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

by Gilbert King

It was under a cedar tree just down the road that hundreds of townspeople had gathered around young Cordie Cheek in his last living moments. They had watched and cheered as officials pulled down Cordie’s pants and castrated him before forcing him up a stepladder and hanging him.

Months would pass before Marshall regained full strength, but he nevertheless returned to Columbia, despite his doctor’s warnings. In November he won in Tennessee, but more important, he survived not only a mysterious virus but also a lynching party.

Marshall’s willingness to ride into a hornet’s nest of racial conflict in pursuit of his well-stated goal—to dismantle Jim Crow—only cemented his growing legacy as a crusader for

justice. Marshall relished his role as Mr. Civil Rights—it suited his gregarious, larger-than-life personality—and he was acutely aware that when he stepped off the train, his only sword was “a piece of paper called ‘The Constitution.’