Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America Paperback – February 19, 2013

I don't often use the phrase "tour de force", but if it isn't applicable to this book, I don't know when it would be. Gilbert King has delivered a solid, in depth, thoroughly researched tome on not only one of the most brutal (although, sadly, little known) civil rights cases in American history, but also a thorough survey on the state of race relations in the American South in the late 1940s and early 1950s. For anyone who has ever wondered exactly what the "Southern Way of Life" is, you need look no further than this hate-fueled tale of widespread murder and mayhem.In a surprisingly slim, albeit dense, 360 pages (of text, plus notes, etc.), King manages to paint a rich, detailed, sickening and enraging picture of Southern "justice" in the Sunshine State. The unsupported word of a white woman (girl, really, whom few really believe) and that of her drunken on-again, off-again husband launch a series of events that leave two young black men dead - one hunted like a dog, the other shot in cold blood - along with two more wrongfully jailed, one on death row. Along the way we witness the racial intimidation and violence of the KKK, the death by firebombing of civil rights leader Harry T. Moore, and the slow turning of the wheels of justice in the nation's highest court. Also along the way we meet the prosecutor, Jesse Hunter, who comes to believe in the innocence of the "Groveland Boys", yet who prosecutes them anyway; the born and bred Southern journalist Mabel Norris Reese whose slow change of heart gets her labeled a "pinko"; and the Southern sheriff in charge of it all, Willis McCall.But most of all we meet the men who stood up and dared to fight back, sacrificing family, health and safety to do so - Charles Hamilton Houston, Franklin Williams, and main character future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. Gilbert does not shy away from these men's faults; they had their fair share of internal squabbles and personality conflicts, and Marshall at least was a hard-drinker who wasn't exactly faithful in marriage. Nevertheless, despite not being saints, these men put it all on the line and they, among many other civil rights crusaders, deserve the lion's share of the credit for the advances in justice and equality. As head of the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund, Marshall was involved in many facets of civil rights law, from criminal cases involving wrongfully accused blacks to segregation cases at schools and universities, to his most famous case (or, really, collection of cases), Brown v. the Board of Education. But the Groveland case, little know though it is, ,was probably Marshall's most formative case, and the one he took most personally.If you like epic tales of good vs. evil, this is your book. If you like edge of your seat thrillers, this is your book. If you like stories with genuine, three-dimensional characters, this is your book. (Note: I would say "believable characters", but Sheriff McCall, his henchmen and supporters are so wildly extreme that, were they characters in a fiction book, they would be deemed unbelievable.) You will bite your fingernails to the nub worrying for the Groveland Boys and cheering for Marshall, his team of lawyers and other sympathizers as they risk their lives in the hostile territory south of the South. You'll witness false accusations, evidence tampering, forced confessions, threats of and actual violence, jury stacking, witness tampering, and nearly every form of legal malpractice in the single-minded goal of protecting the "Flower of Southern Womanhood" and securing "justice" against the "perpetrators". But be warned, if you like nice, tidy, happily-ever-after good-defeats-evil stories, this is not your book. This is a tale of senseless violence and oppression. The story of the deaths of three innocent black youths in the prime of their otherwise promising lives. It's the story of the deaths of a civil rights leader and his wife, and the violence and intimidation against countless others. It's the story of the Teflon sheriff who ruled Lake County for another twenty years, despite countless other accusations of misconduct and corruption.But this isn't even just the story of the "Groveland Boys" case. It is the story of the world's emerging superpower, the beacon of justice and democracy to the world, and how that superpower turned a blind eye to the injustices routinely inflicted on black citizens throughout the Jim Crow South. In addition the Groveland case, Gilbert King recounts dozens of similar and related cases from all over the South. From race riots to lynchings to rape to discrimination of all types, King puts the lie to the oft-repeated protest of the South that it was Northern/NAACP/communist/etc. agitators who stirred up otherwise peaceful Southern race relations. And no, things weren't always rosy in the North either, but Marshall and his colleagues didn't fear for their lives, and when black butler Joseph Spell was accused of raping his white employer, he received a fair trial and was acquitted in Connecticut, something that could not and did not happen below the Mason-Dixon line.If you need a silver lining to an otherwise very dark cloud, it comes from the fact that the very barbarity of this and similar cases paved the way for justice to slowly trickle in. There is, perhaps, a limit to the inhumanity that human nature will bear, and as publicity of these kinds of cases grew, so too did public outrage. Like Mabel Norris Reese, Americans North and South began rethinking their deeply held beliefs regarding race and race relations. At the same time, the diligent and careful legal work of people like Houston and Marshall began setting enough precedents that by 1954 cases like Brown v. the Board of Education could overturn the legal framework supporting Jim Crow. These changes came too late to save Ernest Thomas, Samuel Shepherd and Walter Irvin (and to save co-defendant Charles Greenlee from an undeserved stint at hard labor), but they came in time to see Thurgood Marshall promoted to the highest court in the land, where he presided over an unparalleled period of civil rights growth in the nation's history.This book should be required reading for high school and college students, as well as adults. Now that we have our first black president, there are those who would whitewash the struggles it took to get here and deny that there is much left to improve. Power of the kind wielded by Sheriff Willis McCall and supported by like-minded people as well as decent but unthinking people doesn't cede easily and, when forced out, it looks for ways to turn public opinion back to itself and restore itself to its "rightful" place. It is important that all Americans know the truth about where the struggle began and how much it has cost to right the wrongs of the past I order that we not fall prey to the same mindset that caused such oppressive division in the first place. Gilbert King has done us a great service by providing this rich and detailed history of one of the darkest chapters in our history so that this "post-racial" world can learn from history and not repeat it.

I grew up in the northern states of we still call the United States, although lately it seems more and more people born and raised in some other, non-northern areas of this nation are not interested in seeing them remain united. Not as I recall is behind the meaning of "united," as one would expect it to be used in association with "states," to define the purpose behind linking those two words to define a nation.When I was in grade school, I saw the Civil Rights Movement and Martin Luther King on local TV news, but could not associate with any of it in my life. In fact, I was going on six years old before seeing an African American person for the first time ever in my whole life.I was curious in a child-like way at the time, but that was about it. I did not attach any feeling to that first encounter, likely because my parents didn't give me any reason to attach any kind of feeling to their experience of my first encounter with an African American citizen of the United States of America. The encounter would have been the same had that citizen had blue or purple skin. The only thing I took away from that experience was that now I knew people weren't all practically the same color as I'd thought prior to the experience of learning otherwise.Because I was not raised by biased parents, living in some biased community, when issues about civil rights did enter my world in my grade school years, the events taking place might as well have been occurring on Mars or the Moon; they had little to no importance in my life, as far as I knew at the time. No more importance in my young world of that time than did issues of Women's Rights. Now the Vietnam conflict at the time, that was different because that issue did have some relevance in my young world because I knew families in my neighborhood who had been negatively impacted by it in their own immediate families.But getting back to the title for this review, I really and truly didn't know all of this had been occurring in places so familiar to me, like Florida was. Not that I'd ever set foot in Florida; in fact I'd never even been to anywhere further south in this nation than Salina, Kansas to visit relatives maybe two or three times in my life. So, even though I have now had forty-some more years of acquaintance with issues of civil rights as pertains to Americans of varying skin color; such as the fact that somewhere in our more southern states there had been racial strife; there had been instances of lynchings; there had been segregation (I'd never seen any segregation in practice myself), all of these things I'd become aware of still seemed as though they'd been isolated and remote incidents I was simply glad weren't representative of the United States of America I knew.Boy, was I wrong. I cannot believe.(even though now I do believe) things were ever as bad as what I've learned they could be from reading this book. Wow, I truly had no idea. It's now embarrassing for me to admit the degree of my naietivity, but it's true. I'm afraid in having read this book, my eyes have been opened to an America I am ashamed of. So ashamed, that if I ever have the chance to again visit Europe, as I had done several times in my early 20's, I'm not sure would want to tell anyone that I'm an American. Not the way I would have given out that information readily as before anyway.I had already been thinking along those lines due to events occurring at the highest levels of government, such as the those in Congress in the past 3 or 4 years, but adding the knowledge I've gained from reading this book almost seals that deal. My feelings of America standing for "Freedom and justice for all," had been shaken by recent events, but I had been seeing this as like the flu, or a head cold, and America would recover again in time. Or so I thought, until reading this book. Now I've been introduced to an entire, long term history of the lack of freedom and justice for all in this nation, and hearing those words about America being all for Freedom and Justice sound more like lip service to me, and not much more.This is one of the best-written book's I've come across in a very long time. The details presented were not boringly dry and non-fictional in any way. Nor were the events described given a kind of sensationalism that makes one wonder if the author was trying to embellish any facts. Riveting from the 1st page and very hard to put down!If you want a REAL history lesson, I highly recommend this book. I will be looking for others by this author. While it troubles me to learn these facts and to know the truth, one cannot move forward in life, sensitive to historical facts without really knowing the truth of this nation, warts, scars, and all. I did myself a favor in buying this book, I think others may come to that conclusion as well, once they've experienced this book as I have done.

A riveting story of the early days of NCAAP struggles in many southern U.S. states, particularly in Florida, and Thurgood Marshall’s courageous and dedicated service to a noble and righteous cause. Well deserving of a Pulitzer Prize.

Must read for all US History students in high school. This was the Jim Crow South. Very well written and absolutely relevant to current situation in the US.

If you are concerned about black civil rights and how the judiciary system of America worked then definitely go for it

This is truly southern American gothic. Horror, terrible and immensely pressure. As I read, I couldn't put up with disgusting and grotesque law enforcement in 50's. From history book with which I've learned, I couldn't see such a situation that the long period of dominance of perverse and unreasonable justice over the poor African American even though in the time of Jim Crow era. Furthermore, it's been still undeniably connected to today, which daunted me as a foreigner who had not been familiar with apparent and defiant brutal misconduct by law enforcement. Not only the sheriff in Florida but also KKK are NEVER fantasy to me after reading this even nowadays.

I absolutely loved this book. As an American, the book forces you to confront the terrible injustices done to black Americans in the first half of the twentieth century and you feel almost embarrassed to be American. However, the fact that successful black Americans have stood up and fought, legally, for their rights and their humanity, is inspiring and makes you, at the same time, proud to be an American too. It is a book of horror, yet hope and triumph. It's incredible how corrupt, even to this day, some small town southern justice remains, yet, whatever small victories are won, makes you believe that one day good will win over evil.One thing I did find interesting is King's portrayal of Thurgood Marshall. He wasn't perfect. He stood for great things and he did great things, but in his personal life he was less than inspiring. It certainly brings complexity to his character. Plus, on the back of the book Marshall gets all the credit for fighting the dangerous battle in Lake County for the Groveland boys, yet he really only entered the case towards the end. Most of the real dangerous work was carried out by his colleague Franklin Williams. Williams should have been given more credit.That said, this book is a must read for anyone interested in American history, and of course, the history of race relations in the US. But it is worth a read even if you are not an amateur historian. It reads fast and is definitely better than fiction.