Before Medgar Evers... before Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr... before Mississippi Burning, there was... GROVELAND

The Groveland Four: The Sad Saga of a Legal Lynching is a comphrensive, 530-page account of this sensational 2949 Civil Rights case, which was marked by mob violence, perverted justice, even murder by the very men charged with upholding the law.

52 years after U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson condemned an all-white jury that sentenced two innocent men to death and a third to life in prison, Gary Corsair presents an in-depth examination of the infamous Groveland Rape Case.

The Groveland Four: The Sad Saga of a Legal Lynching, published by 1st Books Library, is the first comphrensive account of this sensational case, which continues to divide Lake County, Florida.

The Groveland Four: The Sad Saga of a Legal Lynching reveals startling, never-before-published insights into a civil rights drama that began on July 16, 1949, when a 17-year-old girl claimed she was raped by four African-Americans.

Two men were quickly arrested and a lynch mob terrorized the Negro quarters of Groveland, torching three houses and forcing 400 citizens to flee. The next day, a teen was also charged after being beaten and tortured. A posse killed a fourth suspect.

NAACP investigators doubted the womans story, but couldnt find a lawyer courageous enough to take the case until the 11th hour. The trial was a farce: the jury finding Samuel Shepherd, Walter Irvin and 16-year-old Charles Greenlee guilty on scant evidence. Following the trial, Negro attorneys were chased out of town by the KKK.

After a reporter uncovered evidence the prisoners were innocent, the Supreme Court ordered a new trial. On the eve of the retrial, Shepherd and Irvin were shot by Sheriff Willis McCall, who said the men attacked him. Shepherd died, but Irvin survived three bullets and created an international uproar by saying the sheriff shot without provocation.
Now doubting Irvins guilt, the governor promised Irvin a life sentence in exchange for pleading guilty at the retrial. Irvin refused, saying he could not lie. A jury found him guilty despite proof that lawmen fabricated evidence. Irvin spent six years on death row before a new governor commuted his sentence to life. Irvin served 14 more years before being released. He suffered a heart attack and died a year later. Greenlee was paroled after 12 years, then disappeared from Florida.

Learn more at: www.Grovelandfour.com
To arrange an interview: Theresa Rao, (352) 454-8201
To order a book (GC18031) to review: (800) 839-8640