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

Norma told Bunin that she had been “crying profusely and [was] visibly shaken” when she’d spoken with Burtoft about her rape by the four Negroes, and that she had been anxious to find out if her husband was still alive after the black men had beaten him. Her story did not match entirely her testimony in court, and it did not match at all Burtoft’s description of her behavior that early Saturday morning. As for her testimony, almost casually Norma mentioned that her daddy hadn’t had much confidence about her testifying in court—he’d even bet a man that she’d “mess up” on the witness stand. She also told Bunin that she didn’t care for that “nigger lawyer” one bit.
    Bunin’s three articles, which were printed in the St. Petersburg Times with hand-drawn maps of key locations in Lake County to illustrate the facts in the fiction of the prosecution’s time line, infuriated Jesse Hunter, who called the stories “a dastardly lying libel on the people of Lake County as a whole.” He added that Bunin and the Times “are creating, or attempting to create race hatred and discord in Lake County, where relations between whites and coloreds have always been good.” Not one to miss an opportunity to attack Senator Claude Pepper—derisively nicknamed “Red” Pepper by his political adversaries, for he favored civil rights and organized labor—Hunter also made political hay of the “libel.” He demanded that Pepper, currently in the midst of his heated reelection bid, repudiate the stories because the Times “has become recognized as your most ardent supporter and what they publish is considered a part of your campaign.”
    Bunin’s series only confirmed what Franklin Williams had suspected but had neither the time nor the resources to prove: the prosecution had been hiding witnesses and evidence. He shared the articles with Marshall and Greenberg, then filed them away. They could be very useful, if the NAACP’s appeal could convince the Supreme Court to overturn the verdict in the Groveland Boys case.
    I N MAY 1950, after nearly a year’s leave of absence, Walter White, having failed to find another job, decided to return to the NAACP. He was not exactly welcomed back with open arms. While a sizable contingent within the NAACP had, according to Roy Wilkins, “tried to keep him from coming back,” board member Eleanor Roosevelt was not one of them. Rallying behind White, she convinced the board that he should be allowed to resume his role as executive secretary, on the condition that he relinquish administrative duties to Wilkins. Franklin Williams appreciated Roosevelt’s intervention on behalf of his ally and advocate, through whose influence he hoped to strengthen his position within the LDF.
    In White’s absence, NAACP membership had declined significantly. The drop-off was attributed in large part to the doubling of the one-dollar annual dues to two dollars, but there were concerns, too, about the growing organizational divide between local branches and the national office because of failures in leadership and coordination. Only a very small percentage of the black population—in 1950, approximately 15 million—contributed financially to the NAACP. To Morehouse College president and civil rights activist Benjamin Mays, such lack of support constituted a “tragedy” and a “calamity”: “If we are going to achieve a larger share of freedom we will have to be willing to pay for it,” he admonished.
    Harry T. Moore had hoped that the publicity generated by the Groveland case could be used to boost membership in Florida, but there, as in most of the states, the NAACP was suffering from a crippling budget deficit and a spiraling decline in membership. Gloster Current, the director of branches, had expressed to Moore his concern over the “deplorable state of Florida branches,” which accounted for his decision to dispatch Daniel Byrd, a Louisiana friend of Marshall’s, to Florida to meet with the state’s branch representatives. Current had also informed Lucille Black, the national membership secretary, that Moore, though certainly well-intentioned, was simply not “doing as much as could be done to revive the work in that State.”
    While on his speaking tour in Florida to raise money for the Groveland Boys defense, Franklin Williams had, at Current’s request, visited some of Moore’s urban branches in the state. Having met with representatives in Miami, Tampa, and