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

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Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America is a non-fiction book published in 2012 ( ISBN 978-0-0617-9228-1 ) by the American writer Gilbert King , which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize was awarded. It focuses on the defense of the so-called Groveland Four , four African-American men who werefalsely accused of raping a white womanin Lake County, Florida in 1949. They were defended by Thurgood Marshall , one of the most influential African-American lawyers in the United States, who is best remembered today for his civil lawsuits against racism.

Devil in the Grove was named one of the best books of 2012 by newspapers as diverse as the Christian Science Monitor and the Boston Globe . The Pulitzer Prize Committee described the book as a detailed chronicle of racist injustice. Thomas Friedman of The New York Times called it compulsory reading that was so exciting that you couldn't put it down. Devil in the Grove was also nominated for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the Chautauqua Prize , and received an Edgar Award for the best portrayal of a real-life crime. Lions Gate Entertainment also acquired the film rights to the book.

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In 1949, Florida's prosperity was based primarily on the cultivation of citrus fruits. Plantation owners benefited from the fact that black workers based on the Jim Crow Acts (also known as Black Codes ) were unable to enforce pay increases and that it was considerably more difficult to change jobs. Willis V. McCall, a Lake County sheriff known for his violence and racism, played a major role in the enforcement of the Jim Crow laws, which cemented racial segregation until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 . When a 17-year-old white Groveland woman alleged she had been raped, McCall arbitrarily accused four young black men of the crime. Ernest Thomas, one of the suspects, was shot dead during his capture. The Ku Klux Klan , a racist secret society, reacted very quickly to the alleged incident and, among other things, burned down houses that were inhabited by blacks in a campaign of revenge and ensured that hundreds of blacks in the swamps of the The district sought protection to avoid reprisals by the secret society.

Due to the relatively clear evidence that the four men had been wrongly arrested, Thurgood Marshall decided to take over their defense. New York City-based Thurgood Marshall, who in 1967 - almost 20 years after the incident described in Devil in the Grove - was appointed the first African-American judge to the United States Supreme Court, worked for the NAACP civil rights movement in 1949 . His colleagues found his decision problematic as his work was considered essential for the civil rights movement. The NAACP focused in its work on legal cases with which the " separate but equal " principle could be attacked. According to this principle established by the Supreme Court in 1896, racial segregation was permissible if the facilities to which the whites and blacks were entitled were equivalent. Criminal cases like the defense of the four young men generally did not fit this strategy. Marshall stuck to his decision to interfere in this case, despite the fact that one of his colleagues at the NAACP was murdered in connection with this case and he was also threatened with life.

In the first trial, two of the surviving defendants were sentenced to death and the third defendant was sentenced to life imprisonment. In 1951, Thurgood Marshall succeeded in having this judgment overturned by the Supreme Court because of procedural errors. An exclusively white jury had decided on the defendants. On the return transport of the two death row inmates, one of them was shot dead by Sheriff Willis V. McCall during an alleged (and now largely doubted attempt to escape) and the second seriously injured. Thurgood Marshall could not prevent a new conviction. However, the death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment as early as 1955 and Walter Irvin, the last survivor of the Groveland Four, was pardoned in 1968.

Gilbert King used previously unpublished FBI and NAACP documents for his research. They make it clear, among other things, that the FBI knew that the defendants' confessions were obtained under torture, but that for various reasons they lacked the will to bring those responsible in Lake County to justice. It also clearly demonstrates the racist atmosphere during the trials that threatened anyone who doubted the Groveland Four's guilt.

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  1. ↑ Making a Name by Uncovering a Lost Case . In: New York Times , April 24, 2013. Retrieved January 8, 2014. 
  2. ^ The 2013 Pulitzer Prize Winners General Nonfiction . www.pulitzer.org. Retrieved January 8, 2014.
  3. ↑ Review in the New York Times , accessed January 8, 2014
  4. ^ Ron Charles : Timothy Egan wins Chautauqua Prize for "Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher" . In: Washington Post . May 15, 2013. Retrieved January 8, 2014.
  5. ↑ http://www.deadline.com/2013/06/lionsgate-acquires-pulitzer-prize-winner-devil-in-the-grove-seminal-civil-rights-case-for-thurgood-marshall/
  6. ^ Gilbert: The Devil in the Grove . P. 62 – p. 68 and pp. 84 – p. 99