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

Padgett’s reputation to Milton C. Thomas, who provided a summary of Powers’s statements to Rowland Watts. Workers Defense League Records, Wayne State University, Walter P. Reuther Library, Detroit, MI., The Groveland Case 1950–1952, Box 192, (hereafter cited as WDL). Terence McCarthy of the New Leader also spoke with Mays, who referred to Padgett as a “bad egg.” Also, Corsair, The Groveland Four , p. 233.
    35  “get it pushed off”: State of Florida, Plaintiff, v. Samuel Shepherd, Walter L. Irvin, Charles Greenlee, Ernest E. Thomas, Defendants , Transcript of Testimony, Florida State Archives, Tallahassee, August–September, 1949. Much of the detail about the Padgetts’ movements on the evening of July 15, 1949, was derived from both Willie’s and Norma’s testimony ( Fl. v. Shepherd ).
    36  “dine-and-dance”: St. Petersburg Times , April 9, 1949.
    36  “Haven”: Ibid.
    36    Samuel Shepherd was having: Likewise, most of Shepherd’s and Irvin’s movements on the evening of July 15, 1949, are based on both Shepherd’s and Irvin’s testimony in Fl. v. Shepherd .
    37  “a pure Negro town”: Hurston, Dust Tracks on a Road , p. 1.
    37  “a city of five lakes”: Hurston, Mules and Men , Introduction.
    38  It was long past midnight: The dialogue in this scene is mostly based on the trial testimony of Norma and Willie Padgett in Fl. v. Shepherd . Neither Shepherd nor Irvin testified about encountering the Padgetts in the early morning hours of July 16, 1949. But Franklin Williams (FHOP, Williams) stated that Shepherd and Irvin did stop their car to help the Padgetts. And despite the fact that the Padgetts did not admit to sharing any whiskey with the two black men, Norma’s relatives indicated to L. B. De Forest that whiskey was indeed offered to Shepherd and Irvin. WDL.
    38  “Do you think I’m”: Corsair, The Groveland Four , p . 190.
    Chapter 4: Nigger in a Pit
    40  Her nickname was “Big East”: Congressional Record , Charles B. Rangel, June 25, 1998.
    40  “When Evelyn Cunningham entered”: Ibid.
    41  “I wanted to do hard news”: National Visionary Leadership Project, Oral History Interviews: Evelyn Cunningham, http://www.visionaryproject.org/cunninghamevelyn/.
    41  “I think I did my”: Ibid.
    41  “I said, ‘You know’ ”: Ibid.
    41  “not particularly savory”: Williams, Thurgood Marshall , p. 191–92.
    41  “You can’t arrest”: Ibid.
    41  “I would like to defend”: Ibid.
    41  “Time to go home”: Ibid.
    41  “become distant and”: Ibid., p. 191.
    42  “lanky, brash”: White, A Man Called White , p. 154.
    42  “Amazed at [Marshall’s]”: Ibid.
    42  “You’ve won”: Williams, Thurgood Marshall , p. 59.
    42  They’d been living: Ibid., p. 65.
    42  Having packed Houston’s: James, Root and Branch , p. 56.
    43  “Motion pictures”: McNeil, Groundwork , p. 140.
    43  “Conditions,” Marshall wrote: Williams, Thurgood Marshall , p. 60.
    43  “evil results of discrimination”: McNeil, Groundwork , p. 140.
    43  “A lawyer’s either”: Ibid., p. 84.
    44  “the only executive”: Marshall to White, NAACP, January 21, 1947.
    44  “answering the telephone”: Ibid.
    44  some patterns of behavior: White to Marshall, NAACP, July 17, 1945.
    44  “unbuttoned office manners”: Sullivan, Lift Every Voice , p. 298.
    44  “You shouldn’t beat me”: Clark and Davis, Thurgood Marshall , p. 135.
    44  “He could tell”: Interview, Mildred Roxborough, Thurgood Marshall: Justice for All , A&E Biography, 2005.
    45  “Nigger in a Pit”: Kluger, Simple Justice , p. 643.
    45  Mr. Turgood: NAACP, May 1949.
    46  “Mr. Marshall was”: Author interview, Gloria Samuels, November 11, 2010.
    46  “total lack of formality”: Motley, Equal Justice Under Law , p. 58.
    46  “nobody was hiring”: Constance Baker Motley, “My Personal Debt to Thurgood Marshall,” Yale Law Journal , Vol. 101, 1991–1992.
    46    “His mother was a”: National Visionary Project, Oral Histories Interviews, Constance Baker Motley, http://www.visionaryproject.com/motleyconstancebaker/.
    47  “first feminists”: Yanick Rice Lamb, “Evelyn Cunningham, A Witness to History,” Heart & Soul , http://www.heartandsoul.com/2010/04/evelyn-cunningham-a-witness-to-history/.
    47  “a piece of paper”: Hearings Before the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, One Hundred Third