Assignment:
Devil in the Grove Thurgood Marshall the Groveland boys and the dawn of a new America, which is awarded the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for General nonfiction and execution of Lille, France.
Did rip it up right civil rights and the death penalty for the New York Times The Washington Post and the Atlantic and he's a contributor to The Marshall Project and nonprofit music station covering the US criminal justice system.
Describing his letter. I sent Friend or his work on race in the United States is impossible to do in a few minutes. So I will leave you with his epigraph from tanahashi Coates, which.
Racism has never been a simple story ever. I give you a little surprise Hunter Gilbert King.
Thank you all very much for coming out tonight at 8. Just really nice to be back here out here in 2013.
When I befriended two professors Rodger Barnes Elite Robert Sosa, and I did a lot of phone calls and it's typing into his class their classes over the years. And so she really is a bright spot in my heart. I'll tell you why.
Rodger Barnes in Roanoke social read my books. Well before the Pulitzer, but nobody was reading that there's hardly any of those books. And so I feel like a great amount of loyal chained to the fact that they've been logged all my friends and family Roberts not here to enjoy this evening.
I just want to give you a little shot out because.
I'm going to walk you through a story that set in Central Florida in the 1950s, but I think to really understand how a story like this could possibly take place on have to understand a little bit about history and what was happening in the country. And what was happening in Florida at the time so don't walk you through a little bit of a sort of understand because believe me I'm not just doing this for students. There's a lot of adults my agent really were unaware that these stories existed and how they existed and soda really didn't understand.
To really understand how these stores could take in place. You really need to understand that 19.
There was probably. U.S. Supreme Court that case was called Brown versus Board of Education and that was the case that desegregated the public schools. That wasn't the.
That said it was unconstitutional to have separate but equal schools for African Americans and whites. And so this case made it to the US Supreme Court in 1954 and it was decided unanimously nine. Nothing imagine that happening today at 9. Nothing decision. This is a 9 dozen decision Thurgood Marshall argue this case and one and it was a.
Considered the most important Supreme Court case of the 20th century and Brandon it took another 20 years to actually Force the desegregation of schools across the.
That decision was met with a great deal of Fury in the American South and the reason you know, that is because you can remember you can or look back at a time where that was considered. The Supreme Court was interfering in the southern way of life. We were forcing integration on to the South when he was met with a great deal of Reese's.
You saw segregation forever time signs. You saw a protest you can see from these images the reaction in the South what you don't really see is that in the wake of Brown versus Board in 1954. There was a wave of racial Terror across the South as a.
Bombings increased.Churches on the Ku Klux Klan suddenly had a rebirth what what popped up in 11 states? Would these White Citizens Council?
I'm Thurgood Marshall call these councils the Uptown Clan said these were legitimate and establish members of society doctors lawyers politician dentist and they were each one of these White Citizens Council and the goal of these White Citizens councils was to resist the desegregation movement in the South and so all of a sudden you have this Rebirth of the more bombings across the South and became a country. That was really / racial Terror at the time.
One of the organizations that popped off throughout the South was the end of a awp sound strange sounds a little like the n-double-acp except he was a National Association for the advancement of white people. And so this was a reaction to the desegregation in Brown versus Board. Suddenly you had these rallies very fervent.
Thousands and thousands of white people in the South with gather and they wouldn't talk about fighting back against forced desegregation. And in this image, you see a man by the name of Brian Bowles, who is the leader of NAACP.
And he would travel around the South doing these letters and and rotten really revving up the crowd. Basically, he would hear his hand in Lake County Florida with his book takes place and you can see him reading a fiery speech about resisting and never giving in to the segregation and you can see the sheriff Willis McCall who invited Brian Bowles to give this talk and one of the things cold would do his talk was he would take his three-year-old daughter up onto the stage and he would hold her up and you can say things like.
Do you think the day will ever come will I will send this white angel into school with the black demon that day will never happen gunpowder Lilburn before that day and he went on to remind people the schools were just the first the first place where desegregation would take place next. It would be in the bedrooms African Americans will be coming into our bedroom. Do we want that is.
He would whip the crowd into a frenzy about miscegenation in The Mixing of the races, and it was a very effective tool the majority.
Not in favor of desegregation. And so you could see the reaction to this. Here's an image from Little Rock Arkansas to Little Rock Nine Elizabeth eckford was attending the first day of school. You can see the reaction the National Guard had to show up in order to protect and to approve no make sure that there was peace.
Cheerleaders.
Every day and just scream at the Little Rock Nine and then across the schools would win when they began to desegregate. This was very much the scene so in the late 19th.
If he's as a reaction to Brown versus Board, this is what you were saying. The country was basically in.
And then we can such a social change that in the South was a very difficult.
This became the overriding theme of Elections that used to be that before the fifties used to have moderate politicians. Now that all changed now it was you who you were before segregation of you were against segregation moderation and just disappeared and the country was sort of in turmoil and racial tension was greater than it has been in many many years.
Story that I'm about to tell you from beneath the ruthless Sun begins in a very small town called okahumpka, Florida in Central, Florida inside a population of about 250 and this case takes place in Oklahoma.
Is that if you read devil The Grove which is the book I wrote before this that case actually begins in okahumpka that case rolling case went to the US Supreme Court, so it's little.
Town of 250 Central Florida is responsible for a very important civil rights case.
This thing is that this little town of okahumpka. This is a picture of rules and where the whole story began in Devil in the Grove right there in okahumpka. This is a legal landscape about the size of.
There's not even a traffic light and now we have a second case that reaches the US Supreme Court with roots in this little town of Ivanka. This is a man by the name of Virgil Hawkins in Virgil Hawkins sued to be able to attend University of Florida College of Law, and he had a lawsuit out and it made it all the way to the US Supreme Court in the US Supreme Court in the wake of Brown versus Board said, yes. Hawkins has a right to attend the University of College wall, even though he's a black man. He is a right and then in the US Supreme Court basically mandated the State of Florida to accept Virgil Hawkins and fat loss.
State of Florida did something that was basically unprecedented. They basically ignore and refuse to obey the Mandate of the US Supreme Court. They said they were not going to take Virgil Hawkins into the washable this set off another fight in the mid-50s Marshall call this a second Undeclared Civil War when you have state actually refusing to obey the law of the land.
1/3 case reveals itself with its roots in okahumpka and this is the case. I'm going to be talkin about tonight on this is a story of Blanche. Hosen Cat Knows the Young Bride. I see this photograph with her husband. Joe Knows. Joe Nobles is a powerful and wealthy.
He'll Woods acres and Acres of orange groves and cattle. What are the wealthiest people in this part of Florida and on the evening in December 1957. Joe Knowles went out of town allegedly on business and while he was out of town.
Blanche golden kennels in her house was sexually assaulted while her husband was away with three small children in the house Blanche closing cat. Nose did something that was not unusual. She first thing she did when the attack or left her home. She called the police and Sheriff Willis the Paul sent deputies into this little town of Oklahoma, What did they do? They did they did what they've been doing in the past many times. They went in and just grab every African-American out of their home and threw them in jail by the dozens because blacks wasn't cat having have basically told sheriff and deputies that she had been sexually assaulted by an African American man with a bushy hair and very dark skin. That was the description that she gave the police. So Sheriff Willis McCall knew exactly what to do with his deputies. They basically ransacked every single black home in okahumpka.
And threw them in jail and to interrogate suspects. He's young suspects.
You can see here. This is a very first mention of this case. It's a very small mentioned because it involved a very prominent woman in in the Lake County side. And so the story was very small legal negro saw.
Basically done on the description that Blanche had given to law enforcement. What do they do Sheriff Willis McCall begins to narrow down the suspects. They started out with some 20-something suspects and then you get into narrow it down until they finally have one suspect in mind for this particular assault and it is coincidentally the nephew of Virgil Hawkins Willis McCall made a point of saying we got the guy it's a it's a young man by the name of Melvin Hawkins 18 years old never mind that he has an airtight Alibi that didn't matter back then it matter what the sheriff said in the sheriff said this was the man who sexually assaulted Blanche postal can know and so they bring it in Herre down suspect attend. This McCall said was going to derail Virgil Hawkins efforts to integrate the University of Florida.
An embarrassment in the use the word rapist in all these newspaper headlines in order to embarrass Persia logins.
Then something very strange begins to happen in Lake County two days afterwards. They slowly release Virgil Hawkins from custody in the middle of the night send them home and people can understand this. This would have been the easiest fastest way to send the black man to the electric chair. That was really what Willis McCall was known for railroading and convicted and having African-American sent to the electric chair. Basically illegal engine and McCall have done it before been successful sometimes sometimes.
But in this particular case it struck people as odd that they weren't marching Melvin Hawkins out in front of the press and showing him off and in just totally derailing Virgil Hawkins efforts to integrate the University of Florida in this case everything went quiet and then suddenly.
Surprised Everybody by arresting a 19 year old mentally disabled white kid by the name of Jessica Daniel.
This right everyone is certainly very odd. I'm glad it wasn't kept Knowles was very specific about the description of the man that she claimed sexually assaulted her. Now all of a sudden they send all the African-American suspects home and they are arresting Jessie Daniels is 19 year old mentally disabled teenager, Jessie Daniels had the mind of a 10 year old.
He slept with a teddy bear. He slept in the same room with his parents and played and played guitar. He was considered this gentle docile.
To go along with this. She was very clear. She told police she described the man who attacked her and she said I'm not going along with this. I was clear about this. She knew who just mayonnaise was she did not want to go forward with this.
What did they do in?
They hired a public defender. Basically, I have court appointed attorney to represent Jesse Daniels that court-appointed. Defender was the last cross.
Who retired who is basically a white supremacist and he was also very good friends with Sheriff Willis McCall and the victim's family and he's friends with the new prosecutor and the judge and his very first form of Defense in this case on behalf of Jesse Daniels is to declare him insane and incapable of defending himself. He wrote a letter to the mental hospital.
It said take this kid between you and me. He's guilty. He's my client hold him indefinitely. In other words. They didn't even want to give Jesse Daniels a trial because they knew they couldn't prove it. They could not convicted without the testimony of the victim plant closing at knows who refused to go along with this. And so what did they do in order to hide a few minute nouturios Mentalist to call Chattahoochee and they left him there and he's horrible conditions and he was in with the most violent offenders people who are accused of murder the most vicious crimes and now Jessie Daniels with the mind of a 10 year old is basically locked in the same Institute. It was basically worse than being in prison for Jessica. And there's no telling what happened to him in that in the hospital. All we can say is it was it was not very well supervised. There are not a lot of attendance and.
Randy's Island, which was the case at Chattahoochee time?
Story in beneath a ruthless Sun Centers, not only around Jessie Daniels, but around the a reporter by the name of Mabel Norris Reese Nephew Red Devil in the Grove. You might recognize her name Mabel started out.
The Grove of Cayce and she basically was a mouthpiece for the sheriff and the prosecutor.
She went along with this and then printed everything wrote everything that the sheriff wanted the people of Lake County today.
And basically she poisoned the jury pool with her biased reporting. So when the US Supreme Court ruled on that growth and decision, they not only called it a great menace to American society, but they called Mabel Norris Reese out for her reporting saying that she buys the jewelry with her biased reporting and this was a major point in Mabel Norris journalism career because at that moment she was really locked into the ways of the South as seen through Sheriff Willis McCall zies, but when Willis McCall attempt to execute the two defendants on that dirt road Groveland story, that's when Mabel Norris recent enough is enough. That's a bad man, and I'm not going to do whatever he says anymore. So at that point.
She begins to start being a thorn in Sheriff Willis McCall.
And she begins to report on this story and she takes this Jesse Daniel story extremely. Seriously. She is absolutely convinced that there's a conspiracy going on to frame Jessie Daniels, and she thinks she knows why and she begins to write about it, and she believes that the powerful people of Lake County putting the judge prosecutor the sheriff on the victim's own wife Jo Knowles and other powerful people in Lake County.
Got together and convinced flash to change the race of her attacker because she believed it would be impolite at to have been sexually assaulted by a black man and for her position in society in the wealthy confines of Lake County. She would have been considered a pariah if it had been known that she'd been sexually assaulted by a black man. And so in order not to protect blanche's reputation, but to protect the reputation of blanche's husband because back in those days a rape sexual assault was not seen as a crime against.
It was seen as a crime against the man's property for the most part this was going to affect Joe Knows His.
So impolite and so depraved that they could not allow Blanche to be known in society as someone who'd been.
African American and so what did they do? They came upon the conspiracy to frame Jesse Daniels so that plant his reputation and Joe knows his reputation Society.
And so that's what they believed and that's what she began to write about and nobody else was writing about this except Mabel Mabel was the only one with her a little small private newspaper Mount Dora topic she went in there. She wrote about it. She made name. She was not shy and she pointed to sheriff Willis McCall and.
Possibly she was gaslighted by the sheriff Willis McCall who basically said you're just cussing me for being a white man. You're a communist. He called her Red Maple and basically tried to destroy her reputation because she was writing about these just a story.
This is a photograph of the Knolls family about two weeks before the assault in her home and you can see Joe Knowles football hero mover-and-shaker in the community with the three. Children. Mary is the one year old daughter who sitting on Blanche Clapton's.
And she actually was in the room sleeping at the time of the sexual assault. And so this place a very big part of the story. I'll come back to you a little bit later, but this is an image of the Knolls family slightly lives.
The resistance that Mabel felt while she was reporting on Justice in this part of Florida. She had a cross burned in your front lawn that nearly incinerated our own the house. Then there were two bombs thrown at her house military bombs thrown by the clan at our house on consecutive nights at the Ku Klux Klan rolled in and and effaced and vandalize after the Mount Dora topic office on you can see it here now and did that they took the steak and least. It was strychnine and threw it over Mabel's Benson killed a dog. And so the final straw for Mabel was at the white supremacist in this part of Florida got together and opened up a rival newspaper.
And the newspaper was basically a white supremacy newspaper resisting. He said rogation and talking about what a great man Sheriff Willis McCall is and basically when that newspaper open Willis McCall personally went around in town to everyone and labels advertisers and warned them to no longer advertising.
That was the final straw for Mabel. She had to close up or newspaper. She had to move to a town 50 miles away Daytona Beach and she started as a columnist potato.
Remarkably Mabel kept on the story from 50 miles away. She kept reporting on Jessie Daniels, you kept reporting on Wheels to call and she stayed on this story.
I want to tell you a little bit of a research story because sometimes you have to get a little bit Lucky in this case. When I first started working on this story. I was told that nobody in Lake County was going to talk to me about that. They said this is much different than devil in the Grove. People will talk to you that this involves very powerful people who do not want.
And I was warned everybody that no one to talk to me in case very early on 120 Maybelline passed away in the 90s and I was interviewing her daughter. Her daughter's name is patch leaving about the girls in case she became friends with Martin Luther King. She was covering all the Civil Rights unrest in the early sixties and st. Augustine interview Martin Luther King. She had a very story journalism career and Mabel's daughter said no, my mother didn't say anything.
And that was a very disappointing thing for me tomorrow because I thought this would have been a great opportunity to get personal journals or whatever.
And so you'll be able to learn all about the cake that so when I went down to Florida and I went into the office, I asked to see those years 1958 with this case.
And Arctica said we're here. She came out a few minutes later. She had an ash and look on her face and she said the entire leather-bound year 1958 is now missing.
Issues that I went to both those places same exact experience. The archivist came out instead of the real from 1958 is no longer in our archives. I did not think this was a coincidence. I've been told that there were powerful people did not want the story out there and this made sense to me and it was devastating. I'm actually didn't know if I can continue writing this book because I have Bagels writing.1 points did this book took me almost six years to write about a year later. I can receive word that Mabel's daughter pack passed away. And so I called down to offer my condolences. I talked to her daughter the maples granddaughter. They said I'm so sorry to hear about your mom. And I'm so glad I got to meet her at least interviewer about this case. And then she said that's very nice of you to call Gilder. By the way. I was cleaning out my mom's attic and I found a small box files and it looks like it belongs to Mabel. You should come check it out. So I went down to Florida maybe two days later and I was given this department store boxes about this dick. I opened it up. Every single thing in that box is about the Jessie Daniels case. She didn't say they were movies with Martin Luther King. Nothing on the Groveland everything in here was the original draft on onion skin paper of every story that she's written about Jessica Daniel.
The margins so now I have the original draft all these articles that I thought we're going to be lost history all of her correspondence with Jesse Daniels over the years Jessie Daniels mother Pearl. All of it was in this box. I talked about getting lucky. I don't know what I would have done. If I did not have this box was everything was almost as if Mabel was crying out. She's been dead twenty something years and her daughter once told me she thought maybe wanted to write a book about this case when her health started to fail, but she saved this particular store in chest that she felt was the most important story that.
So that's one of the ways I got lucky was whining that box and having access to all hundred plus articles right there in that box. The other way. I got lucky. I was down in Groveland in the year 2012 right now and at my very first book talk. I went back to Groveland and I was going to give a talk and I remember I was on my way into this community center.
And I thought to myself what am I got myself into? I knew that girls were really wrong about the story and you know, I didn't really know what to expect and as I was getting closer I was kind of.
It turned out to be one of the great talks I did because everybody was involved in the story to share with me and relatives were involved. And at one point I was sitting in the back signing books and this elderly gentleman would like the great big belt buckle and a cowboy hat comes walking over to me and I'm thinking about getting the clothes out of business card eBay smithstix it by two inches from my face and he came up to me and he said you got your book right? I was a deputy on Willis McCall Sports everything you wrote about was true because but there's another story that nobody will write about nobody will talk about.
This is story of this Jessie Daniels kid, and he began to tell me this story and I said, you know, I've heard his name and I don't know much about it and he goes you wouldn't know much it's not been written about very much but he said we frame this kid for a rate that he did not commit and he says it's been haunting me for decades and I've never told anybody but I'll tell you exactly how we did it and he went in and told me exactly how they planted evidence about how his fellow deputies have done this thing and he didn't know the reason why he wasn't aware of Mabel's conspiracy theory about framing a white kid for this crimes. He didn't know about that. He just knows that they frame Jessie Daniels and to me this was a great break. I will spend probably 25-30 times with him sitting either in his truck in the driveway or at a cafe. He would tell me everything to name names. He was not shy about it, and he basically told me that all the.
They don't want anyone to see this. So all that stuff in the asteroid and never to be seen again, but now I had someone from inside the sheriff's department from 50 years ago who could remember everything and he was telling me all the stories. I think I spent countless time with him. The interesting thing is name was Eddie Griffin and MP. Griffin was a star Deputy for the longest time until he saw something in another case another case of rape where to African Americans.
And he has two days before these African-American young men were about to go to the electric chair. He turned them in and he went to the FBI and he went to the newspapers and he said the front of these defendants. I know exactly how they did it immediately. There was a stay of execution and these two Lake County deputies were indicted for falsifying evidence and Manufacturing evidence on this was a very big thing for someone within the law enforcement Community to turn onto other white deputies and basically,.
Mark Graves put on his own property across burns on his own and he stayed in Lake County and he had a score to settle and buy him telling me about this Jesse. He wanted it out there. He still had a score to settle from fifty years later. And so that's why he was going I'm going to tell you exactly how this was done. And so he became a vital part of my Reis.
I would show up with him before the crack of dawn and we sit there have coffee in this famous cafe in Lake County was Sheriff Willis McCall used to go before he passed away in 94 and he would tell me all of these stories and name names and everything. He was telling was checking out later on. I filed a Freedom of Information Act request and I got my hands on the FBI Files almost everything. Evie. Griffin told me was talking into the right there in the Civil Rights investigation. And so he was on vital part of the story and in the fact that you know, I talked about getting lucky as a research.
I really needed somebody like Debbie Griffin to come up to me and sort of spilled the beans and I think it was just because I was in so much time and Lake County. I done so much ground work that he.
Am I getting last book took five years to write? I you can call me a month later after we met it's not to be that fast and maturing of every month that we doing on that book. Is it out yet? I need years and I do know I did take years and I sat with him for years and doing this right before the book came out. I got a call from him and it was you could tell his voice.
I sent down to him and I later learned that his two sons read it to him while he was in the bed. He was in he lived in the same house that he was born in 1928. He still lived in that house. He was on his deathbed and his sons read him the book and he died about a day later after you finish the book on his family later. Thank me that I was such a slow rider because they said he kept them alive for a couple years of corn.
I love this picture of heavy because Eddie like I said, I had a bone to pick with the Lake County Sheriff's Department. He also had so much land and family acquired that you came very wealthy in Lake County. So you started collecting antique law enforcement cars police cars, and he went back and got the same 1957 Plymouth that he had things fire had a totally restored and he took a picture of himself in front of the Lake County Courthouse for Sheriff.
Mabel Norris Reese continue to write about his case for Jessie Daniels case and years were passing. Jessie Daniels was lingering in Chattahoochee was no trial. Nobody could really represent in the family was so for a while because they were bringing the trials and didn't need a court-appointed lawyer. So he sat in this horrible mental institute. I got the time they will continue to write about this with the case began to quiet down. And so what Mabel began to report on was event in her own backyard in the early 1960.
And this was saying Augustine, Florida in 1964. And this was a seminal moment in the civil rights movement of Florida is kind of Forgotten as a place where civil rights occurred in the Civil Rights Movement was a big part of Florida's history, but we think of the civil rights movement of Selma March on Washington you very rarely think of Florida, but if you were paying attention in 1964 that it was called the terrible summer of 19.
Protests were in St. Augustine nation's oldest city and they were testing the segregation and so Martin Luther King and he's active come down to Florida and they would test the public beaches that are close to African Americans and they didn't lead it and they would lock arms and wade into the water and every day that they did this the clan would come out. I just beat them because they were resisting not violently. They were easy marks and so the clan did this day after day in the Marchers of the Wayans continue day after day in Florida time.
What are the most famous confrontations was at a place called Monson Motor Lodge in st. Augustine? They had a public waiting in in the public pool at the Mazda Motor Lodge and you can see whites join with African-Americans and waded into the pool and you can see the manager of the pool James Brock and he had muriatic acid.
And at one point King says to her. Can you help with the situation? I know you have experience working with white supremacist and sheriffs and the Ku Klux Klan. I need advice. I need help. This is not good for anybody here in Florida. We need to do something about this. It's going to spiral out of control and Mabel continue to write about Martin Luther King and interviewed him a very powerful moments in the streets every night because it was so hot that.