In celebration of Black History Month, our book club has voted in a fabulous selection: Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America. This Pulitzer Prize winning title sheds light on the man who earned the nickname: Mr. Civil Rights. It delves into the meticulous details of a key time of his life where he galvanized what would become a distinguished and remarkable legacy. From the Back Cover: Devil in the Grove is the winner of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. Arguably the most important American lawyer of the twentieth century, Thurgood Marshall was on the verge of bringing the landmark suit Brown v. Board of Education before the U.S. Supreme Court when he became embroiled in a case that threatened to change the course of the civil rights movement and cost him his life. In 1949, Floridas orange industry was booming, and citrus barons got rich on the backs of cheap Jim Crow labor with the help of Sheriff Willis V. McCall, who ruled Lake County with murderous resolve. When a white seventeen-year-old girl cried rape, McCall pursued four young blacks who dared envision a future for themselves beyond the groves. The Ku Klux Klan joined the hunt, hell-bent on lynching the men who came to be known as the Groveland Boys. Associates thought it was suicidal for Marshall to wade into the Florida Terror, but the young lawyer would not shrink from the fight despite continuous death threats against him. Drawing on a wealth of never-before-published material, including the FBIs unredacted Groveland case files, as well as unprecedented access to the NAACPs Legal Defense Fund files, Gilbert King shines new light on this remarkable civil rights crusader.
Posted on: Tue, 04 Feb 2014 18:02:57 +0000
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