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trashbinfluencer's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.25
Content Warnings
Moderate: Police brutality, Gun violence, Death, Chronic illness, Alcoholism, Slavery, Sexual violence, Sexism, Medical trauma, Medical content, Racism, Racial slurs, Pregnancy, Physical abuse, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Infidelity, Child death, Violence, Terminal illness, Sexual assault, Domestic abuse, Torture, Cursing, Kidnapping, Hate crime, Forced institutionalization, Antisemitism, Gore, Infertility, Grief, Child abuse, Cancer, Blood, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, and War
lajacquerie's review against another edition
4.0
As Sean said when I gave him a second legal update about a case that was settled in the 1950s: "This seems like one of those cases where truth is stranger than fiction." It is, but only because the truth is pretty damn awful.
I sat with this book for a while after reading it, thinking (on the heels of Wilmington's Lie), Wow. Here I thought South Carolina and North Carolina handily won the award for "Places Where Most Horrible, Blatantly Racist Acts Happened," and yet it's Florida who really deserves that crown. [Cue Sean: "Florida is the WORST."] But the truth is that our country was deeply, insidiously racist to the core. Things like this couldn't have happened without that racism being so thoroughly baked in; much in this book that is so clearly wrong to us now wasn't even thought about, consciously acknowledged back then. Because it was just implicitly understood that Blacks were different and inferior. It's... well, it's deeply upsetting, and it elevates the work of individuals like Thurgood Marshall and the other lawyers on this case to heroism.
Devil in the Grove touches on one of the most contentious cases that the NAACP ever served on: defending four young Black men accused of raping a White woman in Lake County, FL.
There's no good way to sum up the scope of what went wrong here (I've typed and deleted a few sentences, they don't do it). The book helps you feel their accumulated weight in a way that a bulleted list can't. A smattering:
- One of the accused was detained separately by police at the exact time the rape was supposed to have occurred
- Another's family was held in prison by the local sheriff ("for their own safety") to intimidate them into not testifying
- The medical doctor would have testified there was no evidence of rape, if he'd been called
- Evidence seized illegally, confessions coerced following beatings/torture
- The home of one of the accused's family was burned to the ground before the trial even began; KKK night-riders repeatedly terrorized the town
- At the end of the trial (which the defense lost), one of the defense attorneys and a black reporter were run out of town (and through the next two) in a helter-skelter car chase
- During the appeal, a local NAACP officer's home was dynamited, killing him and his wife (this case is still not solved)
- The governor's "special investigator" intentionally sat on evidence
- The sheriff shot two of the accused in transferring them from the jail to local court for the appeal trial
- The prosecutor used Freemason hand-signals to communicate his goals to the jury; revealed his leukemia diagnosis in his final arguments for the appeal, announcing that this would be the last trial he ever prosecuted (was such a drama queen)
- The judge denied almost EVERY objection from the defense, but permitted almost every objection from the prosecution
- The deputy faked casts of footprints
- And all guilty verdicts were returned pretty much immediately, because how could a Black man (or four) ever be trusted over a White woman?
....just... jaw-droppingly biased. Blatantly unfair. To us, unbelievable. Back then... unsurprising.
It's a thoroughly reported and moving account that weaves together a lot: Marshall's life, politics in Lake County, FL, the on-going struggle against segregation and how that inflamed White Supremacist sentiment at the same time that this case was unfolding, the impact of the NAACP—all adding up to show a picture of how far (through the efforts of people like Marshall and many others) we've come.
I sat with this book for a while after reading it, thinking (on the heels of Wilmington's Lie), Wow. Here I thought South Carolina and North Carolina handily won the award for "Places Where Most Horrible, Blatantly Racist Acts Happened," and yet it's Florida who really deserves that crown. [Cue Sean: "Florida is the WORST."] But the truth is that our country was deeply, insidiously racist to the core. Things like this couldn't have happened without that racism being so thoroughly baked in; much in this book that is so clearly wrong to us now wasn't even thought about, consciously acknowledged back then. Because it was just implicitly understood that Blacks were different and inferior. It's... well, it's deeply upsetting, and it elevates the work of individuals like Thurgood Marshall and the other lawyers on this case to heroism.
Devil in the Grove touches on one of the most contentious cases that the NAACP ever served on: defending four young Black men accused of raping a White woman in Lake County, FL.
There's no good way to sum up the scope of what went wrong here (I've typed and deleted a few sentences, they don't do it). The book helps you feel their accumulated weight in a way that a bulleted list can't. A smattering:
- One of the accused was detained separately by police at the exact time the rape was supposed to have occurred
- Another's family was held in prison by the local sheriff ("for their own safety") to intimidate them into not testifying
- The medical doctor would have testified there was no evidence of rape, if he'd been called
- Evidence seized illegally, confessions coerced following beatings/torture
- The home of one of the accused's family was burned to the ground before the trial even began; KKK night-riders repeatedly terrorized the town
- At the end of the trial (which the defense lost), one of the defense attorneys and a black reporter were run out of town (and through the next two) in a helter-skelter car chase
- During the appeal, a local NAACP officer's home was dynamited, killing him and his wife (this case is still not solved)
- The governor's "special investigator" intentionally sat on evidence
- The sheriff shot two of the accused in transferring them from the jail to local court for the appeal trial
- The prosecutor used Freemason hand-signals to communicate his goals to the jury; revealed his leukemia diagnosis in his final arguments for the appeal, announcing that this would be the last trial he ever prosecuted (was such a drama queen)
- The judge denied almost EVERY objection from the defense, but permitted almost every objection from the prosecution
- The deputy faked casts of footprints
- And all guilty verdicts were returned pretty much immediately, because how could a Black man (or four) ever be trusted over a White woman?
....just... jaw-droppingly biased. Blatantly unfair. To us, unbelievable. Back then... unsurprising.
It's a thoroughly reported and moving account that weaves together a lot: Marshall's life, politics in Lake County, FL, the on-going struggle against segregation and how that inflamed White Supremacist sentiment at the same time that this case was unfolding, the impact of the NAACP—all adding up to show a picture of how far (through the efforts of people like Marshall and many others) we've come.
aprilbethp's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
inspiring
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0