Play Book Tag discussion

Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America by Gilbert King - 4 stars - My Review

Groveland is a small town in Lake County, Florida, about 30 miles west of Orlando. In 1949, a seventeen-year-old white woman accused four black men of rape. In this narrative non-fiction, Gilbert King tells the story of the Groveland Four. He explains how the NAACP’s Legal Defense team, led by Thurgood Marshall, became involved in upholding the civil rights of these men at a time of rampant racism in the Jim Crow South.

The author provides a well-written, comprehensive account of the case, imparting a sense of the personalities of the people and the many steps in the legal process. Parts of this book are extremely disturbing, describing torture of suspects to obtain confessions and their outright murder. It will inspire outrage in the reader over the injustices suffered by these four young men. It is difficult to comprehend such racial hatred and willful disregard for the law by those sworn to uphold it.

I looked up the case after finishing the book, and the Groveland Four were pardoned by the Florida Clemency Board in 2019. It took seventy years. This book won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 2013. Recommended to those who want to understand more about the history of the US civil rights movement.