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

Congress, Manuscript Division, NAACP Papers, November 14, 1946 (NAACP).
    8  “those niggers up there”: Williams, Thurgood Marshall , p. 137.
    8  “the first major racial”: Stephen Smith and Kate Ellis, American RadioWorks: Thurgood Marshall Before the Court , http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/marshall/.
    8  “Lose your head”: Greenberg, Crusaders in the Courts , p. 41.
    9  “law enforcement would”: Daily Worker , November, 20, 1946.
    9  “the situation in”: Walter White to Robert Carter et al., NAACP, June 8, 1946.
    9  “no telephone calls”: Ibid.
    9  “create a nation-wide”: White to Thurgood Marshall, NAACP, June 12, 1946.
    10  “broke and bedraggled”: O’Brien, The Color of the Law , p. 224.
    10  “You almost started”: Janis Johnson, “A Tense Time in Tennessee,” Humanities , Vol. 25, No. 2, March/April 2004, http://www.neh.gov/news/humanities/2004-03/tennessee.html.
    10  “terrible summer of 1946”: White, A Man Called White , p. 325.
    11  “The Columbia case,” he said: Marshall to Ransom, NAACP, undated.
    11  “What you stop”: Ikerd, No More Social Lynchings , p. 14.
    11  “Kill the bastards!”: Minor, Lynching and Frame-Up in Tennessee , p. 48.
    11  “Stephenson niggers”: O’Brien, The Color of the Law , p. 11.
    12  “Let us have them”: Ibid., p. 12.
    12  “We fought for freedom”: Williams, Thurgood Marshall , p. 133.
    12  “blankets over their”: Ibid.
    12  “Uptown, they are”: Ikard, No More Social Lynchings , p. 19.
    12  “Here they come!”: O’Brien, The Color of the Law , p. 18.
    13  “burn them out”: Ikard, No More Social Lynchings , p. 33.
    13  “You black sons”: O’Brien, The Color of the Law , p. 24. O’Brien cites the testimony in State of Tennessee v. William A. Pillow and Lloyd Kennedy, with Kennedy recalling a patrolman shouting, “You black sons of so and so . . . ” I took the liberty of using instead “You black sons of bitches,” since the testimony is rife with that expression elsewhere, and Kennedy was no doubt self-censoring in the formal setting of the court.
    14  “blood running in the gutters”: Williams, American Revolutionary , p. 134.
    14  “situation is in the”: Columbia Daily Herald , February 26, 1946.
    14  “This makes me proud”: Notes on telephone conversations between Ollie Harrington and Walter White from Nashville, TN, NAACP, October 5, 1946.
    14  “shut up”: Ikerd, No More Social Lynchings , p. 109.
    15  “something serious”: Daily Worker , November 20, 1946.
    15  “wind up in Duck River”: White, A Man Called White , p. 314.
    15  “I just sold the last”: Williams, Thurgood Marshall , p. 132.
    15  NIGGER READ AND RUN: NAACP, undated.
    15  “Take care of yourself”: White to Marshall, NAACP, June 12, 1946.
    16  “Thurgood, Looby said”: The dialogue and details in this scene are culled from several sources: COHP, Marshall; Marshall’s letter to Assistant Attorney General Theron I. Caudle, December 4, 1946; the “Five Star Final” Radio Broadcast, November 20, 1946, from the NAACP Papers, the script of which Marshall approved; Carl Rowan’s Dream Makers, Dream Breakers , p. 109; Daily Worker , November 20, 1946; and Stephen Smith and Kate Ellis, American RadioWorks: Thurgood Marshall Before the Court , http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/marshall/.
    17  “Master Race preachments”: Miscellaneous Columbia, TN, reports, NAACP.
    17  It was under a cedar tree: The Cordie Cheek incident is largely derived from Minor, Lynching and Frame-Up in Tennessee , pp. 31–34.
    18  “the famous Duck River”: Marshall to Caudle, NAACP, December 4, 1946.
    19  “You go over there”: The dialogue and details in this scene are derived from the following sources: COHP, Marshall; Williams, Thurgood Marshall , pp. 140–41; Daily Worker , November 20, 1946.
    20  “the pattern of all”: Daily Worker , November 20, 1946.
    20  “Well, Thurgood”: Rowan, Dream Makers, Dream Breakers , p. 109.
    20  “they beat the driver”: Ibid.
    20  “I am certain”: Daily Worker , November 20, 1946.
    20  “would never have been”: White, A Man Called White , p. 321.
    20  “Drunken driving?”: The dialogue in this scene was derived from COHP, Marshall.
    Chapter 2: Sugar Hill
    21  “Nigger boy, what”: Williams, Thurgood Marshall , p. 107.
    22  “So I wrapped”: