* Winner of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction
* Nominated for a 2013 Edgar Award * Book of the Year (Non-fiction, 2012) The Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor
In 1949, Florida’s orange industry was booming, and citrus barons got rich on the backs of cheap Jim Crow labor. To maintain order and profits, they turned to Willis V. McCall, a violent sheriff who ruled Lake … citrus barons got rich on the backs of cheap Jim Crow labor. To maintain order and profits, they turned to Willis V. McCall, a violent sheriff who ruled Lake County with murderous resolve. When a white seventeen-year-old Groveland girl cried rape, McCall was fast on the trail of four young blacks who dared to envision a future for themselves beyond the citrus groves. By day’s end, the Ku Klux Klan had rolled into town, burning the homes of blacks to the ground and chasing hundreds into the swamps, hell-bent on lynching the young men who came to be known as “the Groveland Boys.”
And so began the chain of events that would bring Thurgood Marshall, the man known as “Mr. Civil Rights,” and the most important American lawyer of the twentieth century, into the deadly fray. Associates thought it was suicidal for him to wade into the “Florida Terror” at a time when he was irreplaceable to the burgeoning civil rights movement, but the lawyer would not shrink from the fight–not after the Klan had murdered one of Marshall’s NAACP associates involved with the case and Marshall had endured continual threats that he would be next.
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, King shines new light on this remarkable civil rights crusader, setting his rich and driving narrative against the heroic backdrop of a case that U.S. Supreme Court justice Robert Jackson decried as “one of the best examples of one of the worst menaces to American justice.more
“There is very little truth in the old refrain that one cannot legislate equality”. Marshall posited in a 1966 White House conference on civil rights. “Laws not only provide concrete benefits, they can even change the hearts of men–some men, anyhow–for good or evil.”
I felt compelled to read this book, not only to learn a little more about the civil rights movement but also because I now live 15 min from where the “Groveland Boys” portion of the book took place. Now reading this book, I am appalled at what was going on. It is truly scary to think of what, prejudice, fear and those who thought that one race or person is superior to another, can do to mankind.
The book follows the life of Thurgood Marshall, who was chief council of the NAACP ( National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ) now just known as the NAACP, which is the oldest and largest Civil Rights Organization in the United States. They are leaders in the effort to guarantee that African Americans and other minorities receive equal protection under the law
Besides the Groveland, case this book follows Marshall and others throughout the south, fighting different civil rights cases and often putting their own lives at risk, a very scary reality in their line of work. It is definitely a hard story to read at times, but an important one to be told.
Gilbert King did an amazing job chronicling Thurgood Marshall’s involvement in the case of the Groveland Boys. In 1949, among the orange groves of rural Florida, a young, white couple stopped alongside the road, getting their car stuck in the mud. Two young, black men, on leave from the Army stop to help. Tensions rise between the man and the two young men and accusations of rape against the wife are made the next morning. It was a case known throughout the country and the stellar Thurgood Marshall, then an attorney with the NAACP – LDF, comes to Florida to help defend the boys and two others that got caught at the wrong place and the wrong time.
King puts the reader smack dab in the middle of the Lake County, Florida, a hotbed of racial tension where the long arm of southern justice ruled the area. This should be a must read for everyone. It is a difficult topic to read, but it shows the reader how far we have come in the fight for Civil Rights and how far we still need to go. Marshall was a hero to many and his tenacity is something to be admired.
This book chronicles a remarkable period of Thurgood Marshall’s career as a lawyer defending Negroes in a time of vicious racism and brutal tyranny by white law enforcement. The period precedes Marshall’s appointment as a Supreme Court Justice. I was absolutely enthralled and highly recommend this as a history lesson that is brilliantly done.
This was a very detailed and frankly spellbinding account of a violent area of human life, as well as an interesting biography of Thurgood Marshall.
This is a very intense book about racial injustice in central Florida in the pre-civil rights days. I found it eye-opening, and it gives new urgency to the need for voting rights protections. We should not backslide towards this cruelty.
Thurgood Marshall, and many whose names we don’t know or no longer recall, courageously challenged the many sides of racism when to do so was dangerous and sometimes fatal. We owe them a great debt. This book is one of many that outlines those days.
Poorly edited.
Probably more relevant now than ever.
The extraordinary tale of Thurgood Marshall’s fight for justice and equality.
I gained a new appreciation for Thurgood Marshall. What a true American hero.
While one may “know” the history of this time, reading this book is eye opening. So sad, and though we as a country are in a better situation, the continued racism is heartbreaking.
Our racial history is nothing to be proud of. This was a case I was unfamiliar with regarding Thurgood Marshall. Detailed and painful to read.
It told about tragic unjust period of time in Florida’s history.
Probably the most frightening book I’ve ever read. The unbelievable, yet true occurrences in this case brought tears to my eyes and fear that there are still people out there like that. Definitely a must read.
enloghtenong and disturbing
Well researched.
This was an amazing read. I have always been a fan of Thurgood Marshall but this book gave me a better and more comprehensive understanding of the challenges he faced in overcoming Racial issues and Segregation. What I love is that he used words, politics, wisdom, and the Constitution to create change that would last as well as pave the way for others.