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

by Gilbert King

bombed Jewish site had been planted a cross bearing “anti-Semitic and anti-Negro slogans” as well as Nazi and KKK symbols. “The Jew has already ruined the northern cities and wishes to invade the South,” read one letter that had arrived at the governor’s office. “They are teaching communism to the colored people, and inciting rioting through them.” By autumn, violence by dynamite had spread to central Florida. The Klan had flattened the Creamette Frozen Custard Stand in Orlando because the owner had refused to dedicate a separate service window for blacks. Before the year’s end the “Florida Terror,” as it was dubbed by the press, had resulted in a dozen disastrous bombings and numerous failed attempts to destroy racial and religious-based sites: the Saturday Evening Post designated 1951 as “the worst year of minority outrages in the history of Florida or probably any other state in recent times.”