Here's Where It Gets Interesting - 150. Momentum: The Ripples Made by Ordinary People, Part 5

Episode Date: July 1, 2022

On today’s episode of our special series, Momentum: Civil Rights in the 1950s, Sharon speaks with pulitzer-prize winning author, Gilbert King. It's Important for people to know that the popular narrative of the 1950s – depicted as a time full of sock hops, poodle skirts, and Rock & Roll – was not the lived experience of many Black Americans. In numerous ways, their experience was often worse than what people commonly think of, particularly in the South, including forms of debt slavery. This leads us to The Groveland Four: A harrowing story of 4 young black men who were targeted, and wrongly accused of the rape of a 17-year old white farm wife in rural Florida. “Mr. Civil Rights” himself, Thurgood Marshall, learned of the capital punishment case and was eventually able to appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, though not in time to save them all. How did he appeal this case to the U.S. Supreme Court? And what happens when the town sheriff takes the law into his own hands? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, friends. Welcome. Welcome to the fifth installment of our special series that we're calling Momentum. And this series is about the struggle for freedom, and the everyday Americans who made that possible. Today, I want to give you a small content warning. There are some topics that we're going to discuss today that are a little bit heavy. It's not overly graphic, but I just wanted to let you know in case you have very small children, this might be something that you want to listen to in your headphones. I had initially planned for this episode to go in one direction. And as I got more into it, I was stunned. There was no way that I could just let the episode roll as planned. There was no way that I could just let the episode roll as planned. There was no way that

I could give it a little 15 minute summary. I had to do more. This is a story that more Americans need to know about. These are people that more Americans need to know about. And so I called up a Pulitzer Prize winning author who has written about this extensively. His name is Gilbert King. And we talked about the Groveland Boys and Harry T. Moore, Thurgood Marshall, and J. Edgar Hoover. And you have got to hear this conversation. Just to give you a little bit of context, in the late 1940s, four black men were accused of sexually assaulting a white woman in Florida. They didn't actually do it. And what happens next is going to shock you.

So let's dive in to my conversation with Pulitzer Prize winning author, Gilbert King. I'm Sharon McMahon, and welcome to the Sharon Says So podcast. I would love to hear more about how you became interested in this topic. How did you become interested in Thurgood Marshall? How did you become interested in this time period in history and these specific events? Yeah, well, it's really interesting. I sort of kind of lucked into it in a way. I found a story in Louisiana that I thought was really interesting. It was about a 16-year-old kid who was sent to the electric chair, but he did not die.

And so he was basically electrocuted, but not enough to kill him. And it became this very big Supreme Court case, still really on the books when we talk about cruel and unusual punishment. And so I went down to Louisiana and I was really investigating it and going through all the legal files. And I came across this letter from Thurgood Marshall to these young lawyers in Louisiana who were representing this kid. And so he was trying to guide them about how to argue a case like this before the Supreme Court. You know, he had a lot of experience like that. And I remember just thinking, you know, this is 1946. I was just really curious, like,

what is Thurgood Marshall doing involved in this death penalty case? You know, I'd known he was involved in landmark civil rights cases and housing, voting rights, school cases. And so I was really curious, like, what is he getting involved in these criminal cases for? And I started reading a lot of biographies and I was finding like this part of his life wasn't really well documented. When he was traveling around the country as Mr. Civil Rights, taking on these capital cases, I was just kind of shocked that he was doing this in the middle. And one of the things he said about it was like, because his own like colleagues were like, Thurgood, you're irreplaceable to the civil rights movement. We can't afford to lose you. And you're going down

by yourself to take these death penalty cases where the Klan is chasing you around and you're irreplaceable to the civil rights movement. We can't afford to lose you. And you're going down by yourself to take these death penalty cases where the Klan is chasing you around and you're facing lynching everywhere you go. And Marshall's response was just really kind of interesting to me. He said, these cases matter because these cases save lives. And he was really thought, you know, as a lawyer, this was also something that he was interested in, not just housing and voting rights, but what was happening in courtrooms. And so I remember reading that going, all right, I'm going back to look at his records. And so I went back to the Library of Congress and started diving through his correspondence just to see what else he might have been involved in at the time. And I came across this Groveland case, which was just kind of shocking to me that I'd never heard of it. You know, I saw this letter written by one of his lawyers, Franklin Williams, saying basically, Thurgood, we need help down here. This is the most dangerous place we've ever been. We

need reinforcements. We want the Department of Justice involved. And I just remember thinking, what's going on in Florida that is getting this kind of response? And that's when I just started looking into this case and realized it really hadn't been written about much before. These are some of the people that in many ways have been glossed over or lost to history that we need to know more about. I couldn't agree more. And, you know, it's interesting because when you think about it, like this was one of the things that I was thinking about when I came across this case. I'm like, we've all heard of the Scottsboro Boys. That's, you know, 1931, Alabama, similar type theme case of these nine men who are wrongfully accused of sexually assaulting white women. You know, that's a very common theme

that you see in the South. And I remember thinking, well, I've heard of that. That's Alabama. That's, you know, 20 years earlier. Why not Groveland? This is a case where the sheriff like takes the law into his own hands. And I just couldn't believe that nobody would know about it. I didn't know about it. And I talked to attorneys in Florida or people who even lived through it, and they don't even remember this case. So it's just like, why are we not knowing about this? The gaslighting that took place, you know, Sheriff Willis McCall's narrative of what happened was the one that carried the day. And for the families of these defendants, I mean, they were just, they just felt like they were gaslighted and nobody really wanted to talk about it.

Willis McCall was still a powerful figure for decades afterwards, and he was a mainstay in this community. And so people were afraid of him even after he left power. One of the things that I think is important for people to know, especially white Americans to know, that the popular narratives of what was happening in the 1950s in America, the sock hops, the poodle skirts, the convertible Chevys, the rock and roll, the birth of the American teenager. That was not the lived experience of many Black Americans, particularly Black Americans living in the rural South. And in many ways, their experiences are even worse than we imagine. I think that's one of the most shocking things that I've discovered is just day-to-day life, what that was like. And I was just going through all these records and police reports and everything I could find to just learn about it.

And I think, you know, you'll appreciate this. And I tell this to people and it's kind of shocking, but at the time this case took place, there was a law on the book. It's called worker fight laws. And basically what it enabled the sheriff to do is to travel around his county. And if he saw people who were standing around, who were not in the military and not at work that day, even on a Sunday, he had the ability to arrest and detain them. And it became this kind of bail bond racket. What they would do is he would just arrest people, throw them in jail for these worker fight laws, and then call up the citrus barons and say, look, I got like 20 bodies.

And they would have to work for free and they'd have to work off their fine. And by law, the sheriff got to keep the fines personally. He was monetarily incentivized to just arrest people. And you can imagine how this played out in a community. You know, you might have worked six days that week, but on the seventh day, if you weren't working, the sheriff could take away the main breadwinner. And believe me, it was mostly used to really oppress black labor. And so when you have this power of the sheriff that could just arrest and detain and disrupt your daily life by taking away the breadwinner and making him work for free, I mean, it's really debt slavery. And that was happening, you know, in the South in the 1950s, well after the war.

And that's just absolutely shocking. These remnants of like really reconstruction, like, well, what happens when the slavery ended? Well, that's the birth of our system of mass incarceration. It's totally connected. And that's what you see in the South is just like, well, we have to use jail as a form of oppression. And that's what you see constantly in the South in these kind of situations with a powerful sheriff. I'm Jenna Fisher. And I'm Angela Kinsey.

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and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts. I would love to sort of start at the beginning of this story of the Groveland Four for people who are not familiar with it, which is probably going to be most people. And I would love to have you give us a sense of what actually happened. So this story really starts in the summer of 1949. There's a young couple by the name of Norma Padgett and her husband, Willie Padgett. Norma's just 17 years old. She got married about six months earlier to Willie. And within a very short period of time, there were rumors going around that Willie was abusive to Norma.

And so the families kind of separated them and put them back in their respective houses in this neighborhood in Lake County. But by July of 1949, a few months had passed and I think they decided to get together and have a date. They went out, picked up some whiskey, went out dancing. And then something weird happened at the end of the dance. About one in the morning, the car kind of broke down. And so Willie pulled off the side of the road and trying to get the car started two african americans sam shepard and walter irvin happened to be driving in that direction at 1am they were coming back from eatonville out near orlando and

they offered to help get their car going again and so they start pushing and nothing's really working and norma and willie get out of the car and apparently norma offers the black man a sip of whiskey which really infuriates her husband and he makes some racial remark like i ain't drinking behind no n-word and a fight ensues and And apparently Sam Shepard beat up Willie Padgett and they left him on the side of the road. Within a few hours, Norma Padgett is found on the side of the road in the same part of Lake County. And she makes the claims that she has been abducted and sexually assaulted by four young black men. Within hours of these claims, the Ku Klux Klan rolls into Lake County by the hundreds, and the next night they start burning down black homes

in the black neighborhood. And so the violence gets so bad that the National Guard has to come in. They quickly get three suspects arrested. The fourth suspect, Ernest Thomas, sees what's happening, sees all the burning of the homes, and he flees because he knows that the most explosive thing to be accused of sexually assaulting a white woman is the fastest way to lynching. And so he escapes, leaves town, heads

north. Sheriff Willis McCall puts together a posse of more than a thousand men. They hunt Ernest Thomas down and shoot him dead in the swamp. One report said that they pulled 400 slugs from his body. So it wasn't like Ernest Thomas was coming home alive. So that's when the Groveland Four, which they were not referred to that at the time, but the Groveland Four now become the Groveland Three. There's three defendants. Very quickly take them to trial. Two of them are convicted and sentenced to death in a very short time, about a month. The third defendant, 16-year-old Charles Greenlee, was given mercy by the jury because he was 16 years old. And Thurgood Marshall said at the time, that's how you know in the South when the jury thinks your client is innocent. They

only give them life in prison. How did they come up with these people as a list of suspects? How did law and order, Willis McCall, determine these are the four men? So Sheriff Willis McCall had to find the defendants in order to make these charges true. Basically started looking for people he considered troublemakers. One of the ways of causing trouble was to continue to wear your military uniform after service. That was sort of a silent protest that you saw a lot in the South. African-Americans returning from service continue to wear their uniforms. In other words, saying like, I was willing to fight and die for this country. I had greater rights in Germany and

England and France. And now I come back here and I'm forced into this second class citizenship. And so by wearing their military uniforms, it was seen as a very provocative thing in the Jim Crow South. In 1946, just for an example, there was a wave of soldier lynchings across the South. African-Americans in their military uniforms were being lynched because of this. And so people don't really remember that, but it was a very difficult time to be African-American returning from service and just forced into that second-class citizenship. So there were also rumors about this game called Bolita. It's like a numbers running game. And it was very common for powerful sheriffs to allow this to take place,

and they would just take a cut of it. And that's what was happening here. And so some of the families were involved in that kind of thing. So anyone who was not actually in the fields working were seen as sort of an enemy in the South. And so I think Willis McCall targeted some of these guys because they were involved maybe in Bolita, but they had nothing to do with Norma Padgett. This was just a fabricated thing. Norma said four men, so he needed four was saying. I know exactly who these guys are. You know, Norma Padgett's story was very vague. She said, I couldn't recognize them. I would never recognize them again. But well, Sheriff Willis McCall knew exactly who they were. So these four men are targeted by this sheriff who is even shortly into his career, because again, this happened shortly after he became sheriff within a couple of years, was already notorious, was already notorious in the community. And what was the reaction from the African-American community when these four men were targeted? One of them, of course,

fled immediately and was immediately hunted down and killed. And the other three put on trial. What happened in the African-American community as that was going on? Well, you know, as soon as it starts, it's almost then you recognize how powerless people are. How do you stand up and defend yourself in these charges? I mean, these men were lucky, extraordinarily lucky, that Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP's legal defense fund decided to come down and I think it was because it did make the news that there were you know these burnings homes the clan had come in and they were threatening everybody they actually

show up outside the jail you know with rifles and axes and they're they want these bodies because there's going to be a lynching. And McCall basically starts the story as kind of a hero. He's preventing a lynching in his community. And he basically makes this implicit deal with the people of Lake County. There's not going to be a lynching in my county. We're going to give these boys a fair trial and then we're going to send them to the electric chair. That was what was replacing lynching after World War II. And so the reaction in the Black community was like, thank God Thurgood Marshall and his lawyers are here, because there's no Black lawyers down there. There's no civil rights lawyers in this part

of Florida. This is going to end up exactly the way most of these cases end up, with very quick trials and very quick executions. So the Black community was terrified by this. very quick executions. So the Black community was terrified by this. I remember reading in your book that that was a refrain that gave people a sense of hope that Thurgood is coming. Right. And you would hear that whispered a lot. He was Mr. Civil Rights, and he was the one chance that anybody had in court. Thurgood Marshall's coming down. He'll take the case to the Supreme Court. We'll get justice. And that was the cry. And it was really, you know, you had to be extraordinarily lucky to get Thurgood Marshall and his lawyers to come and take your case. But when they started showing an interest in this, that is when like the African-American community really perked up and felt like they had a fighting chance. Did Norma Padgett testify at this trial? She did. That was one of the parts

of the trial that was pretty interesting because it's described as she got dressed up in her very Sunday best and she was making the most of her moment. You know, at this point, she's still 17 years old and she has a responsibility to the community. And the responsibility is she has to testify and identify the men who did this. And she basically stands up in court. And I sort of describe it as like a teacher. She's pointing at each one and saying, the N. Shepard, the N. Greenlee, the N. Irvin. And you see it in the transcripts. and it's just, you know, it's just kind of shocking to still read like that people will speak that way in a courtroom. But that was exactly how it was described. So she was there and she identified her suspect and the people who were,

you know, watching the trial said, that's it. As soon as the identification in court took place, there's no need to go any further. This case is over. Do you have a sense of why she made up a story about being assaulted? Yeah, I do have a theory about it and I have talked to people who knew the family and, you know, I still believe this, but, you know, because of Willie Padgett's reputation and later on record, I got a hold of his rap sheet. You know, he had a lot of charges, domestic violence, this kind of thing. It sort of made sense that that separation took place because of that. I think what might have happened is, you know, they're coming home drinking. Willie pulls over on the side of the road and, you know, obviously they're drinking.

Maybe he's expecting something else from his wife, maybe something romantic on the side of the road. But, you know, he's a violent guy who knows what happened. I just think a story got put in place. Like we have to say four black men did this, you know, because he got in this fight with two of the defendants. So I think they put that story in place. Once that story gets in place, it's no longer Norma's story. Now it becomes the prosecutor's story, the sheriff's story. It's everybody else's story. And she just has a duty to go and continue with this testimony. Now, that was one of the things, I mean, and it's just

shocking that this happened, but Norma Padgett was sent to a doctor within a few hours of this alleged attack. And the doctor drew up a report and he basically said, if you were asking me if there's any signs of a rape, I would have to say no. And so what did the prosecution do at that point? They hid this doctor from the defense and just got him out of town. So Sturbridge Marshall and his lawyers never even had the one doctor who did an exam and said, I couldn't find anything that indicated there was a rape. So they just made that witness disappear. And it was just like one after another form of prosecutorial misconduct, manufacturing of evidence, perjury at every turn. I mean, the trial itself was a joke. So at this point, we have one of the suspects just extra judicially killed by a mob of a thousand men. Can you imagine

having the kind of mindset and fury that would make you want to join a mob of a thousand men? Yeah, I don't even, it was like, it was sort of sold to them as like a hunting trip. You're going out to capture someone. And, you know, they're in horses riding through swamps. Sheriff McCall and his deputies were there. And there's, I have no doubt that McCall was one of those people firing the shots in there. I mean, it's just 400 slugs. I mean, it was a, it was a hunting expedition, I guess. I don't even know what you call it.

I mean, it was a hunting expedition, I guess. I don't even know what you call it. And I think, you know, Norma Padgett traveled up to this part of North Florida with the sheriff to identify this one suspect, which, of course, she did. And it's kind of a poignant scene. Willis McCall plucks like a bullet and hands it to Norma and says, you know, here's your bullet, you know, and you can take that home. And, you know, just such strange behavior on the part of law enforcement. So he's dead. The other three are put on very, very quick trials with, as you mentioned, prosecutorial misconduct, kind of grandstanding or a lot of showmanship in the courtroom where she's kind of like

pointing to the individuals, calling them the N-word, identifying them as her attackers. The 16-year-old is sentenced to life in prison and the other two are sentenced to death. And then can you pick up from there and tell us what happens after they are sentenced to prison and death. Yeah, and this is really the most remarkable part of the story. Afterwards, Thurgood Marshall appeals it, and he gets it rejected by the Florida Supreme Court, but gets it before the U.S. Supreme Court. And they basically argue based on two issues, change of venue, and the other one was just how the grand jury was selected racially. And third, Marshall and his lawyers were so confident they were going to win because there was already precedent that you can't handpick black jurors and then dismiss them. It was already decided by the Supreme Court.

That's not constitutional, but that's what they were doing in Florida. And so Justice Robert Jackson actually writes the opinion and the opinion is strongly worded. He says, this case presents one of the best examples of one of the worst menaces to American justice. On those grounds, we overturn. And what he was basically saying is, forget the change of venue, forget the grand jury stuff. This entire case is an abomination and it's overturned. Well, you can imagine the reaction back in Lake County

when this case is overturned. And so what does Sheriff Willis McCall do? He basically says, fine, there's going to be a retrial. I'll drive up to Rayford State Prison myself and I'll bring back the defendants. He does exactly that on the evening of the retrial, picks up Walter Urban and Sam Shepard, handcuffs him, throws him in the car. He has a deputy in another car. So, you know, the 16-year-old Charles Greenlee did not join the appeal. And Marshall said that's because in a retrial, he could be sentenced to death and Marshall did not want to take any chances. So he said, we'll just have two on the appeal. We'll come back to you later if we have any success. And so Willis McCall is driving back to Lake County Courthouse for the trial the next morning.

And it's late at night. He makes a little turn down a deserted road. And the next thing you know, he opens fire. Photographers and witnesses came to the scene about 15 minutes later. Willis McCall is hauled disheveled. He's got his clothes are ripped. He's got a little blood trickling from his glasses. And he's walking in front of the car saying, I had to do it. I had to shoot them. They attacked me. It was an escape. And this flash fires. They take the picture of

this scene and it's the image that's on the cover of the book. Everything in that photograph is a lie. And the reason why is because Walter Irvin, who is laying in the ditch, is actually still alive. He's handcuffed to his best friend, Sam Shepard, who was killed instantly, three gunshot wounds. Walter Irvin took two gunshot wounds to the chest and he's laying there. And as soon as that flash fires, someone there says, I think one of those boys just moved. And sure enough, they all discover that Walter Irvin is still alive. So they take Willis McCall back to the hospital because of his injuries. There's no ambulances that can transport black people in Lake County.

So they have to call a hearse from a black funeral home. Hour later, they come, they take Sam Shepard to the morgue and Walter Irvin to the hospital. And word starts getting around the hospital that Walter Irvin has regained consciousness and he's telling a very different story than the one that Sheriff Willis McCall was saying about a failed escape attempt. He's describing a story of cold-blooded murder. And part of the story that really chills people, because Thurgood Marshall is in that hospital room. He's there with the FBI, stenographers, media. There's some doctors in there. And they just cannot believe what they're

hearing. Walter Irvin says after he shot twice, he just laid next to his best friend because he was handcuffed. He couldn't run anywhere. And then he hears a deputy's car come back to the scene and he hears the footsteps and he feels a flashlight flashing over his face while he's laying there pretending to be dead. And then he hears the deputy say, this one ain't dead yet. At that point, he opens his eyes and a third shot is fired and it goes straight through Walter Irvin's neck. Now, everyone in the room cannot believe what they're hearing when they hear this. The FBI is also in the room and they're thinking, well, we've recovered five bullets from the bodies, but we have not recovered the sixth bullet, the one that went clean through the neck.

They're thinking, you know, if Sheriff McCall is telling the truth, they're never going to find that sixth bullet because it went clean through the neck. But if Walter Irvin's telling the truth, they have an idea where that bullet might be. And so they actually rush back to the crime scene from the night before, and they find this blood from where Walter Irvin was laying, and they start digging beneath the surface and 10 inches below the surface of that bloodstain, they find a.38 caliber bullet fully intact that had been fired.

I mean, what are the odds of that happening? And so now the FBI has forensic proof of murder and attempted murder. And that's where the case just takes, you know, an explosive turn. There is so much more to this story. We could not fit it all in one episode. You have got to come back to episode six and hear what happens to the Groveland boys, what happens to Harry T. Moore, and what happens to Willis McCall. I'll see you next time. Thank you so much for listening to the Sharon Says So podcast. I am truly grateful for you. And I'm wondering if you could do me a quick favor. Would you be willing to follow or subscribe

to this podcast or maybe leave me a rating or a review? Or if you're feeling extra generous, would you share this episode on your Instagram stories or with a friend? All of those things or maybe leave me a rating or a review. Or if you're feeling extra generous, would you share this episode on your Instagram stories or with a friend? All of those things help podcasters out so much. This podcast was written and researched by Sharon McMahon and Heather Jackson. It was produced by Heather Jackson, edited and mixed by our audio producer, Jenny Snyder,

and hosted by me, Sharon McMahon. I'll see you next time.