ARCHIVE - APRIL 2016 - SPOILER THREAD - Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America by Gilbert King

[Francie]

Harlem Renaissance



Spanning the 1920s to the mid-1930s, the Harlem Renaissance was a literary, artistic, and intellectual movement that kindled a new black cultural identity. Its essence was summed up by critic and teacher Alain Locke in 1926 when he declared that through art, “Negro life is seizing its first chances for group expression and self determination.” Harlem became the center of a “spiritual coming of age” in which Locke’s “New Negro” transformed “social disillusionment to race pride.” Chiefly literary, the Renaissance included the visual arts but excluded jazz, despite its parallel emergence as a black art form.

HARLEM RENAISSANCE

The nucleus of the movement included Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes, Rudolf Fisher, Wallace Thurman, Jessie Redmon Fauset, Nella Larsen, Arna Bontemps, Countee Cullen, and Zora Neale Hurston. An older generation of writers and intellectuals–James Weldon Johnson, Claude McKay, Alain Locke, and Charles S. Johnson–served as mentors.

The publishing industry, fueled by whites’ fascination with the exotic world of Harlem, sought out and published black writers. With much of the literature focusing on a realistic portrayal of black life, conservative black critics feared that the depiction of ghetto realism would impede the cause of racial equality. The intent of the movement, however, was not political but aesthetic. Any benefit a burgeoning black contribution to literature might have in defraying racial prejudice was secondary to, as Langston Hughes put it, the “expression of our individual dark-skinned selves.”

The Harlem Renaissance influenced future generations of black writers, but it was largely ignored by the literary establishment after it waned in the 1930s. With the advent of the civil rights movement, it again acquired wider recognition.

A short video on the Harlem Renaissance follows:

http://www.history.com/topics/black-h...#

Source: History Channel

[Pamela]

I am adding a link to the Equal Justice Iniative for those of you unfamiliar with some of the major incidents of racial persecution in our history. This is a timeline format and you can click on any of the years. I simply set the link to the case we are discussing.

http://racialinjustice.eji.org/timeli...

[Teri]

Thank you so much, Pamela!

[Francie]

The Savoy Ballroom



Owned by "Gangster" Moe Paddon, who some say was just a front for Chicago's Al Capone and managed by Charles Buchanon. Opened its doors on December 14th, 1926 and closed in 1958. The Savoy was a two story ballroom which ...spanned the whole block of 140th. street to 141st. street on Lenox Avenue in (Uptown) Harlem, New York . The Savoy's marquee (as seen above) extended out over the sidewalk and had a fabulous marble stairway leading into the Ballroom.





The Savoy was pink on the inside and had a good size foyer as you entered the building, was very well ventilated (Air-conditioning not yet invented), and had modern furniture of the times and mirrored walls. The ballroom itself was huge, had two bandstands, colored spotlights, and a dance floor that was rectangular in shape (nicknamed the track) and was over 10,000 square ft. of spring loaded, wooden dance floor. The floor had to be replaced every three years due to the tremendous use it went thru.

The Savoy could and very often would hold up to 4,000 people with about 15% of the people being white. Depending on who the band was, the ballroom would more than double its capacity. When Benny Goodman played the Savoy and did battle with Chick Webb, it was reported that there was approximately 25,000 people waiting to get into the ballroom (Webb won). The Orchestra's were paid $1,200 a week to play the Savoy. Unfortunately today there is no trace of the ballroom ever being in that location but there is work being done to have a plaque laid in its place.

Shaking hands: Saxophonist Benny Carter squatting on stage to greet fans in Savoy Ballroom:



Plaque commemorating the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem, NYC



You could become a member of the Savoy by purchasing a membership of certain Savoy dance clubs called the Lindy Hop Club, the 400 Club, or the Old Timers Club and receive a discounted admission. There were always employed dance hostesses around that would dance with you or be available for private lessons. You did not have to be 21 to gain entrance to the ballroom although most parents would not let you go. At midnight the place was just starting to jump and was open till 3 a.m. (So as the folks catching a play or whatever could still come dancing after.)

The Savoy was known as the "Home Of Happy Feet" and had the best Lindy Hop dancers in the Nation with the Lindy Hop being said to originate at the Savoy. The best of these dancers would hang out together in the N/E corner of the Savoy, known as "Cats Corner." The Savoy was allowing interracial dancing of Blacks and Whites, and was widely done, which was really frowned upon by both races at the time at other night spots, and if they did allow it, but not at the Savoy. Some Clubs such as the Roseland Ballroom had a mixed race nights (Sundays) but originally would put a rope down the middle of the floor, Blacks on one side and whites on the other on their mixed nights. The Savoy hardly had any problems with fights or trouble makers due to racial issues, everyone was there to dance and or watch.

A couple whirls across the dance floor of Harlem's Savoy Ballroom



The roots of the Lindy Hop was the Breakaway and the Breakaway was the main dance of choice in the late 1920's, early 30's at the Savoy whose main exponent was "Shorty George" Snowden. Shorty was to name the Breakaway, the Lindy Hop, but a slower, smoother version would soon take over the popularity being called "Savoy Style Lindy," (which has roots in today's West Coast Swing.) Dean Collins and Hubert (whitey) White and the Whites Hopping Maniacs (a.k.a. Whitey's Lindy Hoppers) would help promote this smoother form of Lindy as we know it today thru motion pictures.

There were different types of entertainment at the Savoy such as the famous "Battle Of The Bands" pitting one band against the other, usually Chick Webb's band would compete against another famous band while the dancers would pick the winners. This usually brought the biggest crowds. Ella Fitzgerald won a singing contest up the street from the Savoy and was dancing at the Savoy when someone told Chick Webb about her. He auditioned her and signed her to his band. After his death, Fitzgerald continued Webb's band.

St. Louis Blues - Ella Fitzgerald & Chick Webb at the Savoy Ballroom



Dance Contest's were also popular at the Savoy Ballroom and the contests were generally held on Wednesdays with prizes going up to third place. First place was around $40.00 in the early days and a chance to perform a solo dance exhibition at the Savoy. The Harvest Moon Ball held it's prelims for the Swing division at the Savoy Ballroom, then later at the Savoy Manor. In the 1950's there were many Mambo dance contests held at the Savoy as well as Jitterbug.

Other dances such as the Suzy-Q , Big Apple, Charleston, Shim-Sham and Truckin' were performed at the Savoy. Other local clubs in Harlem were the Renaissance, Small's Paradise, Connie's Inn, Original Cotton Club, Dixie Ballroom, and the Alhambra.

Source: Street Swing

[Teri]

Families seek exoneration in Florida rape after 63 years
September 07, 2012 | Barbara Liston | Reuters


Paul Perkins and Thurgood Marshall

LADY LAKE, Florida (Reuters) - The families of the four young black men accused in the questionable 1949 rape claim of a white woman in the then-segregated American South, are asking Florida Governor Rick Scott to re-examine the evidence and clear the mens' names.

"I just want the record to reflect that Charles Greenlee was not involved, if anything in fact even happened," said Greenlee's 62-year-old daughter Carol Crawley who was born four months after her father's arrest for the rape. "It's to clear my father's name because he's innocent."

Greenlee, the last surviving member of the 'Groveland Four', died in April at the age of 78, his brother Wade Greenlee said.

The call for the state to exonerate the men 63 years later is a result of an FBI document that surfaced in 2012 recounting an interview with the doctor who examined the woman who reported the rape, according to Gary Corsair, author of the book on the case, "Legal Lynching."

Three of the men were sent to prison for the rape, and the fourth was killed by a posse after trying to flee arrest.

Dr. Geoffrey Binneveld is quoted in the report stating that he found no spermatozoa in a swab of the victim and could not confirm she had been raped, according to a copy of the report.

At a press conference Friday in Lake County, central Florida, Corsair said the prosecutor in the rape trial had the report but refused to show it to a defense lawyer who requested it in 1951.

Corsair, who asked to see the report in the course of research for his book, said the FBI in 2002 sent him a redacted copy with every word blacked out. The un-redacted copy was obtained by Gilbert King, author of a 2012 book on former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall who helped defend the Groveland Four.

APOLOGY SOUGHT

Members of the families of Greenlee, Samuel Shepherd and Walter Irving who were at the press event signed a letter to be mailed to Governor Scott. Corsair said relatives of Ernest Thomas, the fourth of the Groveland Four, could not be located.

The governor's press aide, Lane Wright, told Reuters that Scott was made aware of the case on Thursday.

"We've got people looking into it but we want to make sure we gather the facts before we go off and make a decision," Wright said.

Even more than an apology from the state, Wade Greenlee said he would prefer to hear the truth from the woman, Norma Padgett, who accused his brother.

"It would just mean more to me if she would come forward and say it didn't happen," Greenlee said. "I would love to put my arms around her to tell her she has been forgiven."

Carol Greenlee Crawley said her father was not bitter and did not want to dredge up the case during his lifetime out of concern for the woman's family.

"He said 'Understand this person has to carry this for the rest of her life,'" Crawley said.

Padgett lived locally but relatives of the Groveland Four said they did not know if she is still alive.

Questions have been raised about the rape case since the beginning and continue today. Corsair said a request to the local historical society to hold Friday's press conference on the steps of the courthouse where the trial took place was rebuffed by the society because some members felt the case remained too controversial.

On July 16, 1949, a 17-year-old Padgett, and her husband, claimed she was raped by four black men in the back of a car after their own vehicle broke down.

Greenlee, who had just hitchhiked to Lake County from Gainesville, was arrested after he was spotted by a night watchman filling a bottle with water and found to have a gun in his waistband.

Shepherd and Irving were arrested after Shepherd was found sleeping in a car and claimed he had spent the evening with Irving.

Thomas, who expected to be arrested, fled Lake County but was tracked down by a posse and killed. Mobs burned down homes in the black section of the county.

According to Corsair, a newspaper reporter, Norman Bunin, discredited the case in 1950 by creating a timeline which showed that Greenlee was 19 miles away being questioned by the night-watchman when the rape occurred. Eight witnesses were found by Bunin and others who placed Irving and Shepherd at a nightclub 70 miles away.

Shepherd was shot and killed in 1951 along a dark dirt road while being transported with Irving by Sheriff Willis McCall. McCall claimed the two prisoners, cuffed together, tried to attack him when he let them out of his patrol car to relieve themselves.

Greenlee was paroled in 1960 at age 27. Irving was paroled in 1968 at age 39 and died a year later.

(Editing by David Adams)

Source: Chicago Tribune

[Teri]

The Black Towns Project
Website

Link: http://www.blacktownsproject.org/


Washington Street in Nicodemus, Kansas. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division)

Dedicated to the Continued Study and Preservation of Historically Black Towns in the United States

About the Project

Historically black towns established after the Civil War and Reconstruction have been examined by scholars such a Nell Painter, Kenneth Hamilton, and Norman Crockett. Many have viewed these communities as failed experiments or insignificant in the larger picture of African American migration or U.S. history in general. However, the industrious people who founded self-segregated, autonomous towns across the United States used migration and town-building to resist racial oppression throughout all eras of American history. Black activists and dissidents, since the Colonial Era, participated in town-building efforts to craft a legacy that continues to thrive today. After the failure of Reconstruction in 1877, these towns became part of a formal social movement to ensure safety and provide opportunities for black and multiracial families. In addition, self-segregation proved to be an effective, albeit short-term method of resistance to oppression. Former slaves, freed-people, and especially African American southerners responded to racist conditions in varied ways that were often defined by the resources available to them. Through these alternative means of resistance, black town residents were able to assert their own ideas of race and southern traditions and contribute to the industrialization and urbanization of the United States.

About the Website

This website is an effort to preserve and promote the continued study of these crucial, and sometimes forgotten, stories from America’s past. We invite you to browse our Black Towns Index (categorized by state and town) and explore the history of these important town-building efforts. This site is still under construction, but the complete list of towns by state is available to browse.
Source: The Black Towns Project

More:
The Root | History's Lost Black Towns
The Washington Post | All-black towns across America: Life was hard but full of promise
by Jane Landers (no photo)
by Hannibal B. Johnson (no photo)

[Samantha]

Hey guys! I can, for some reason, not find the discussion questions for this book!! Any help! Thanks!

Sammy

[Teri]

Samantha wrote: "Hey guys! I can, for some reason, not find the discussion questions for this book!! Any help! Thanks!

Sammy"

Here's the link to the thread: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

[Samantha]

Teri wrote: "Samantha wrote: "Hey guys! I can, for some reason, not find the discussion questions for this book!! Any help! Thanks!

Sammy"

Here's the link to the thread: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1..."

Thank you! Is this where the next questions will be posed too?

[Teri]

Samantha wrote: "Teri wrote: "Samantha wrote: "Hey guys! I can, for some reason, not find the discussion questions for this book!! Any help! Thanks!

Sammy"

Here's the link to the thread: https://www.goodreads.com..."

Yes.

[Catbird]

One of the topics that has come up on the main thread deals with why Norma did what she did. I felt that in order to even try to understand, or discuss Norma Lee's reasons for what she did, or her state of mind on July 15th, 1949 and later, I needed to know more about her. So, I thought it would be helpful to try to put together a bit of a biography of her. I've tried to use as much factual information as I could find in a quick online search. I don't make any claim that this is a thorough biography. But it is, I hope, some background information that might help put Norma's actions into some perspective.

Part 1

Publicly available biographical facts about Norma are a little thin. (To preserve the privacy of living family members, I won't cite specific sources in this section.) Norma Lee was born in Florida in 1932 to parents Coy Lee and Edna Joiner Tyson. Coy was a veteran of WWI. Both Coy and Edna had attended school through the 8th grade. In 1930, Coy and Edna were living with her parents outside of the town of Mascotte in Lake Co., with Coy working as a farmer. By 1935, Coy and Edna had 5 children, including Norma. In 1940 the family was living in Leon Co., Fl., outside of Tallahassee, with a total of 7 children, who were attending school.

Coy was employed full-time as a drag-line operator and his yearly income in 1939 was $1560. To put that into perspective, the nation-wide average income, as computed by the Census Bureau, was $1,368 (Source) . The average cost of a new car was $850; gas cost between 11-18 cents a gallon; a radio somewhere around $20; a loaf of bread was 8 cents; a gallon of milk averaged 34 cents; and a postage stamp cost 3 cents. (Source 1), (Source 2) Although Coy made a decent wage for the time, it still wouldn't have been easy to support a family of 9 people.

The family had returned to Lake Co., by 1945 and were once again living outside Mascotte, in the Bay Lake Section. Coy and Edna are buried together in Lake Co., indicating that they may have remained there for the rest of their lives. Information in an obituary indicates that Norma and Willie Padgett remained married long enough to have several children together. Another obituary, that of a sibling, indicates that Norma Lee remarried at some point and was the only sibling still living. An article in the Orlando Magazine, "Committed to Memory" written about the Groveland Boys in May 2015, mentions that Norma was still alive and living in Florida, although she "could not be reached".

It's possible to infer a few things. If she was married by age 17, possibly even a year earlier, then she didn't complete high school and probably didn't get past 10th grade. Willie Padgett was 23 in 1949, so they didn't attend school together. In fact, in Chap. 3, pg. 34, King specifies that Padgett "hadn't made it past grammar school". And, since there's no reference to a child, their marriage probably wasn't a shotgun wedding. It's interesting to note that Norma was the middle child of the family, a role that's often associated with a tendency to say or do things in an effort to get some attention, even if it's negative. There's no way to prove that such was the case, but I think it's worth consideration.

Excerpts from the testimony of Norma Lee Padgett in the Groveland Boys trial can be seen at: .
PBS - Freedom Never Dies Program: The Legacy of Harry T. Moore.

There's surprisingly little written about her in either accounts of the story at the time, or in the more current articles and books which are re-examining the case. But we can get bits and pieces from a few sources. The Crisis, the news magazine of the NAACP, describes her as "a young central Florida housewife", in an article published in the Dec. 1951 issue about the shooting of Samuel Shepherd and Walter Lee Irvin by Sheriff McCall. (Partial issue, including the article "The Lake County Shooting", is available at Google Books.) A similar description is used by Ben Green in his book "Before His Time: The Untold Story of Harry T. Moore, America's First Civil Rights Martyr". In Chap. 6, pg. 81, he describes Norma as "a seventeen year old farm wife" and a "frail blonde-haired girl" ( Google Book Preview: Before His Time ).

There's some interesting information about Norma provided by Gary Corsair in Chap. 33, pp. 361-362 of his book "The Groveland Four: The Sad Saga of a Legal Lynching (Google Book Preview) . I don't know if King addresses this information in later chapters of the book. If so, it will be interesting to see how his description compares to that of Corsair's.

Corsair states:
"...Nearly nine years after the purported crime, it was back in the news when the March 15, 1956 Orlando Sentinel carried the sensational bold-type headline, "Victim Opposed Chair" above Jim Hardee's byline and a Tallahassee dateline. "The victim in the 1949 Groveland rape case signed a petition in 1950 calling for abolishing of capital punishment in Florida, records of the Walter Lee Irvin case revealed yesterday," Hardee claimed. The reporter explained that on Aug. 2, 1950 both Norma and Willie Padgett signed a petition circulated by the Rev. Ben F. Wyland, president of the United Churches of St. Petersburg."

On the same page, Corsair relates how Norma became involved in the election fight in 1956 between Gov. Collins, who had commuted Walter Lee Irvin's sentence from death to life imprisonment and his opponent Fuller Warren. Part of the incident is described in Collin's own words:

"Collins, guest of honor at Lake County's Washington Birthday Celebration in Eustis, was preparing to ride in the parade when a pair of McCall's deputies escorted Norma to the governor's car. "You're the one who let out the nigger that raped me. How would you have felt if that had been your wife or daughter?" Norma shouted at the surprised governor. Collins recalled, "She said, 'Supposed I was your sister, would you have done that? Would you have commuted that sentence?' I said, 'I think I would have. I hope I would have. But that's irrelevant here. We're not here for the purpose of talking politics or making political issues. I'm down here to help the community. Be with the community.' McCall had set her up for that".

On pg. 362, Corsair notes that the local reaction to this stunt was largely negative. Sixty years later, there's no way to know if that was because the community was ashamed of Norma Lee Padgett, or if they were embarrassed by the way in which she was used, apparently with her cooperation. Again, there's no way to know, but it would be interesting to find out if she voluntarily played her part out of sincere outrage about what Collins had done, or if she was compensated in some way for her appearance.

"The Eustis Lake Region News, in an editorial headlined, "For Shame, Lake County," called the incident, "the evident product of a deliberate political reprisal." The editorial concluded: "Is all fair in politics? If so, the we have sunk to a new low in indecency. For shame, Lake County." An editorial in the Tampa Morning Tribune reached the same conclusion: "There's more than meets the eye in that rape-victim-confronts-Governor story issuing from Eustis... Twenty four hours before this occurrence, the report was abroad in Lake County that political enemies of Collins were planning this very thing in an attempt to embarrass him. The confrontation, this report said, was supposed to take place at a Collins speech at a civic club dinner in Tavares Tuesday night. Instead, it was staged as the Governor was about to ride in a parade at Eustis the next morning." After noting that Padgett neither opposed the jury recommendation of mercy for Greenlee in 1949, nor the commutation of Irvin's sentence, the editorial concluded, "But now, during an election campaign, she is escorted by deputies of Sheriff McCall to "confront" the Governor on a public street in Eustis. We think any reader can add up these facts and arrive at the same answer. A rather depressing answer: Politics."

Corsair's description of the reaction to Collin's commutation of Irvin's death sentence includes another interesting, probably little known, aspect of the Groveland incident, which is also mentioned on pg. 361 (emphasis mine):

"One of the more interesting letters that crossed the governor's desk came from J.E. Peacock, who claimed to be a neighbor of McCall. "...Without doubt, more outside money was spent on behalf of the four Negroes who ravished a little white woman just over the line at Crow's Bluff, than has ever been spent on a single case in Florida's criminal history."

A little digging shows that the unincorporated, now lost, community of Crow's Bluff was located less than 2 miles from the county line between Lake Co. and Volusia Co. But for those couple of miles, the entire tragedy of the Groveland Boys may not have even occurred.

At first glance, some of the information about Norma that King mentions seems to be of questionable origin. We know that none of it was provided by Norma herself as she isn't listed in King's source notes. Some of the comments could even be considered to be just malicious gossip. But King's list of sources shows that his information about Norma is legitimate.

In the section for "Notes" (in the ebook, there aren't any page numbers after the "Acknowledgments" on pg. 361), for Chap. 3, pg 35, King lists his source for the "rumors around town" about Norma as being "FOHP, Williams". That source is defined in the "Notes" section for the Prologue, pg. 3, as: "the nigger Shepherd": Samuel Proctor Oral History Project, Franklin Williams... University of Florida, Gainesville (hereafter cited as FOHP, Williams)".

He describes his source for "Her reputation around" in some detail. It's listed as
Unredacted FBI File 44-2722, (Groveland)... Unredacted FBI File 44-4055... from the National Archives. He then goes on to say, "This was based on several sources, among them the reports of FBI field agents who interviewed Lake County residents, as well as Groveland Police Chief George Mays, in July and August 1949... Terence McCarthy of the New Leader also spoke with Mays, who referred to Padgett as "a bad egg".

by Ben Green

by Gary Corsair

[Catbird]

Some biographical information about Norma Lee Padgett.

Pt. 2


In Chap. 3, pp. 34-35, King describes Norma as "a frail but comely girl". He then provides some background about the state of her marriage to Willie Padgett. "Rumors around town had it that the short-tempered Willie got rough with young Norma - that he slapped her around at times - and Bay Lake locals knew Coy Tyson wasn't going to stand for behavior like that." King also mentions, presumably from the same source, that "Norma had been seen 'cavorting with Negroes' - one sure way for a white girl to tarnish her reputation...".

I found an interesting article about the Groveland case in the July 1986 edition of the Florida Historical Quarterly, published by the Florida Historical Society (Volume LXV, Number 1). Entitled "Groveland: Florida's Little Scottboro", and written by Steven F. Lawson, among others, it provides a more local perspective on the racial tensions that were intertwined with every aspect of the tragedy. It also reinforces King's comments about domestic violence in Norma and Willie's marriage. The article then offers a theory held by Franklin Williams (the LDF defense attorney for the Groveland Four) explaining why Norma made the rape accusation. The article cites the source of Franklin's comments as being an article in the St. Petersburg Times titled "Mobile Violence ", which was published on April 8, 1950 and included an interview with Franklin Williams.

From pg.15 of the July 1986 edition of the Florida Historical Quarterly (emphasis mine):

"Norma did not claim that she had been raped until she encountered her husband and a deputy sheriff who were out searching for her. Willie took his wife aside, spoke alone with her for several minutes, and then she told her story. Franklin Williams speculated that the Padgetts had fabricated this tale on the spot to protect Willie. He guessed that following the dance, Willie had beaten Norma for refusing to grant him his "matrimonial rights," and subsequently he implored his wife to claim she had been raped by blacks or her family would take revenge upon him."

Although William's remarks only constitute a theory, I think they make sense. But I doubt that we'll ever know if his theory was correct. As I mentioned above, Norma was alive as of May 2015. I can't find any public remarks made by her about the Groveland Boys or the tragedy she set into motion since the comments she made to Governor Collins in 1956.

But, after 60 years of silence, it's probably unrealistic to expect her to provide any explanation for what she did. The only consolation is that the truth about what happened has come out and been fully accepted, without Norma's confession and in spite of her silence.

[Teri]

Excellent, Catbird. I'm so glad you posted this and will read through it tonight as I cozy in to bed. I had been looking for information on her online and had only gotten so far to find that she was still alive, at least at the time that King was researching his book. I had wished this could have been a book that the author was engaged with us in. I would be very curious as to what roadblocks he might have had during his research.

[Robyn]

Catbird -
Thanks for posting. The whole time I was reading the book I was wondering what made Norma participate in this. With forensics we have now, I'd like to think it would never have gotten this far.
I wonder if her decision to say she was raped forced her hand in staying married to Willie? Back then, she would have been considered damaged goods and probably couldn't have divorced him and remarried. What are your thoughts?

Catbird wrote: "Some biographical information about Norma Lee Padgett.

Pt. 2


In Chap. 3, pp. 34-35, King describes Norma as "a frail but comely girl". He then provides some background about the state of her ma..."

[Samantha]

I'm just thinking... is there an easier way to post the weeks discussion questions so that they are easier to find? I'm not trying to be rude or anything!!! I promise! It's just difficult to find them in all of the great commentary from other readers!

[Teri]

Samantha wrote: "I'm just thinking... is there an easier way to post the weeks discussion questions so that they are easier to find? I'm not trying to be rude or anything!!! I promise! It's just difficult to find t..."

There really isn't in this type of a discussion. I try to post questions every day. Just watch for my postings and I always put a bold header that states that they are discussion questions.

[Samantha]

Teri wrote: "Samantha wrote: "I'm just thinking... is there an easier way to post the weeks discussion questions so that they are easier to find? I'm not trying to be rude or anything!!! I promise! It's just di..."

Okay lol. I hope you didn't take this as rude haha! I really was just looking for an easier way to find the weekly discussions =).

Sammy

[Teri]

Samantha wrote: "Teri wrote: "Samantha wrote: "I'm just thinking... is there an easier way to post the weeks discussion questions so that they are easier to find? I'm not trying to be rude or anything!!! I promise!..."

I didn't at all. ;-) Our spotlight reads are a bit easier to navigate in the respect to finding weekly discussion questions. We do what we can with the Goodreads layout, but so far it works good.

[Samantha]

Teri wrote: "Samantha wrote: "Teri wrote: "Samantha wrote: "I'm just thinking... is there an easier way to post the weeks discussion questions so that they are easier to find? I'm not trying to be rude or anyth..."

Okay well if I have trouble finding them, I will just write a post on here! Thanks for responding! I really appreciate it =)

[Catbird]

Response to Teri - #63

Teri wrote: "Excellent, Catbird. I'm so glad you posted this and will read through it tonight as I cozy in to bed. I had been looking for information on her online and had only gotten so far to find that she wa..."

Thank you.

I've read ahead a bit and found that King does discuss Norma a bit more and also discusses William's theory. But, I think that because the book's primary focus is meant to be Marshall and his involvement in the Groveland tragedy, she's treated as an almost ancillary character.

I also wish we could talk to King about his research process. It would be fascinating to know more about how he was received in Lake Co., while he researched and wrote this book. While doing my little bit of research about Norma, I noticed that there's quite a bit of information in newspaper archives. I'm sure King accessed that information and I wish I could too!

[Teri]

Have you tried: https://www.newspapers.com/

It's subscription based but you can do a free 7 day trial and power research in a few days. ;-)

[Catbird]

Response to Robyn - #64

Robyn wrote: "Catbird -
Thanks for posting. The whole time I was reading the book I was wondering what made Norma participate in this. With forensics we have now, I'd like to think it would never have gotten th..."

I'm glad you found it helpful.

Modern forensics would certainly make a difference. But I think the changes in laws and police procedures is more important than even advances in forensics. The way that police have to handle evidence and investigations has changed greatly since 1949. The same is true for the legal system and the way that prosecutors, defense attorneys, and judges handle cases.

Part of those changes are a result of work that Marshall did as a lawyer and a justice. By the time he was appointed to the Supreme Court, he had decades of experience in how the police and legal systems shouldn't work. I think he applied that knowledge to help the Supreme Court to compel changes in the entire criminal legal system which have, for the most part, benefited everyone.

Robyn wrote: "I wonder if her decision to say she was raped forced her hand in staying married to Willie? Back then, she would have been considered damaged goods and probably couldn't have divorced him and remarried. What are your thoughts?"

I was going to write a bit about this over on the main thread, since the topic came up there. But, I agree with you that in that day and place, Norma would have had problems with being accepted by the community and most other men except for her husband. Especially because her reputation before the Groveland incident apparently wasn't the best.

[Terry]

Francie wrote: "Cab Calloway Biography
Singer (1907–1994)



Singer Cab Calloway became a star with his performances at the Cotton Club and his song "Minnie the Moocher" (1931). He also appeared on stage and in fi..."

The Smithsonian Magazine this month has an article entitled "Brief History of the Zoot Suit" by Alice Gregory. The article says that no one designer can be credited with the Zoot Suit but rather is came from the streets.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-cu...

[Teri]

Excellent article, Terry. I'm trying to wrap my head around Malcom X in a Zoot Suit. I had no idea that it's so hard to find an original suit still.

[Teri]

A Southern sheriff's law and disorder
To the "good people'' of Lake County - bankers, grove owners, white people in general - Sheriff Willis V. McCall was the law. The rest of the people were on their own.

By JOHN HILL

© St. Petersburg Times, published November 28, 1999


To the “good people” of Lake County – bankers, grove owners, white people in general – Sheriff Willis V. McCall was the law. The rest were on their own.
[Times file photo 1951]

He was a big man -- 6 feet 1, 215 pounds -- with soft, pudgy cheeks, an itchy trigger finger and size 13 feet that authorities said he used to kick a retarded black man to death.

Willis Virgil McCall was not only the sheriff, he was the law in Lake County from 1944 until long after he was removed from office in 1972. He believed, above all else, in enforcing lawanorder, a code of moral and criminal behavior he lumped into a single word.

McCall was born poor, the son of a dirt farmer whose family homesteaded the gently rolling hills of northern Lake County in the 19th century. To these pioneers, Florida was an escape -- from the abject ruin of the Confederate states, from the imperial grip of the federal government, from the impending demise of the family farm, from the rise of progressivism and the modern city. As a boy, in the years before America fought its first European war, McCall toiled shoeless in the fields. He hunted and fished and dreamed of life without debt. On cold mornings, he'd stick his toes in cow manure to warm his feet.

McCall's grit amid the hardship of his childhood was typical of the Crackers who scratched a life in rural Florida. Sober and independent, these men became possessed of a strong work ethic and defining views on race, politics, family and the law. What separated McCall was his ambition -- an ambition driven by the fear of poverty.

He built a profitable dairy, then landed a state job inspecting fruit. Neither would secure a growing family. So in 1944, McCall parlayed his ties to bankers and growers within the citrus industry -- the one he was supposed to regulate -- and won election as sheriff, a job he'd hold for 28 years.

McCall's election coincided with radical changes in Florida's economy -- changes that propelled him onto the national stage and laid the groundwork for his ouster. The loss of young men to the war effort came at a critical time for Lake County. With the advent of orange juice concentrate, the world demand for processed citrus far exceeded what the county's 1,100 square miles could produce. Every able body was needed in the groves. But veterans returning home wanted more of a life than citrus had to offer. Some took advantage of the opportunity to leave for jobs in other states. Union leaders saw the tight labor market as leverage over Lake's booming citrus industry -- an industry that was creating the equivalent of Microsoft millionaires throughout the sandy slopes of the central Florida ridge.

To the bankers and grove owners who underwrote his campaign, the union drive marked the important first test of the young sheriff. McCall responded vigorously. He used anti-vagrancy laws to jail those who refused to work, intimidated union leaders and ran "troublemakers" at gunpoint from Lake County. The U.S. Justice Department opened a civil rights investigation -- the first of dozens throughout McCall's career -- into charges that the sheriff supported slave camps. When union leader Alex Axelrod came to town, in 1946, McCall handcuffed him and paraded him around, telling grove workers: "Look at his wrists!"

His image as a white supremacist, union buster and local boy done good swept McCall into a second term.

His big break came in 1949. In July, a white farm bride claimed she was abducted and raped by four black men in the backwoods town of Groveland. McCall quickly arrested Sam Shepherd and Walter Irvin, who had been pals in the Army. The two had refused to work in the groves. Shepherd's family also had angered many whites for making a success of a small family farm, thus improving their standing within the black community. McCall saw the chance to take this "uppity" black man down a peg. By charging Shepherd with rape, the sheriff would solve two problems at once.

McCall's deputies beat the men and did little to stop the rioting that continued for days after the arrests. Shepherd and Irvin were convicted and sentenced to death. (A third defendant received life in prison; a fourth was pursued, shot and killed by a posse.) In April 1951, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the death sentences, blaming McCall for ruining the prospects of a fair trial. In November, as he was transporting the prisoners for retrial, McCall shot Shepherd and Irvin on a dark and deserted country road, claiming the manacled prisoners tried to jump him and escape. Irvin survived and told a different story -- that McCall shot in cold blood.

McCall's act drew sharp condemnation around the world. Hundreds of telegrams poured into the White House each day, urging his arrest and pleading for intervention by the federal courts. Soviet diplomat Andrei Vishinsky cited McCall as proof of America's hypocrisy in calling for human rights abroad. "Willis," the local prosecutor reportedly told him, "you have (peed) in my whiskey."

But the criticism only burnished McCall's reputation as a no-nonsense lawman -- the kind, the sheriff was fond of saying, that "the good people of Lake County" could depend on for protection amid a world of changing mores. By the 1950s, largely under the leadership of then-Gov. LeRoy Collins, Florida began to diversify its economic base, attract new residents from the politically moderate Midwest and expand access to quality education. McCall saw this as a departure from Florida's pioneer character and feared it would undermine the social balance. He blamed leftists and the media, warned against world domination by the U.N. and foresaw (as did many others) a Soviet plot to infiltrate America through civil rights organizations active in the South.

He did what he could. He threw Indian children out of Lake's public schools. He lured interracial couples to the forest, where deputies beat them. He hired a convicted felon as a deputy, manipulated public funds, threatened reporters and investigators, refused to banish "Colored Waiting Room" signs from his jail and relied on evidence in criminal cases that his deputies outright faked.

McCall's final act of brutality in office surrounded the beating death of Tommy Vickers, a retarded black prisoner in the sheriff's custody. It was April 1972. McCall was indicted and suspended from office by then-Gov. Reubin Askew, who had finally had enough. McCall was tried in Ocala; he napped and did crosswords in court, and was acquitted 70 minutes after the case went to the all-white jury.

The indictment sapped energy from McCall, but it wasn't what finally did him in. The Democratic sheriff was already losing a mathematical game to the progressive Northerners and Republican retirees moving into Lake County. None had any roots or need for McCall's machine. The citrus belt had moved south, and with it, the need for a muscleman as sheriff. McCall lost his bid for re-election and retired near ancestral land, spending days drinking coffee with friends and tending his ranch.

McCall died in April 1994, at age 84. Hundreds said goodbye inside a country church near the sheriff's boyhood home. Though he spent his final years reconciling his legacy, McCall never doubted himself, the usefulness of segregation or the morality of the methods he used to enforce lawanorder.

"I would hate to be remembered like some of them would like me to be remembered," the sheriff told a reporter, several years before his death, "as an old sonofabitch."

John Hill is working on a book about McCall.
Source: St. Petersburg Times

More:
by Gary Corsair (no photo)

[Samanta]

Interesting reference to Thurgood Marshall:

I am currently backing this read up with a concise biography of Thurgood Marshall, that covers his early life and all of his career, focusing on the cases concerning education that led to Brown vs. Board of Education. It helps me a lot with the background, because I literally know nothing of his career, besides the Groveland boys now.

I would like to share with you a quote from the book, that sums up Marshall's stance on "segregated-but-equal" law.

"When one local segregationist said that the different educational levels of black and white children made integration a problem, Marshall replied, "Put the dumb colored children in with the dumb white children, and put the smart colored children with the smart white children - that is no problem.""

Now, I know the statement is a bit crude and can raise many different questions, but when looking at the whole black vs white situation, the analogy is great and it really is that simple.

by Lisa Aldred (no photo)

[Bentley, Group Founder, Leader, Chief]

Thank you Samanta - this is where this should be