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Groveland Four, The Black Men Pardoned After 1949 Rape Accusation, Honored With Memorial

Groveland Four, The Black Men Pardoned After 1949 Rape Accusation, Honored With Memorial

Groveland Four
The Groveland Four, who were posthumously pardoned by unanimous vote of a 1945 rape accusation, have been honored with a memorial. In this undated image released by the State Library and Archives of Florida, Lake County Sheriff Willis McCall, far left, and an unidentified man stand next to Walter Irvin, Samuel Shepherd and Charles Greenlee, from left, in Florida. Image: State Library and Archives of Florida via AP

Four young Black men from Florida — known as the Groveland Four — who were falsely accused of raping a white woman 70 years ago were honored with a memorial at an event attended by their family members, the state governor and a large crowd.

The Groveland Four, Charles Greenlee, Walter Irvin, Samuel Shepherd and Earnest Thomas, were posthumously pardoned by unanimous vote slightly more than a year ago and their treatment considered “one of the worst episodes of racism in American history.”

In 2016, the City of Groveland and Lake County each apologized to survivors of the four men for the injustice against them. All four men were posthumously exonerated on April 18, 2017 by a resolution of the Florida House of Representatives.

“It’s hard to put into words and have you understand the pain and hardships this injustice has caused this family for 70 years,” said Gerald Threat, a nephew of Irvin’s.

“The only thing that can rectify this injustice is a full exoneration by the state,” Threat added. “We cannot pick and choose what we allow. It’s all or nothing.”

Racial profiling of suspects in the U.S. is still common as police in states like Florida target innocent Blacks on trumped-up charges, according to a report.

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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who attended the unveiling of the memorial, called the conviction of the four a “miscarriage of justice” and said a pardon “brought justice to the historical record.”

The Groveland Four case has been analyzed in two books; the “The Groveland Four: The Sad Saga of a Legal Lynching“, published in 2004, and “Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America“, which won the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction in 2013.