
Devil in the Grove
Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America
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Narrated by:
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Peter Francis James
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By:
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Gilbert King
About this listen
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize
“A must-read, cannot-put-down history.” (Thomas Friedman, New York Times)
Arguably the most important American lawyer of the 20th century, Thurgood Marshall was on the verge of bringing the landmark suit Brown v. Board of Education before the US Supreme Court when he became embroiled in a case that threatened to change the course of the civil rights movement and to 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 17-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.
©2012 Gilbert King (P)2013 HarperCollinsPublishersListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
In this groundbreaking historical expose, Douglas A. Blackmon brings to light one of the most shameful chapters in American history - an Age of Neoslavery that thrived from the aftermath of the Civil War through the dawn of World War II.
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Steel Yourself
- By Mark on 05-23-14
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The Overstory
- By: Richard Powers
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 22 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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The Overstory unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fable that range from antebellum New York to the late 20th-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond. An air force loadmaster in the Vietnam War is shot out of the sky, then saved by falling into a banyan. An artist inherits 100 years of photographic portraits, all of the same doomed American chestnut. A hard-partying undergraduate in the late 1980s electrocutes herself, dies, and is sent back into life by creatures of air and light.
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eye opening
- By Michael Stansberry on 05-23-18
By: Richard Powers
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Killers of the Flower Moon
- The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
- By: David Grann
- Narrated by: Will Patton, Ann Marie Lee, Danny Campbell
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, the Osage rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe.
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An outstanding story, highly recommended
- By S. Blakely on 06-22-17
By: David Grann
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Parting the Waters
- America in the King Years 1954-63
- By: Taylor Branch
- Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi, Janina Edwards
- Length: 45 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Hailed as the most masterful story ever told of the American civil rights movement, Parting the Waters is destined to endure for generations. Moving from the fiery political baptism of Martin Luther King, Jr., to the corridors of Camelot where the Kennedy brothers weighed demands for justice against the deceptions of J. Edgar Hoover, here is a vivid tapestry of America, torn and finally transformed by a revolutionary struggle unequaled since the Civil War.
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Excellent
- By Judith Princz on 05-15-19
By: Taylor Branch
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Autocracy, Inc.
- The Dictators Who Want to Run the World
- By: Anne Applebaum
- Narrated by: Anne Applebaum
- Length: 4 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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We think we know what an autocratic state looks like: There is an all-powerful leader at the top. He controls the police. The police threaten the people with violence. There are evil collaborators, and maybe some brave dissidents. But in the 21st century, that bears little resemblance to reality. Nowadays, autocracies are underpinned not by one dictator, but by sophisticated networks composed of kleptocratic financial structures, surveillance technologies, and professional propagandists, all of which operate across multiple regimes, from China to Russia to Iran.
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A Triumphant Work -Puts It All Together With Laser Clarity
- By Sjhoffman on 09-19-24
By: Anne Applebaum
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A Fever in the Heartland
- The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them
- By: Timothy Egan
- Narrated by: Timothy Egan
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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The Roaring Twenties—the Jazz Age—has been characterized as a time of Gatsby frivolity. But it was also the height of the uniquely American hate group, the Ku Klux Klan. Their domain was not the old Confederacy, but the Heartland and the West. They hated Blacks, Jews, Catholics and immigrants in equal measure, and took radical steps to keep these people from the American promise. And the man who set in motion their takeover of great swaths of America was a charismatic charlatan named D.C. Stephenson.
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This is a must read!
- By V. Richmond on 04-14-23
By: Timothy Egan
History not to be ignored
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Where does Devil in the Grove rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
This book is right up there with the best...What did you like best about this story?
It's history, it's true, and most of all I learned about injustes to human beings.What does Peter Francis James bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
Love his voiceWas there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
WOW, there were several, no there were many..Any additional comments?
Great BookHow could this have happened
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A very powerful book!
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A seminal book
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Most of the stories are heartbreaking and you may need to listen in small doses.
Heartbreaking
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Engaging and well told
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The best audiobook I have listened to
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Compelling reading
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This is a really interesting story and a well written and performed one as well. I only held off of 5 stars due to the same thing being covered more than once and the ending seemed to be wrapped up in a rush.
A little close to home
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I knew Thurgood Marshall as the first African-American Supreme Court Justice. I didn’t know anything about what he had done before he got there. This is just one part but is a good start. Marshall made a name first for his work with the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund where he refused to allow them to take on any case unless they were absolutely convinced that the accused was innocent, that there was evidence to support that, and where the case would set a precedent. And, his winning record was good.
The KKK ruled in central Florida where blacks were taught “their place” and anyone who dared to try to test the boundaries was dealt with cruelly and viciously. “Justice” for a black man was to be allowed to live and the mere accusation of a crime was equivalent to a guilty verdict. A trial was a formality that was seldom needed. In 1949, when a 17-year old explained her all-night absence by accusing 4 young black men (who became known as “the Groveland Boys”) of rape, the local sheriff quickly had a list of names to pursue and the Klan was mobilizing to lynch them and when that failed, burned an entire black neighborhood. By the time of the trial, the number had already been reduced to 3 as one was killed while fleeing an armed posse of hundreds of men, shot multiple times while unarmed, and leaning against a tree.
The first trial was appealed to the Supreme Court which declared that the trial was fundamentally flawed and demanded a retrial. By the final chapter the three were reduced to two as Sheriff McCall tried to stage an “attempted escape” of two of the three while taking them to the courthouse for trial and shot both. Unknown to him, when the coroner arrived, one was still alive and recovered and the FBI discovered clear evidence that the shots were fired from above as the two men lay on the ground. The sheriff was never charged, claiming self-defense, and remained as sheriff until 1972. And, the trial was still unfair and still brought forth guilty verdicts, but at least not the death penalty. Four died including two of the defendants. There was no evidence against them. There was no evidence that the girl had even been raped. Marshall’s life was threatened on multiple occasions and the local NAACP leader died when his house was blown up by a bomb planted by the Klan.
This case was a turning point in civil rights history and in the career of Thurgood Marshall. Reading the book was not easy. It was hard to believe that this could happen in America, not hidden but out in the open, and the “devil” could get away with it and I grew up in the south. We think of Florida as somehow different. It’s the land of sun, beaches, and orange groves. "The state of Florida, despite recording a higher number of lynchings and registering more members of the Ku Klux Klan than any other state in the South, inexplicably remained in the shadows of Dixieland in the 1940s.” You can’t read this if you’re looking for a light and uplifting read. This will upset you and may bring some tears to some eyes, but it’s needed reading especially in today’s racially tense climate. It makes it easier to understand why a young black man’s first instinct would be to run instead of surrendering to a police officer. But, it won’t make you feel good about yourself, about Florida, and about mankind. But, I wish I could give it to everyone I know.
The Rot at the Heart
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