Descript |
x, 434 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm |
Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 413-416) and index. |
Contents |
Prologue -- Mink slide -- Sugar Hill -- Get to pushin' -- Nigger in a pit -- Trouble fixin' to start -- A little Bolita -- Wipe this place clean -- A Christmas card -- Don't shoot, white man -- Quite a hose wielder -- Bad egg -- Atom smasher -- In any fight some fall -- This is a rape case -- You have pissed in my whiskey -- It's a funny thing -- No man alive or to be born -- All over the place, like rats -- Private parts -- A genius here before us -- The colored way -- A place in the sun -- Epilogue. |
Summary |
Chronicles a little-known court case in which Thurgood Marshall successfully saved a black citrus worker from the electric chair after the worker was accused of raping a white woman with three other black men. |
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In 1949, Florida's orange industry was booming with cheap Jim Crow labor. When a white seventeen-year-old Groveland girl cried rape, vicious Sheriff McCall was fast on the trail of four young blacks who dared to envision a future for themselves. Then the Ku Klux Klan rolled into town, burning homes and chasing hundreds of blacks into the swamps. So began the chain of events that would bring Thurgood Marshall, the man known as "Mr. Civil Rights," into the fray. Associates thought it was suicidal for him to wade into the "Florida Terror" at a time when he was irreplaceable to the burgeoning civil rights movement, but the lawyer would not shrink from the fight--not after the Klan had murdered one of Marshall's NAACP associates and Marshall had endured threats that he would be next. Drawing on a wealth of never-before-published material, including the FBI's unredacted Groveland case files, as well as the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund files, King shines new light on this remarkable civil rights crusader against a heroic backdrop.--From publisher description. |
Note |
Pulitzer Prize, General Nonfiction, 2013. |
Subject |
Marshall, Thurgood, 1908-1993.
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Marshall, Thurgood, 1908-1993. |
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National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. |
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Marshall, Thurgood, 1908-1993. |
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Groveland Four Trial, Groveland, Fla., 1949-1952.
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Trials (Rape) -- Florida -- Groveland -- History -- 20th century.
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Discrimination in criminal justice administration -- Florida -- Groveland -- History -- 20th century.
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ISBN |
9780061792281 (hardback) |
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0061792284 (hardback) |
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9780061792267 (trade paperback) |
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0061792268 (trade paperback) |
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9780062097712 (e-book) |
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0062097717 (e-book) |
Isn |
40020637347 |
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