Devil in the Grove, Gilbert King
Devil in the Grove, Gilbert King
17 Rating(s)
List: $34.99 | Sale: $24.50
Club: $17.49

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

Author: Gilbert King

Narrator: Peter Francis James

Unabridged: 17 hr 53 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperAudio

Published: 05/22/2013


Synopsis

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize“A must-read, cannot-put-down history.” — Thomas Friedman, New York TimesArguably 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, Florida's 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 black men 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 FBI's unredacted Groveland case files, as well as unprecedented access to the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund files, Gilbert King shines new light on this remarkable civil rights crusader.

About Gilbert King

Gilbert King has written about U.S. Supreme Court history for the New York Times and the Washington Post, and is a featured contributor to Smithsonian magazine's history blog, Past Imperfect. He is the author of The Execution of Willie Francis: Race, Murder, and the Search for Justice in the American South. He lives in New York City with his wife and two daughters.

About Peter Francis James

Peter Francis James has starred in numerous Broadway and off-Broadway productions, as well as on such television programs as Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, New York Undercover and State of Affairs.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Scott on July 24, 2013

I'm often struck, when reading a book about race in 20th-century America--Parting the Waters, say, or the amazing Warmth of Other Suns--by how many of the most horrifying, virulently racist events during the Jim Crow/Civil Rights eras took place in Florida. Growing up here in New York in the 1960s a......more

Goodreads review by Steve on January 12, 2019

Newsflash (January 2019), on the cover of today's Washington Post, a great excuse to read this book if you haven't done so yet: [URL not allowed] Quite simply, one of those books everyone (or "more people") should read, and I'm sorry it took me so long to find it. An important......more

Goodreads review by Rincey on October 20, 2017

This was SO. GOOD.......more

Goodreads review by Florence on July 30, 2014

In the late 1940s in Lake County Florida, a seventeen year old girl claimed she was raped by four black men. She lied. Her accusations resulted in the torture, death, and imprisonment of men of color who were innocent of any crime. The county sheriff, his deputy, and many of the other citizens belon......more

Goodreads review by Judith on December 20, 2019

Thurgood Marshall was larger than life. With a brilliant mind and enviable leadership skills, Mr. Thurgood took on the Jim Crow judicial system of the American South. Through his immense constitutional knowledge and commitment to it, he argued cases before the Supreme Court (eventually becoming the......more