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

Congress, First Session on the Nomination of Ruth Bader Ginsberg, to Be Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States , July 20, 21, 22, and 23, 1993. Also, Rowan, Dream Makers, Dream Breakers , p. 21.
    47  “no sense in coming”: Marshall to Loren Miller, NAACP, undated.
    47  “I do not want to burden you”: Ibid.
    47  “It has been suggested”: Daniel Byrd to Marshall, NAACP, April 23, 1948.
    48    Otherwise they’d work: Author interviews, Alexander Tureaud, Jr., 2009 and 2010.
    48  “to the types of”: Marshall to staff, NAACP, February 16, 1949.
    48  limit[ing] ourselves: Ibid., Perry note on memo.
    48  “any experienced lawyer”: Marshall to staff, NAACP, undated.
    49  “harboring an escaped”: Greenberg, Crusaders in the Courts , p. 81.
    49  “not to sign”: Ibid.
    49  Her son had just: Ibid., p. 31.
    49  “no blacks lived”: Ibid., p. 46.
    49  “one of those enormous”: Ibid., p. 31.
    49 “pursed lips and”: Ibid.
    50  “panic-stricken Westchester”: Daniel J. Sharfstein, “Saving the Race,” Legal Affairs , March/April 2005.
    50  “the sex stopped”: Ibid.
    50  “He was supposed to”: Williams, Thurgood Marshall , p. 120.
    50  “thousands of Negro domestics”: Chicago Defender , December 12, 1940.
    50  “to the limit of our”: Sharfstein, “Saving the Race.”
    50  “I’m sure he raped”: Ibid.
    51    “not only innocent”: Ibid.
    51  “lust-mad Negro”: Ibid.
    51  “shame and disgrace”: Daily Kennebec Journal , February 1, 1941.
    51  “resent bitterly this acquittal”: Kingston Daily Freeman , February 3, 1941.
    51  “What a relief!”: Sharfstein, “Saving the Race.”.
    51  “the actual danger”: Cash, The Mind of the South , p. 115.
    51  “had nothing immediately”: Ibid., p.117.
    53    “There’s the bones”: Oklahoma Black Dispatch , February 8, 1941.
    53  “they beat me”: Lyons v. Oklahoma , 322 U. S. 596 (1944), Brief on Behalf of Petitioner.
    53  “extorted by violence”: Chambers v. Florida , 309 U. S. 227 (1940), Petitioner’s Brief.
    53  “could never read aloud”: Black and Black, Mr. Justice and Mrs. Black , p. 73.
    53  “Today, as in ages past”: Chambers v. Florida , 309 U. S. 227 (1940).
    54    “We are going to teach”: Tushnet, Making Civil Rights Law , p. 52.
    54  “a Nigger lawyer from”: Marshall to White, NAACP, February 2, 1941.
    54  “I ain’t scared”: Rowan, Dream Makers, Dream Breakers , p. 107.
    54  “I think I remembered”: COHP, Marshall.
    54  “scared to try the case”: Marshall to White, NAACP, January 29, 1941.
    54-55  “a certain Negro lawyer”: Marshall to White, NAACP, January 28, 1941.
    55  “a gala day”: Marshall to White, NAACP, January 29, 1941.
    55  “two nationalities”: Marshall to White, NAACP, February 2, 1941.
    55  “the building did not fall”: Ibid.
    55  “about doubled”: Ibid.
    55  “Oh, yes, you were there”: Oklahoma Black Dispatch , February 8, 1941.
    55  “Why,” he stammered: Ibid.
    55  “six or seven hours”: Marshall to White, NAACP, April 5, 1941.
    56  “go up to my room”: Lyons v. Oklahoma .
    56  “six—either six or”: Ibid.
    56  “shaking as though”: Oklahoma Black Dispatch , February 8, 1941.
    56  “Boy, did I like that”: Marshall to White, NAACP, April 2, 1941.
    56  “stopped us in the halls”: Ibid.
    56  “90% of the white people”: Ibid.
    56  “We are in a perfect”: Ibid.
    57  “I think we should aim”: Ibid.
    Chapter 5: Trouble Fixin’ to Start
    58  The motor shut off: C. C. Twiss affidavit, WDL, April 29, 1951. Clifton Twiss was visited by Rowland Watts of the Workers Defense League, as well as another man, Seymour Miller, and Twiss provided a signed statement as to what he and his wife, Ethel, witnessed on the morning of July 16, 1949. This account is based on Twiss’s statement.
    59  At about 6:45 a.m.: Statement of Lawrence Burtoft, WDL, April 29, 1951. Burtoft was visited by Rowland Watts and provided a signed statement regarding his meeting with Norma Padgett on the morning of July 16, 1949. I used this statement, as well as Burtoft’s statements to reporter Norman Bunin, which appear in Bunin’s series in the St. Petersburg Times (April 9, 1949). In this scene, I also quote from Burtoft’s testimony in Fl. v. Shepherd .
    61  Sheriff Willis McCall was on his: MM 44-156, FBI. This scene is