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Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America
Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America
Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America
Ebook711 pages11 hours

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

By Gilbert King

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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.

Editor's Note

Riveting & lauded…

Thurgood Marshall risks his life to defend four black men falsely accused of rape in King’s riveting & lauded history of a pivotal time for both the future Supreme Court justice and for civil rights in America.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperCollins
Release dateMar 6, 2012
ISBN9780062097712
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Author

Gilbert King

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.

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