Devil in the Grove Thurgood Marshall the Grovelend Boys and by Gilbert KingMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Gilbert King did an amazing job chronicling Thurgood Marshall's involvement in the case of the Groveland Boys. In 1949, among the orange groves of rural Florida, a young, white couple stopped alongside the road, getting their car stuck in the mud. Two young, black men, on leave from the Army stop to help. Tensions rise between the man and the two young men and accusations of rape against the wife are made the next morning. It was a case known throughout the country and the stellar Thurgood Marshall, then an attorney with the NAACP - LDF, comes to Florida to help defend the boys and two others that got caught at the wrong place and the wrong time.
King puts the reader smack dab in the middle of the Lake County, Florida, a hotbed of racial tension where the long arm of southern justice ruled the area. This should be a must read for everyone. It is a difficult topic to read, but it shows the reader how far we have come in the fight for Civil Rights and how far we still need to go. Marshall was a hero to many and his tenacity is something to be admired.
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