Devil in the Grove

About this book

Winnerof the Pulitzer Prize"A must-read, cannot-put-down history." -- ThomasFriedman, New York TimesArguably the most importantAmerican lawyer of the twentieth century, Thurgood Marshall was on the verge ofbringing the landmark suit Brown v. Board of Education beforethe U.S. Supreme Court when he became embroiled in a case that threatened tochange the course of the civil rights movement and cost him his life.In 1949, Florida's orangeindustry was booming, and citrus barons got rich on the backs of cheap Jim Crowlabor with the help of Sheriff Willis V. McCall, who ruled Lake County withmurderous resolve. When a white seventeen-year-old girl cried rape, McCallpursued four young black men who dared envision a future for themselves beyond thegroves. The Ku Klux Klan joined the hunt, hell-bent on lynching the men whocame to be known as "the Groveland Boys."Associates thought it wassuicidal for Marshall to wade into the "Florida Terror," but theyoung lawyer would not shrink from the fight despite continuous death threatsagainst him.Drawing on a wealth ofnever-before-published material, including the FBI's unredacted Groveland casefiles, as well as unprecedented access to the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund files, Gilbert King shines new light on this remarkable civil rights crusader.