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

incorporated African-American community in America. According to its most famous resident, the writer Zora Neale Hurston, who gained fame during the Harlem Renaissance, Eatonville was something of an oasis for blacks—“a pure Negro town . . . where the only white folks were those who passed through.” She described it as “a city of five lakes, three croquet courts, three hundred brown skins, three hundred good swimmers, plenty guavas, two schools, and no jailhouse.” (In 1949, after traveling the world and after decades in New York, where she’d moved in the same Harlem circles as Thurgood Marshall, Hurston had returned home after being falsely accused of molesting a ten-year-old boy. The charges were ultimately dropped, but the damage to Hurston’s reputation was irreparable, and unable to make a living with her pen, the talented, outspoken, and now broke Eatonville resident was working as a housemaid in Florida.)
    For Samuel Shepherd and Walter Irvin, a night out in Eatonville was a welcome respite from the discriminating ways of Jim Crow and the continual racial harassment they’d endured while growing up together in Lake County. On their arrival in Eatonville, the two friends swaggered into Club Eaton—a renowned nightspot on the Chitlin’ Circuit where well-known black musicians such as Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, and a young local boy named Ray Charles performed during the segregation era. Samuel and Walter ate a light supper, drank a few beers, chatted with girls, and played the jukebox. Then they decided to see what was happening at Club 436 in nearby Altamonte Springs. There the two army buddies ordered a quart of beer. After an hour or so, because Irvin had to get up early to work with his father in the orange groves under Florida’s unforgiving summer sun, and as he wanted to get at least a few hours of sleep, they finished their beer and drove approximately forty miles west, over a hot, flat land dotted with wild orange trees and live oaks swathed in Spanish moss.
    It was long past midnight, and Samuel and Walter were just a few miles north of Groveland when they came upon a 1940 Ford by the side of the road. Samuel slowed the Mercury, and as he passed the car he saw a young white couple inside. About fifty yards farther on, Samuel stopped and turned the Mercury around. Willie had emerged from the Ford and was shouting something as Samuel and Walter rolled up to his car. Shepherd stuck his head out the window. “Need any help?” he asked.
    “Yes,” Willie answered. Shepherd put the Mercury in park, Irvin got out, and Willie explained that the car’s battery was dead and that he needed a push to jump-start the car. Norma, still inside the Ford, interrupted the men’s discussion several times, telling Willie to get in the car so that they could get the engine started and get home. “OK, in a minute,” Willie told her.
    Finally, Shepherd and Irvin went around to the back of the Ford, and Willie hopped in next to Norma. The two army veterans leaned in and began pushing, to no avail. One of the rear wheels was still lodged in sand. Samuel and Walter stopped to rest. “Get to pushin’,” Willie ordered them, popping his head out the window. Samuel didn’t like his tone.
    Frustrated, impatient, Norma and Willie got out of the car to find out why the two black men had ceased their effort. Samuel tried to explain that it was no use: The battery was dead; they had given it a try but the car wasn’t budging. They were both sweating and breathing hard, and Shepherd was annoyed. He had stopped to help and didn’t appreciate being bossed around by Padgett. To ease the tension, Norma smiled at the two friends and extended the whiskey bottle to Samuel. He gratefully took a swig, then passed the bottle to Walter, who handed it back to Norma. Willie glared as his eyes followed the bottle, and when Norma extended it to him, he erupted. “Do you think I’m gonna drink behind a nigger?” Willie spat.
    That was it for Samuel Shepherd. He’d had enough; after going out of his way to help this drunken cracker, Shepherd wasn’t about to abide his insults. He grabbed Willie by the shirt. Willie tried fighting back, but, drunk and scrawny, he was no match for Samuel. In just a few seconds Willie was flat on his back, either knocked out or passed out, in the ditch.
    The two friends stood for a moment, their eyes set on a motionless Willie Padgett lying sprawled in the grass