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

middle of the sidewalk; one side was marked “White People,” the other “Nigger Lovers.” One child who had signed the petition was stoned with pebbles. A deputy meanwhile visited the Platts with a message from the sheriff’s office “that if they weren’t out by that night, their house would be burned down.”
    In the summer of 1954, the outspoken Willis V. McCall was named a director of the National Association for the Advancement of White People, which devoted itself primarily to the advocacy of racial segregation. At a rally in Delaware organized by NAAWP founder Bryant Bowles, the sheriff from Lake County was introduced to a crowd of five thousand segregationists as an “expert” in race relations and “a man who knows how to handle Negroes.” Decrying the Brown decision, McCall urged everyone in attendance to “go to it” in their opposition to integration. On his return to Lake County he told one newspaper, “I for one, am going to do all I can to forestall such a movement. I am one who, instead of sitting around grumbling about these agitators, goes into action. We need more action and not so much wishie-washie grumbling.”
    News of the sheriff’s call for “action” soon reached Thurgood Marshall in New York, and immediately the NAACP fired off a telegram to Florida’s acting governor, Charley Johns, requesting that he remove McCall from office. Johns responded by telling reporters that McCall’s speech was “ill-advised” but adding that “I have no grounds to remove him.” The partners may have changed, but for fifteen years the dance Marshall had been stepping with Florida governors had remained the same, and they were still stepping on his toes. Only Charley Johns stomped. Johns had become Florida’s acting governor when Dan McCarty died suddenly of a heart attack in September 1953, and Johns had since lost in the Democratic primary to LeRoy Collins, who was running unopposed in the 1954 special election. On November 1, the eve of that election, the acting governor, the “hog and hominy” segregationist from North Florida, with two months more to serve, attended to what for him was a more pressing matter of business. He signed the death warrant of Walter Irvin. The execution was set for Monday morning, November 8.
    The NAACP at once petitioned the Florida Supreme Court for a stay of execution in light of “new evidence,” specifically that Dr. Geoffrey Binneveld, the physician who had examined Norma Padgett after the alleged rape, would have testified, had he been called as a witness, that Padgett “had not been” assaulted. Florida assistant attorney general Reeves Bowen scoffed at the request; he accused the NAACP of sitting idly by “till the last tick of the clock” before bringing the appeal to Tallahassee. The court refused to grant a stay.
    Thurgood Marshall had no other options; he knew what he had to do. He’d done it before, stopped an execution at a last, heart-in-the-throat moment. Except that he had been unable to locate Chief Justice Fred Vinson anywhere—not at home or at any of his haunts around Washington. Then he got a tip: a room number at the Statler Hilton, two blocks from the White House. He busted in. The chief justice was playing cards, Vinson v. Truman.
    “How did you find me?” Vinson asked.
    “I can’t tell you,” Marshall said, sliding the brief toward the justice.
    Vinson’s eyes skimmed the pages; time mattered. He waved the brief at Marshall. “Can you vouch for this being true?”
    “Yes, sir. I wrote it,” Marshall replied.
    President Truman watched in silence. Marshall waited, his breath held. Vinson lowered the brief to the table; he picked up his pen.
    “I’ll tell you one thing, if you’ve got guts enough to break in on this, I’ve got guts enough to sign it,” said Vinson, passing the brief back to Marshall.
    It was late in the evening, Saturday, November 6, three years to the day since Walter Irvin had been lying in a ditch with a gun pressed at his neck— “This nigger is not dead” —not yet—but in less than two days he would be taking his last walk, down the corridor of Flat Top to Florida’s Old Sparky, unless . . .
    Marshall managed to track down Justice Hugo Black, who submitted the signed brief to the Court at a conference of justices. The last-minute stay gave Marshall twelve days to prepare for the meeting of the Supreme Court on November 20, when the justices would again decide whether or not to