Three of the Groveland Four. Left to right: Sheriff Willis
McCall, jailer Reuben Hatcher, Walter Irvin, Charles Greenlee, and Samuel
Shepherd. Not pictured: Ernest Thomas, killed earlier by law enforcement.
Library of Congress photo |
July 16, 1949, Groveland, Florida
~ Three African American men were arrested today, as the search goes on for a
fourth. The men are charged with raping a White woman and assaulting her
husband on a rural road. Willie Padget stated that he had pulled over on a
county road when his car broke down, he then said four Black men approached his car and at first offered to help but then turned on Willie and beat him before
driving off in his car with his wife.
They reported this to Lake County
Sheriff Willis McCall a man known for his brutal treatment of Blacks and strict
belief in segregation. The Padgets did not explain how they were reunited if in
fact the men had kidnapped Norma Padget, or how a car that broke down was
driven off. Of course, these were incidental details the sheriff wasn’t
interested in. He had identified four men as suspects, Ernest Thomas,
Charles Greenlee, Samuel Shepherd, and Walter Irvin. McCall had already determined
that Shepard and Irvin were malcontents because they refused to work in the
orange groves and against his orders often wore their Army uniforms. Both men
were veterans of World War Two and duly proud of their service, but for many
Whites in Lake County this was a sign of disrespect and of two Black men being
too proud.
McCall arrested Shepard and Irvin
quickly and, Charles Greenlee. Greenlee did not know the other men. A
warrant was issued for Ernest Thomas who was a friend of Greenlee. The three
men were taken by the sheriff and his deputies to the supposed site of the
crime and frustrated by the shoe prints not matching and the unwillingness of
the men to confess they beat them badly with blackjacks and nightsticks. They
were then taken to the jail and in the basement cuffed to overhead pipes and
the beatings continued.
The next day a mob of at least 500
men came to the jail demanding the three captured men, McCall told them the men
were not there because he wanted them to be tried, he had already taken them to
the penitentiary for holding. The mob angrily left the jail and attacked Groveland
shooting into Black homes and setting other homes ablaze. The mob blocked roads
and attacked anyone trying to get in. They burned Samuel Shepard’s father’s
home to the ground. Most of the residents though had fled in trucks.
By the next day, the Florida
National Guard was in Groveland on the order of Governor Fuller Warren. The
NAACP was now involved and had been putting pressure on Warren. The NAACP was something
else that Sheriff McCall hated because it challenged his worldview and order.
He had worked hard to keep Blacks under Jim Crow provisions and he had used all
his power to keep union activity out of the orange groves.
On July 26 the posse McCall had
assembled found Ernest Thomas in the swamp land approximately 200 miles north
of Groveland. They shot him over 400 times because he was allegedly reaching
for a weapon. Still, the coroner's jury determined that Thomas had been lawfully
killed and ruled his death a justifiable homicide.
A grand jury was convened, with
one Black member for the first time, and they quickly indicted Charles
Greenlee, Samuel Shepherd, and Walter Irvin.
All three were represented by
NAACP attorney Franklin Williams. Williams interviewed all three and found
solid evidence to support that Shepard and Irvin had been in Orlando the night
of the alleged attack on the Padgets. Greenlee had witnesses that said he was 19
miles away. Williams also had a doctor who had examined Norma Padget prepared
to testify that he found no evidence she was raped. Judge Truman Futch refused
to allow the doctor to testify. Regardless of the evidence it took an all-White
jury just 90 minutes to convict the three. Futch then sentenced Shepard and
Irvin to death and Greenlee to life in prison because he was a minor.
All three appealed their
conviction with the help of the NAACP and future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood
Marshall. In 1952 Marshall argued the case in front of the Supreme Court which
overturned the convictions, on the grounds it wasn’t a fair jury. The NAACP and
Marshall had the Department of Justice and FBI to interview the
three men. They gave statements that they were all badly beaten, and Shepard
and Greenlee confessed under duress. The FBI presented their evidence to U.S.
Attorney Herbert Phillips of Florida to prosecute, but a grand jury
did not return indictments of the Lake County deputies James Yates and Leroy
Campbell.
A new trial was ordered in 1951
but when Sheriff McCall was transporting Shepard and Irvin from Raiford State Prison. He suddenly pulled over claiming a bad tire. He then shot both men,
killing Shepard and wounding Irvin. McCall claimed he was jumped by both men
and they tried to escape, this was backed up by Deputy Yates. Irvin again gave
a statement to the FBI stating that he was on the ground when he was shot by
both men. McCall did go to the hospital where he was treated for a head injury.
The coroner's jury cleared McCall and even praised him for his bravery.
At the second trial, Marshall represented
the surviving two men and did get the venue change. However, this didn’t
help and even with more evidence of their innocence, they were again convicted
in 90 minutes. Irvin again was sentenced to death.
The appeal this time failed to make
it to the Supreme Court. Irvin turned to Florida Governor Charley Jones; Jones
rejected clemency for Irvin. Irvin was saved by the November election when the
more moderate LeRoy Collins. Collins had requested a report on the trial and
determined to his satisfaction that there was enough unfairness that he
commuted Irvin’s sentence to life.
Greenlee was paroled in 1962 and
moved with his family to Tennessee and never returned to Florida. He died in
1912. Irvin was finally released in 1968. He initially went to Miami but
returned to Lake County in 1970 and died soon after. Sheriff McCall was
reelected several times and was finally removed from office in 1972 after a
controversial accusation and trial for killing a Black prisoner. McCall died in
1994 never regretting any of his actions. In 2005 a Lake County Road named
after him in 1985 was renamed after local Black residents petitioned for a
change, expressing concerns of memorializing a man with his history.
Beginning in 2016 there was a
concentrated effort by leaders on all levels in Florida to exonerate all four
men. It began with Groveland mayor Tim Loucks and Lake County commissioners who
issued a formal apology to the men’s surviving family. The state legislature
took up the cause and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis issued full posthumous
pardons in 2019 this was followed by State Attorney William M. Gladson making a
motion for the court to exonerate the men, Judge Heidi Davis granted the
motion to posthumously dismiss the indictments of Thomas and Shepherd and
vacate the convictions of Greenlee and Irvin.
Most of the facts for this post
come from Gilbert King’s fantastic 2012 book Devil in the Grove: Thurgood
Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America
Other Sources:
https://www.pbs.org/harrymoore/terror/groveland.html
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