klux Klan joined the hunt, hell-bent on lynching the men who came to be known as "the Groveland Boys."

Associates thought it was suicidal for Marshall to wade into the "Florida Terror," but the young lawyer would not shrink from the fight despite continuous death threats against him.

Drawing on a wealth of never-before-published material, including the FBI's unredacted Groveland case files, as well as unprecedented access to the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund files, Gilbert King shines new light on this remarkable civil rights crusader.

Ratings and reviews

Never has a storyteller captivated me as much as Gilbert King in this story of Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys and the Dawn of a New America. As sad as many of the legal battle outcomes, the hate, the backwardness and torture in this book is the desire to hurt people so strongly intended by the ignorant men and women portraying their fearful agenda to repress freedom. A satisfying and educational read.

A required reading for law school orientation, this compelling body of work , superbly written, took me on an exhausting journey through Americas dark history. A Baltimore City native, I felt myself thinking about the parallels between then and now and recognizing the irony between racially heated debates like in Ferguson and more recently with Freddy gray. The more things change, , the more they stay the same! Thought-provoking title made me question what the devil in the grove really meant??

This is not a book to make you feel better. This is a hard and brutal look at a problem that we are still damaged by. There are villains, victors, and victims who have ugly, heart wrenching stories. The resolution isn't particularly sweet. But, this story happened. And as a nation still divided by fury, hate and fear, this story should not be forgotten.

About the author

Gilbert King has written about U.S. Supreme Court history for the New York Times and the Washington Post, and is a featured contributor to Smithsonian magazine's history blog, Past Imperfect. He is the author of The Execution of Willie Francis: Race, Murder, and the Search for Justice in the American South. He lives in New York City with his wife and two daughters.